M3.4 Air Pollution

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  • What percent of the homes in your zip code have lead-based paint?
About 1% of homes in my zip code have lead-based paint. 

  • Are there Superfund sites in your zip?
Superfund Sites are sites that are considered the nation's worst toxic waste sites. It is land that has been contaminated by hazardous waste and identified by the EPA as a candidate for cleanup because it poses a risk to human health and/or the environment. To date,there are about 1322 Superfund Sites that are scheduled for clean up. Fortunately San Mateo County does not have any Superfund sites located within it.  

  • What can you tell us about the Superfund sites that are near where you live?
The closest Superfund site is Treasure Island and it's ranked 17 our of 32 on California's Superfund site list.  Most of the contaminates are found in the ground and surface water. They include: fuels, pesticides, HEAVY METALS, PCBS, and VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS (VOCS). Soil also contains ASBESTOS. A landfill located on Parcel E also contains RADIUM dials. These contaminates are detrimental to one's health and should be avoided.

  • What did you learn about the air quality in your zip code?
The air quality in my zip code is rated as "good", with a rating of 48. Ozone pollutants and particles were considered "good" with ratings of 29 and 48. 
  • How about the water quality?
San Mateo County has 4 watersheds. There is 23% of Surface Waters with Reported Problems within these watersheds. According to the ScoreCard, San Mateo County's Clean Water Act comparative is not good. San Mateo County seems to be one of the dirtiest surface water and bodies of water compared to the nation's average. 
  • How did your zip code fair on a social justice / environmental justice basis?
On a social justice/ environmental justice basis, San Mateo County has higher numbers of low-income/non-white/working class individuals. However, I live in Half Moon Bay and these statistics dont seem at all representative of my actual zip code. There are so many different towns within a county, it is difficult to be able to generalize and interpret this data as an entire area.  These statistics are eye-opening, but also make me wonder how accurate this ScoreCard really is if it is considering these areas based on counties (which could have very different communities within it). I understand that this is an average of what the county sees, but it should also be noted that this data might not be reflective of the individual communities within the counties. On the other hand it calls to question the amount of inequalities within these individual communities that make up the county as a whole. 

Comments

  1. Daisy AlbarranSeptember 16, 2018 at 3:43 PM

    Hi Kera,

    It's mind-boggling to see the different exposures there are in our individual counties. I think it can be both good and bad to have the Superfund sites in that companies are being held responsible to clean up their mess that is harmful to the environment, and bad in that it shouldn't have to get to a point where a clean-up is necessary. At the same time, if there are no Superfund sites, it might indicate that there aren't that many harmful exposures in the area - which would be incredibly lucky. You highlight very well that the scorecard indicates inequalities in the communities in the same county. I think more efforts should be dedicated towards the communities with disparities in addition to the surrounding neighborhoods to recognize that these differences exist and need to be addressed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 16, 2018 at 8:03 PM

    Hi Kera,

    While researching my zip code for air quality and other polluters, I was very surprised to find that the area I've lived in for the majority of my life is not as environmentally safe as I thought it was. I think this information should be made easily available to the public, so that we can improve the quality of life and see a change in health outcomes.

    Carmen

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownSeptember 17, 2018 at 11:06 AM

    Hi Kera,

    It was so strange to me to see who the “top polluters” in my county were. I wonder how they address these polluters and what they are doing to decrease the large amount of pollutants they release. I also wonder for air quality what they consider “good” especially the fact that Ozone pollutants have remained the same if not increased. Very interesting point you make regarding the accuracy of the Scorecard. I agree that reporting based on counties is too large of a scale to have true reports for each community.

    ReplyDelete

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