Demonstration at Hunter's Point Power Plant, decommissioned in 2006.

LNG terminals emit high amounts of nitrogen oxide and other particulate matter. A study done for the recently rejected Cabrillo Port LNG terminal near Oxnard determined that it would produce about 270 tons of pollutants per year, making it Ventura County’s biggest polluter.

California’s dependence on electricity derived from natural gas has a disproportionate impact on the state’s working class communities of color. The most polluting gas-fired power plants—those constructed more than 30 years ago—are located in poor and working class communities of color and such communities continue to be chosen as sites for fossil fuel-based energy projects, posing an on-going, significant barrier to environmental justice.

Unless trends are reversed, our state’s dependence on dirty energy will increase air pollution, continue to concentrate illness in poor communities where power plants are currently located, and endanger communities with new, dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure.

A 1997 UC San Francisco study done on the residents in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco, near PG&E’s now shuttered Hunter’s Point power plant, showed that hospitalizations for chronic illnesses including asthma, heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, and emphysema were four times more common in the Bayview than statewide.

Children are the most vulnerable, particularly to asthma. Asthma rates are highest in low-income urban communities, and researchers have documented a sharp increase in the past few decades. In the Bayview high rates of asthma or asthmalike symptoms have the community on constant alert. A 1999 study by the San Francisco Unified School District and Bayview community groups found that of 2,150 schoolchildren in the neighborhood, 17 percent said they suffered from asthma. Another 19 percent of the children reported similar symptoms but hadn't been diagnosed with asthma (see "Gasping for Air," 4/21/99, San Francisco Bay Guardian).

More information: Communities for a Better Environment, http://www.cbecal.org/