Residents Air Environmental Concerns

Los Angeles area residents concerned about environmental health hazards in their neighborhoods got a rare chance to talk with federal officials Saturday at a town meeting arranged by the White House.

The session, organized by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, focused on the impact of environmental problems on low-income and minority communities.

About 75 residents discussed concerns such as pollution from industrial plants near their homes and neighborhood schools and food safety issues.

Bradley Campbell, associate director of the White House council, which advises the president and vice president on environmental issues, said the meeting reflected the importance of racial and environmental issues to the Clinton administration.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) assured the group that the meeting was not a showcase that would produce no results. “Many of you have attended sessions where you tell officials about the conditions in your neighborhoods, then you go back, the conditions remain the same and you never see them again,” he said. “I believe this effort is different. This time, the president is saying he wants it done,” he said.

Saturday’s meeting, held at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, was the second part of the two-day conference.

On Friday, the officials and residents went on a bus tour through neighborhoods filled with industrial plants such as oil refineries and metal plating shops.

They drove past schools in Bell Gardens, Wilmington, Huntington Park and other areas while residents talked not only about the potential health hazards, but also discussed how they have worked with local or state officials on the problems.

Bell Gardens resident Joseph Perales told the government representatives that he believes his 14-year-old son’s 1997 death from cancer, and other cancer deaths in the area, were caused by pollution at his school. Perales acknowledged that studies by county health officials found no link between reported illnesses suffered by staff and students at the school to pollution from the metal finishing plants next to the campus that he believes caused his son’s death. But he disagreed with that conclusion.

Bong Hwan Kim, executive director of the Korean Youth and Community Center, said that despite studies that have reported dangerous levels of toxins in white croaker caught in Santa Monica Bay, the fish continues to be sold in markets catering to Asian immigrants.

Campbell said the government council will form a group of regional representatives from various federal agencies to meet monthly with local groups for a three-month trial period.

He also said the White House council will investigate the possible environmental dangers at the schools mentioned by the local activists and will study whether federal action is needed on local sales of potentially contaminated fish.

“We opened up some people’s eyes,” Perales said of the visiting officials. “In a sense we put them in a spot where they have to feel what I’ve felt.”