Overburdened Communities Should Not Have to Compete With Each Other for Cleaner Air
Throughout this year, our SCLA-PUSH initiative, a collaborative coalition comprised of our community-based organizations partners — Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education and Community Health Councils — and academic partners — University of Southern California and Occidental College — worked to build the capacity of South Central LA residents to understand the character of air pollution in their communities and its impacts on health. The SCLA-PUSH initiative hosted an Air Quality Academy training on June 2019. Through this training, South Central Los Angeles residents were able to learn about the fundamentals of air pollution, conduct community air monitoring, and lead a ground truthing process around the neighborhoods of Florence and Western. This opportunity provided community residents with the tools to utilize community science data to build progressive policy and collectively push for air quality improvements in their communities.
The SCLA-PUSH project is funded through the AB 617 bill’s Community Air Protection Program Grants. In 2017, Governor Brown signed Assembly Bill 617 (C. Garcia, Chapter 136, Statutes of 2017) to develop a new community-focused program to more effectively reduce exposure to air pollution and preserve public health. The bill directs the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and all local air districts to take measures to protect communities disproportionately impacted by air pollution.
During 2018, 10 environmental justice communities were selected to start a community air monitoring plan, a community emissions reductions plan, or both. However, South Central LA was not selected to start any of these plans.On September 6th 2019, during The South Coast Air Quality Management Department (SCAQMD) board meeting, the agency voted to nominate and recommend two communities that have the potential to receive funding to improve air quality, which ended up being East Coachella and East LA, to CARB.
Once again, South Central LA communities are left out of opportunities to receive their fair share of resources to address air pollution and to breathe the same quality of clean air as other environmental justice communities. Our message is that we want real solutions that can truly start reducing emissions in our communities and help construct a vision of a healthier and thriving South Central LA.
South LA has one more opportunity to make sure we get an air improvement plan, and we will continue to focus on our ongoing advocacy. Over the next 2 months until the December CARB meeting, we will meet with regulators and CARB members to fight for South LA.
We have two more Air Quality Academies (AQA) left this year. One of them will take place on Friday, September 27 and Saturday, September 28th at Holman United Methodist Church. The third round of the AQA will be hosted in December.
