Latinas Take Action for Healthier Air
Communities Rally to Change Environmental Health Policies
  an Diego’s two largest chemical companies are located in the low-income neighborhood of Barrio Logan, where 90 percent of the residents are people of color. The chemicals are stored out in the open and separated from nearby homes by a chain-link fence.
This pattern is not unusual in Barrio Logan and the surrounding communities of Sherman Heights, Logan Heights and west National City. Mixed zoning ordinances have allowed small, air-polluting businesses, such as plating companies and auto body shops, to establish themselves right next to homes, schools and parks.
Adjacent to city limits are even larger polluters, including the U.S. Navy, shipyards and fuel storage tanks. The primary pollutant from shipyards is the known carcinogen hexavalent chromium—made famous by the movie “Erin Brockovich.”
 “The health of these communities is threatened by frequent exposure to toxic chemicals and small, harmful particles emitted into the air,” said Fatima Angeles, TCWF program officer. “The residents are the first ones to notice that in neighborhoods that don’t look like theirs, the children are healthier.”
For the past 20 years, the Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) has been working in San Diego’s poorest areas to advocate for a cleaner environment. In December 1998, TCWF provided a two-year, $50,000 grant to EHC for its Air Toxics Project.
The grant was used to build on a successful strategy called Salud Ambiental, Latinas Tomando Acción (SALTA), which means Environmental Health, Latinas Taking Action. SALTA is a training program for Latinas who become promotoras in their communities.
The original SALTA course in 1995 trained 200 women in general environmental health issues. In March 2000, EHC trained an additional 40 women who became experts specifically about air toxins. These graduates now speak to community groups, serve on task forces, give interviews to the news media and serve on local policymaking committees.
Other activities have included a People’s Summit in March of 1999 that made recent research about health risks from air pollution accessible to community residents and the recruitment of shipyard workers as partners in advocating for cleaner air.
“Most of the decision making in the organization occurs at the grassroots level,”
said Diane Takvorian, EHC’s executive director.
EHC is focusing on two goals: 1) the relocation of small businesses to industrial zones; and 2) the reduction of pollution from large industries that must remain near San Diego Bay, such
as shipyards.
A key struggle with the local Air Pollution Control District (APCD) ended successfully in the fall of 1999. When the APCD had refused to place air quality monitors in neighborhoods near the shipyards, EHC went directly to the state Air Resources Board (ARB), which intervened. An air quality monitor is now located at Memorial Academy Middle School in Barrio Logan, and data are being collected. In addition, the ARB has selected Barrio Logan as one of six communities in California for the Children’s Health Protection Program. This means that the community will receive expanded air monitoring programs and analysis of children’s health concerns.
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