Pollution in California

[3] Studies show that pollutants prevalent in California are linked to several health issues, including asthma, lung cancer, birth complications, and premature death.

As the city rests in a basin between mountains and an inward-sweeping wind from the Pacific Ocean, the ozone, smog, and other toxic particles stagnate in the middle of the Los Angeles Atmosphere with nowhere to escape.

In the State of the Air report, published by the American Lung Association, three of the nine Bay Area counties were listed as receiving failing grades on their pollution scores, namely Alameda, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara.

Typically, the party who owns the property rights to the polluted area is responsible for paying the cost, but alternative strategies include taxing the producer or collecting payments from a determined group of individuals.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) engaged a panel of expert scientists, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, to help them assess the evidence.

In 2002 the National Air Toxic Assessment (NATA) identified areas that are at high respiratory risk in the San Joaquin Valley and according to the U.S. Census Bureau, over half of the population in these communities are Hispanic and a quarter lives under the poverty line.

[46] Furthermore, California Legislature recently subsidized the shift away from agricultural burning by providing $180 million to CARB and the San Joaquin Valley Air Control District to support their transition in finding alternatives.

Any cracks in fuel lines or ventilation hoses along with even worn or loose gas caps will cause raw gasoline particle to escape into the air, polluting it with hydrocarbons.

[59] Greenhouse gas emissions are a grave danger to Californians, as the presence of these pollutants is already felt throughout the state and is difficult to combat due to the massive number of cars being driven daily.

As mentioned, Los Angeles is especially vulnerable to this issue because commute by vehicle is the principal form of transportation in the city, so the emissions from cars will only continue to fill the thick, stagnant air until better solutions are implemented.

[61] As forests burn, they also release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, continuing to reinforce climate change and local warming in a positive feedback loop, as well as directly causing health problems to people living nearby that may breathe the smoke.

For example, in 2021 Initiative Statue 21-0037 was proposed, which allocates funds towards training firefighters, strengthening wildfire monitoring systems, and improving infrastructure in areas that are vulnerable to fire.

[66] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's interactive online map - EJSCREEN - features the low socioeconomic communities across the country that are more vulnerable to air pollution and its associated health risks.

As exhibited in this map, Southeast Los Angeles County neighborhoods, primarily impoverished areas in the San Joaquin Valley and Inland Empire, face a higher exposure to air pollution and environmental injustices.

[citation needed] A study led by the University of Southern California was the first of its kind to follow the health and residential air pollution levels of the same children over a span of several years.

In particular, the neighborhoods of the children were located in areas of elevated nitrogen dioxide levels, an air pollutant caused nearby power plants and high-volume vehicle traffic.

[citation needed] The results demonstrated that the children possessed significantly increased risk factors for Type 2 diabetes by the time they turned eighteen, such as diminished efficiency in the insulin-secreting cells of the pancreas.

Prolonged levels of high blood sugar may lead to severe health complications such as heart disease, nerve damage, kidney failure, blindness, or even early death.

[citation needed] Statistics suggest that Hispanic people are 50% more likely to die from diabetes than whites, and studies focusing on issues of environmental injustice are able to demonstrate possible reasons for this disparity.

[73] Health effects of traffic pollution include the onset of cardiovascular disease, asthma, impaired lung function, premature death, and a plethora of other complications.

Enormous quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas, escape into the ozone layer of Earth's atmosphere during the extraction process, where they accelerate the impacts of climate change.

Furthermore, air contaminants like nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, formaldehydes, and hydrogen sulfide that are released during drilling have been shown to cause harmful effects ranging from cancer, organ failure, neurological issues, to birth defects.

[79] In 2015, a study revealed that there are forty-five fracking sites within 1.5 miles of one junior high in the town of Shafter, one of California's top ten most polluted communities.

This might be explained by the fact that the White population and the more affluent class in Alameda County mainly lived in the eastern area further away from the coast, which resulted in the higher heat stress exposure.

[83] To fund such a goliath project in the face of strong resistance from city councils fighting to protect their local communities from drastically increasing pollution emissions, Utah state and county officials arranged a controversial $53 million loan.

[85] A movement by environmental advocates quickly grew, citing that exposure to toxic coal dust would also subject the city's residents to increased risks of bronchitis, pneumonia, heart disease, emphysema, and more.

[83] The decision marked a large victory for the newly established Department of Race and Equity,[86] an organization designed to protect Oakland's predominantly African-American community from social and racial disparities.

[92] Studies done on humans exposed to pollutants, one of them being polychlorinated biphenyls, which causes decreased birth size, increased sexual development, and altered levels of hormones related to gland regulation.

[90] Additionally, numerous problems have been found by the CA Department of Health Services in classrooms at several hundred schools throughout California such as inadequate ventilation, poor thermal comfort, high formaldehyde levels, and toxic residues in floor dust.

This was the largest oil spill in United States history for many years and gained national attention as images of dead animals washing ashore flooded the media.