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M3.4 Air Pollution

Using your zip code (or the zip code from your family home, find out the following and enter info in your BLOG. 
My zip code is 94612 in Alameda County. 
  • Who and what are the top polluters in your zip code?
The top polluter in my zip code by far (499,459 lbs.) is New United Motor MFG in Fremont, CA. Second place with only 44,985 lbs. is Arch Mirror West in Newark, CA. New United Motor is an automobile manufacturing company and Arch Mirror West is an architectural glass and aluminum fabrication and distribution company. After these polluters are (in order) Pacific Galvanizing (23,455 lbs.), Acme Fiberglass (14,147 lbs.), and U.S. Pipe and FNDY (13,995 lbs.). 

  • What percent of the homes in your zipcode have lead-based paint?
3% of homes in Alameda County have a high risk of lead hazards due to lead-based paint in homes built before 1950.

  • Are there Superfund sites in your zip?  (In your BLOG, make sure to tell us what a Superfund Site is)
Superfund sites are the worst toxic waste sites. My community has 4 superfund sites: Alameda Naval Air Station, AMCO Chemical, Lawrence Livermore Lab Site 300, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. 

  • What can you tell us about the Superfund sites that are near where you live?
Two of the superfund sites (Lawrence Livermore Lab Site 300 and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory) have caused contamination of drinking water sources in our community. Below I have included images describing the detected contaminants and pre-cleanup rankings of each of the 4 sites:

1. Alameda Naval Air Station:
2. AMCO Chemical:
3. Lawrence Livermore Lab Site 300:
4. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory:

  • What did you learn about the air quality in your zipcode?
In 2003, Alameda County ranked among the dirtiest/worst 10% of all U.S. counties in terms of person-days in exceedance of national air quality standards for ozone. This means, on average, only 86% of days had good air quality. Additionally, Alameda County also ranks among the dirtiest/worst 10% of all U.S. counties in terms of an average individual's added cancer risk from hazardous air pollutants. 

  • How about the water quality?
We rank pretty low in water quality as well. 80% of our rivers, streams, and creeks are polluted with pesticides; 100% of our lakes, reservoirs, and ponds are polluted with mercury; and 100% of our estuaries, bays, and coasts are polluted with mercury. Here is how Alameda County ranks against all U.S. counties:

  • How did your zipcode fair on a social justice / environmental justice basis?
While the distribution by poverty and education was fairly equitable, especially compared to what I had predicted, I found the distribution by race to be particularly troublesome:
It is shocking to see the huge disparities between people of color and white people. I would be very interested to see how this changes due to gentrification of the area. Will gentrification result in more resources allocated to cleaning up these areas and reducing exposure or will we see a decrease in the distribution of burdens by race as more whites move into areas there were historically dominated by people of color?

Comments

  1. KJSeptember 15, 2019 at 1:22 PM

    WOW! This isn't good news to me. I just moved to Oakland this month so now I live in Alameda county. I wonder what they are doing to adjust these negative statistics? With housing being as high as it is, you would think that we would at least be entitled to fresh air and clean water. The stats for being in the top 10 percentile of dirtiness was about 16 years ago so I'm hoping things have improved since then.

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