In San Francisco Neighborhood, Advocates Do Air Monitoring Themselves

"A community program tracks air pollution in real time. Burdened by polluting facilities, 86 percent of Bayview’s children developed severe asthma before kindergarten."

"SAN FRANCISCO—Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin still remembers riding the bus home from elementary school and smelling fresh-baked pastries and bread from the Parisian Bread Factory near Evans Street. She also remembers how quickly that scent would turn to one of sewage and smoke as the bus pulled closer to her home.

Dunn-Salahuddin grew up two decades ago in Bayview-Hunters Point, a neighborhood in the southeastern corner of San Francisco, jutting into the bay. It’s under four square miles, just 8.5 percent of San Francisco’s land mass.

This relatively small parcel of the city holds a disproportionate concentration of its toxic and polluting sites. For decades, state and local agencies have tried—halfheartedly, advocates say—to monitor and clean up the polluted air in Bayview. These ineffectual efforts have sown deep distrust among the residents for the polluters, and the government."

Elena Shao reports for Inside Climate News November 27, 2021.

Source: Inside Climate News, 11/30/2021