Air Pollution

San Mateo County 

• Who and what are the top polluters in your zip code? The top polluters in San Mateo County (S. San Francisco) include Tyco Thermal Controls L.L.C., South Bay Marble Inc., and Petersen Prods.  

• What percent of the homes in your zip code have lead-based paint? 1% of homes in San Mateo County have a high risk of lead hazards.

• Are there Superfund sites in your zip?  (In your BLOG, make sure to tell us what a Superfund Site is) There are no Superfund sites in San Mateo county, however I do work near a Superfund site in San Francisco, the Bayview Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. According to the EPA, a Superfund site is a contaminated sites that exists  due to hazardous waste being dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed. 

• What can you tell us about the Superfund sites that are near where you live? Although I don't live near a Superfund site, the Superfund site near my job has been linked to higher levels of multiple health concerns in the surrounding community, including, but not limited to asthma, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, cervical cancer, and many more. The EPA listed this location as a Superfund site in 1989 (the year I was born). The PG&E Hunters Power Plant is the largest stationary source of air pollution in Bayview Hunters Point, emitting almost 600 tons of pollutants annually into the air over Southeast San Francisco. According to the USEPA, these emissions include: 321 tons of nitrous oxides; 164 tons of carbon monoxide; 52 tons of particulate matter; 13 tons of ammonia; 13 tons of volatile organic compounds; and 12 tons of sulfur dioxide. 

• What did you learn about the air quality in your zip code? The percentage of days with good air quality in my zip code is 96% with a max AQI of 87 in 2003. This information feels reassuring. However, industrialization has increased since 2003, making me wonder how these numbers have shifted over time. According to the EPA's airnow website, the AQI for today is 72 and unusually sensitive people should consider reducing prolonged or heavy exertion. 

 

• How about the water quality? The information for this seems really dated, but according to the scorecard website, San Mateo County is one of the dirtiest/worst counties with a high percentage of Surface Waters with Impaired or Threatened Uses and Impaired Waterbodies. This is quite alarming, but as previously mentioned, I'd like to see if this has changed over time. 

• How did your zip code fair on a social justice / environmental justice basis? According to the scorecard website, "Low-income communities and communities of color may suffer greater impacts from environmental degradation than other groups". In the report on burden distribution, low-income people of color seem to experience higher burdens than their affluent counterparts on multiple levels including race/ethnicity, income, SES, education, job, and homeownership.