Pollution News Bad but Not Surprising

The news that Huntington Park tops a list of Southern California cities with the highest levels of potentially cancer-causing air pollution was the last thing residents on Cottage Street wanted to hear.

For five years, the homeowners in this modest neighborhood have fought to remove a nearby mountain of earthquake rubble they say generates dust that causes health problems for children and the elderly. Next to the rubble pile is a lumberyard that residents say spews sawdust over the neighborhood.

Now they have to contend with a report released Friday by the South Coast Air Quality Management District that says Huntington Park residents have the highest risk of contracting cancer from air pollution in a four-county region. Most of those fumes are generated by diesel trucks and buses, the study found.

“I’m not surprised that Huntington Park is one of the most polluted areas,” said Linda Marquez, 75, a longtime resident who lives across from the rubble pile, which some call la montana de muerte, or “the mountain of death.” “It is a sad situation.”

Residents and environmental activists say Huntington Park is just another example of the many low-income, largely minority communities in the region that endure a disproportionate amount of pollution and other health hazards caused by factories, recycling plants, trains, buses and heavy trucks.

“Not only do we have the transportation contributing to the degradation of our environment and our health, but we also have the stationary sources,” said Carlos Porras, executive director of Communities for a Better Environment, a local nonprofit advocacy group. “This shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody.”

Huntington Park is a mostly blue-collar, mostly Latino community of about 60,000 residents, with a median household income of $23,600--significantly lower than the county median of $35,000.

The city is surrounded on all sides by rail lines and is crossed by heavily traveled truck routes such as Slauson and Gage avenues, which each carry nearly 30,000 cars and trucks per day. The city is bordered on the west by dozens of industrial plants lining Alameda Street, the main surface route for big rigs hauling cargo from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the rail yards near downtown Los Angeles. Alameda carries more than 32,000 cars and trucks per day.

The city is bordered on the north by the heavily industrialized city of Vernon.

So it was small wonder to most Huntington Park residents that diesel exhaust had put the city at the top of the AQMD’s list.

“Almost every type of major truck or bus travels through this area,” said Dante D’Eramo, a resident who heads the city’s Chamber of Commerce. “It’s not surprising that we would accumulate this much diesel.”

The AQMD’s two-year, $1-million study found that people in a swath of territory southeast of downtown--especially Huntington Park and Pico Rivera--face the greatest odds in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties of contracting cancer from polluted air.

Diesel engines account for 71% of that risk, with cars and other mobile sources responsible for 20% and refineries and factories blamed for about 10%, the report concluded. But the study showed that, overall, the cancer risk in the region is about a third of the level of a decade a go, due largely to tough anti-smog regulations.

On average in the four-county area, about 1,400 people out of every 1 million exposed would be at risk of cancer from air pollution.

The study showed that the risk is about 21% higher in Huntington Park and 14% higher in Pico Rivera than the regional average.

Pico Rivera is bisected by Rosemead Boulevard, which carries 29,500 cars and trucks per day, and is near the Santa Ana Freeway to the south and the 605 Freeway to the east.

Maria Elena Martinez, a 42-year resident of Pico Rivera, said she has endured years of odors and air pollution that she blames on a fertilizer plant near her Chapelle Avenue home.

“About two weeks ago I wanted to call the Fire Department, because the smell was burning my nose,” she said. “For years we have been fighting this with no results.”

In Huntington Park, most of the complaints about air pollution come from elderly residents.

“The seniors complain in the morning when they come in and whenever they drive through the major thoroughfares,” said Robert Rodriguez, director of the Old-timers Foundation, a program that provides meals and transportation to about 800 senior citizens.

Longtime resident Katherine Mayberry, 79, said she can only walk about half a block before she needs to stop to catch her breath, and she blames it on air pollution.

“Nothing has been done to improve the air quality around here,” she said angrily.

Mayberry’s neighbor, 83-year-old Dorothy Beaver, agreed. “The smog here in the morning is like a fog,” she said. “It gets in your throat sometimes.”

But officials at the city’s schools and its YMCA say they have heard no complaints lately about breathing problems due to pollution.

“It’s not as bad as it was five or 10 years ago, when it was more noticeable,” said Dan Harrison, Huntington Park High School’s vice principal in charge of athletics.

Huntington Park Police Sgt. Cosme Lozano patrols the city’s downtown business district on bicycle and said air pollution only bothers him when he rides behind a diesel bus.

“I realize the quality of the air is not that good, so I try not to inhale as I normally would when I ride behind a bus,” he said.

On Cottage Street, residents say they have been fighting to eliminate the rubble pile for so long that it is hard to concentrate on other environmental problems.

The mountain of debris consists mostly of chunks of the Santa Monica Freeway damaged in the 1994 Northridge quake. A local businessman accepted the rubble in hopes of crushing it and selling the gravel for road base or other commercial uses.

Neighbors say airborne particles blown off the pile have caused asthma-like symptoms, fatigue and other health problems. Communities for a Better Environment and the city have sued to force the owner of the rubble to clear it away. But the pile has remained untouched since the owner, Sam Chew, filed for bankruptcy last year. A bankruptcy trustee is now trying to resolve the dispute. Chew denies that the pile is a health hazard and contends that nearby factories are the cause of the air pollution.

Martha Glowski, a mother of two children who has lived on Cottage Street for 12 years, said her 13-year-old son has asthma, which she blames on la montana.

She has stared at the rubble pile from her front porch for so long that she is not sure she will ever see it cleaned up.

“They promised three years ago that it would be cleaned up,” she said. “Would you still have faith?”