Environmental Injustice in Action – San Joaquin Air Quality District lays out the welcome mat for polluters

A smoggy day in California’s Central Valley in January 2015. Source: Earthjustice, Dangerismycat/Flicker

We recently reported that the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) tightened air pollution standards to protect their children (see Cancer risks drive dramatic improvement in SoCal air quality rules).

The SCAQMD covers the urban portion of four counties with per capita incomes of just over $27,000, close to the state average of $29,000.

Today I learned from Adenike Adeyeye of Earthjustice that at about the same time, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (per capita income under $20,000), lowered their standards to allow facilities with twice the cancer risk allowable in the South Coast to operate.

Won’t this drive more polluters and more pollution into the San Joaquin Valley? Won’t this cause completely preventable damage to the health of the children of San Joaquin Valley? What do the officials at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District expect to happen?

This sounds like a case study in environmental injustice to me.

To learn more, please check out Adenike Adeyeye’s excellent blog post –

Officials in California’s San Joaquin Valley Fail to Protect Kids from Air Pollution

Opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent positions of the Moving Forward Network or its members. Errors are the responsibility of the author.