Truck pollution is poisoning the air of this California city

Brut America

Residents of Oxnard, California, are breathing air that's been poisoned by heavy trucking.  Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) and NRDC are working together to cut truck emissions.

Transcript

00:00And I get emotional talking about this because my entire reason of being here in Oxnard was

00:07to breathe clean air without fossil fuels, cutting our lives short.

00:19Fourteen large trucks in ten minutes, there's more than a truck per minute passing by.

00:31As someone who migrated here from from Mexico, I was born with small lungs and I needed to get

00:38this drastic surgery. And to avoid that surgery, my family decided to migrate here to Oxnard.

00:46Growing up, I didn't think twice. I thought it was normal living near industry,

00:52living near busy roads, truck routes, and didn't really even think about the impact.

01:00We have the Jalico Superfund site, the paper mill factory, the Port of Huaynimi.

01:10So Oxnard actually has some of the highest diesel related emissions in the state of California.

01:15The communities surrounding the port face around 80 to 90 percent higher diesel related

01:21emissions than in other parts of the state. According to the CDC, adults in Ventura County,

01:28which includes Oxnard, have an asthma rate of nine and a half percent.

01:32That's a full percentage point over the national average of eight and a half.

01:58Oh wow, you can feel it. This is where the community just comes to do their shopping,

02:15to do their laundry, to buy food, to hang out. But as well, you could see the trucks,

02:19they pass by here all the time. And I always thought they were a common thing within every

02:24city until one day I came to realize it was like, no, this isn't in every city. It's only

02:30here in Oxnard. But why does it have to be just here in Oxnard? Why does it have to be anywhere?

02:45Low income communities and communities of color are exposed to a higher level of air pollution

02:50for a variety of factors. Discriminatory policies such as redlining that have placed

02:55these communities closer to highways, rail yards, warehouses. If we're going to get clean truck

03:03standards and we're going to get clean air, we need to be able to advocate for ourselves and

03:08have communities speak about what's going on in their backyards. There are plans to transition

03:15from fossil fuels such as diesel into zero emission and green energy for the trucks. But

03:22we got to understand also that while this is happening, it's not the end. We could still

03:27try to advocate and fight for better air.

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