Fresno Residents Demand Clean Air

Fresno Residents Demand Clean Air
By Mike Rhodes

Children, their parents, and community allies rallied for clean air today in Fresno. Standing next to a street already congested with heavy traffic, the group called on Fresno City officials to rezone the area so Rosenbalm Rockery, a Clovis concrete and soils processing facility, can’t relocate to a lot directly across the street from the school.

This coalition is concerned that the new facility will compound existing health problems that children attending the school experience, and are angry that the City issued a permit for the new facility without conducting an environmental review and without notifying the school or nearby residents. They are demanding that the City of Fresno revoke the conditional use permit issued to Rosenbalm Rockery and rezone the Addams neighborhood to ban future industrial development in the area.

“We are already suffering from the large number of polluting facilities located in our community” says Tony Diaz, coordinator of the Addams Neighborhood Resource Center. “We are bombarded with diesel exhaust and other air pollution from the 99 freeway, the railroad and two large distribution centers, including the UPS. The last thing we need is another polluting industry next to our school. It is time for Fresno to put public health before private profit.”

According to the American Lung Association (ALA), numerous studies have linked diesel exhaust to cancer, the exacerbation of asthma, and other respiratory diseases. ALA also found that truck and traffic intensity, and exhaust measured in schools, were significantly associated with chronic respiratory symptoms. A recent study of the FUSD “Yellow Card Data” found that Addams Elementary had the third highest asthma rates in the district.

Rey León, Senior Policy Analyst for the Latino Issues Forum notes that, “The concrete company will increase diesel traffic in a low-income, under served area already compromised by air pollution and extremely high rates of pediatric asthma. That the City did not notify residents to inform them of the proposed relocation and that they issued a conditional use permit without conducting a full environmental review speaks to their disregard for the health of Fresno’s communities and their lack of commitment to enforcing the California Environmental Quality Act and other critical laws intended to protect the health and well being of all California communities.”

Diaz said the students, parents, and community allies will gather on the corner of McKinley and Hughes across from Addams Elementary (near freeway 99) at 3:15 PM each Wednesday to express their outrage at the City’s actions and demand that immediate action be taken to protect community health.

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