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Barrio Logan Environmental Justice project gets results
About the Project
What are the issues?
- Air pollution
- Incompatible landuse
- Pollution prevention
- Chromium 6/ Lead soil
Barrio Logan students
The Barrio Logan Community has been designated as a Federal Interagency Environmental Justice Demonstration Project. The purpose of the project is to identify, mobilize, and coordinate community, federal, state, local and industry resources to improve air quality and community and public health.
The U.S. EPA serves as the Federal lead for this project and the Environmental Health Coalition serves as the local community lead.
Environmental Justice
is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin. Or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people, including a racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic group, should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local and tribal programs and policies.
For more information on environmental justice efforts:
- EPA’s national Environmental Justice Home Page
- Pacific Southwest Region Environmental Justice program
- Cal/EPA’s Environmental Justice program
- California Air Resources Board’s Community Health Barrio Logan Studies
Photographs courtesy of Romulo Diaz
Master Plating
In 2000, EPA and San Diego's nonprofit Environmental Health Coalition started a Federal Interagency Environmental Justice Demonstration Project to assist the Barrio Logan neighborhood of San Diego, Calif. The goal was to mobilize all levels of government, as well as the community and local industry, to improve Barrio Logan's air quality and public health. By 2004, this collaborative project had made substantial progress.
Barrio Logan is an inner city San Diego neighborhood of roughly 6,000 residents, 85% of them Latino. The community is a mix of homes, commercial buildings, and industry, including a waterfront industrial and naval complex. Unemployment is higher than the city average, and 40% of households have incomes below the state's poverty threshold.
Residents face many health threats, including 300,000 pounds of toxic releases annually from industry, a child asthma rate more than twice the national average, and a respiratory hazard index 100-200 times above health standards. There is air pollution from traffic on freeways bisecting and bordering the community, and diesel emissions from idling trucks. To meet these challenges, EPA and community leaders established a partnership involving residents, government agencies, community groups, businesses, and nonprofits.
One focus of the partnership is incompatible land uses, which expose neighboring residents to excessive pollution levels. Master Plating, for example, a chrome-, nickel-, and cadmium-plating facility next door to homes, was a contentious issue in the community for years. Barrio residents urged state and local agencies to look for "hot spots" where pollutants are concentrated. Master Plating turned out to be such a "hot spot" with high levels of airborne hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen, just outside the facility.
After receiving several citations for violating hazardous waste regulations, Master Plating closed in October 2002. EPA and other agency partners provided technical support during the removal of toxics from the site. Community residents have reported that since the shutdown, health conditions have improved. They have had fewer asthma attacks and respiratory illnesses, and fewer hospital visits.
In addition, the partnership has worked with the community to address air quality issues related to truck idling and parking in residential areas and near schools. This community-led effort changed city parking enforcement policies, and is reducing air pollution from idling trucks.
Government agencies initiated pollution prevention and compliance assistance efforts with local industry. They sponsored multimedia, bilingual pollution prevention, worker safety, and regulatory compliance workshops for auto dismantling and boat painting businesses. Fifteen participants from ten auto body and auto dismantling businesses, plus people from the city’s Small Business Development Center and Inner City Business Association attended the auto repair workshop. Forty-seven participants representing 26 businesses and schools attended a marine coating workshop at National Steel & Shipbuilding Co., partnership member. These efforts have prompted a number of local industries to adopt pollution prevention practices.
For more information
Karen Henry (henry.karen@epa.gov)
(415) 972-3844 or
Paula Forbis
"Toxics Free Neighborhood"
Director of the Environmental Health Coalition
(619) 235-0281.