Just off the I-980 freeway, which runs through West Oakland, are two large signs that say, “Clean air not dirty coal” and “Keep dirty coal out of Oakland.” The signs are part of a community-led campaign against the transportation of coal throughout the city, and one of many battles the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project is tackling to protect its population from pollution-related health issues.

With three interstates, the BART system, and the Port of Oakland operations all running through and around West Oakland, the community has a significantly high exposure to diesel particulate matter and black carbon from transportation-related emissions. Due to this exposure, the area was designated as an immediate priority for pollution treatment under California’s Community Air Protection Program, or Assembly Bill 617. The bill emphasizes community-based emissions reduction to minimize the climate gap, which is the idea that climate change has disproportionately affected people of color and low-income communities. Assembly Bill 617 specifically seeks to build up marginalized neighborhoods that are significantly impacted by air pollution. Author Rachel Morello-Frosch writes that extreme events like climate change worsen existing health, economic, and social inequalities, while simultaneously adding new inequalities to these communities, which is why it’s necessary to prioritize these neighborhoods.

West Oakland’s population is primarily low-income African American families, though the demographics have changed over the last ten years due to gentrification. Public housing projects were torn down to make space for new apartment complexes and housing communities. Before this new wave of gentrification, roughly two-thirds of West Oakland’s population was below the federal poverty line in the late 2010s, according to a West Oakland housing and employment report.

Historians have documented that the city did not naturally develop to be segregated by race and class– it was designed this way by white policymakers in the 1930s through the process of redlining. There was a major migration of people of color in the early 1900s as Oakland experienced an industrial boom. Following this migration, new neighborhoods and housing were developed in East Oakland; however, the Federal Housing Administration blocked black people from getting government-backed mortgages or loans to purchase these units, allowing only white people to move to East Oakland. As the canneries and autoplants that employed many people of color began to shut down, many black and brown families became stuck in West Oakland. The FHA routinely marked areas with higher black and brown populations as dangerous, thereby devaluing the land. This redlining process, which is the systemic denial of financial services to people of color and subsequent devaluation of neighborhoods made up of people of color, ultimately paved the way for transportation systems to be built through this community.
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Vehicles traveling on these interstates often emit harmful pollutants, like carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds. These pollutants are not only harmful to the environment but also to residents’ health. 

According to a study completed by the National Institute of Health, West Oakland residents experience a 21% higher rate of premature mortality from cancer, a 33% higher rate of premature mortality from heart disease, and a 62% higher rate of premature mortality from stroke compared to the rest of Alameda County. Hospitalizations for asthma are 88% higher for West Oakland residents compared to the rest of the county.

While these public health issues are slowly being addressed and monitored by state policies like Assembly Bill 617, non-profit organizations like the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP) are taking action and getting the community involved. WOEIP created the West Oakland Air Quality Monitoring Network (WOAQ), which measures pollution levels with high-tech sensors located throughout the region. There are seven sensors that can detect black carbon and fourteen that can detect particulate matter. The sensors are helpful for reporting accurate data to demonstrate inequalities in air quality and inform future mitigation efforts.

WOEIP is also leading the West Oakland Community Action Plan (WOCAP), which is the community-based emissions reduction plan devised after the California legislature passed Assembly Bill 617. WOCAP aims to minimize diesel particulate matter in all seven zones of West Oakland, lower cancer-risk emissions, and garner funds and investments for emission reduction research and infrastructure. Over the past five years, WOEIP has seen great success in working toward these goals; however, there is still a lot of work to be done. WOEIP community engagement leader Meet Panchal expressed some relief reviewing their five-year plan, saying, “We did absolutely see emissions reduction in that space, but that’s still not enough.” He said the public health issues are seen most in children, and WOEIP is working on collecting data on the demographics that are most commonly impacted by the pollution. WOEIP currently has 80 strategy plans and research projects. Unfortunately, a lot of their campaigns and research projects come down to how much funding they are able to receive. WOEIP receives grants from the state, either from the California Air Resources Board or the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, as well as from the EPA. Under the Trump administration, the organization has seen significant cuts to its funding and ability to get grants. Panchal said they were trying to measure health indicators of air quality improvement, but that opportunity is no longer available to them. He said, “Hopefully, we can pursue that again, but as of now, we lost that funding. It was at least half a million dollars.” Without this measurement of health indicators, it is much harder to recognize how the air pollution and constant exposure to pollutants have impacted specific public health concerns in the area.

In addition to the strategy plans formulated under WOCAP, WOEIP is running grassroots campaigns throughout West Oakland to raise awareness and prompt change with policymakers. The campaigns include fighting for stronger regulation and cleaner practices at Radius Recycling, better emissions reduction agreements between the Port and the city, and opposition to the transportation of coal through Oakland.

WOEIP is also spearheading a handful of other green city design plans to support the West Oakland community in lowering emissions and reducing exposure to pollutants. The organization is running a multitude of campaigns, like “Planting trees in West Oakland”, “Safer Sidewalks”, “West Oakland Link Pedestrian Path”, and “Prescott Greening”, to create more green spaces in the city and allow for transportation alternatives. Creating more green spaces can help with carbon sequestration because trees and parks can act as carbon sinks, which are reservoirs that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Similarly, creating alternative transportation options by developing walking or biking infrastructure can decrease the number of vehicles on the road, leading to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

While these public health issues are slowly being addressed and monitored by state policies like Assembly Bill 617 and nonprofit organizations like WOEIP, it is imperative that these inequalities are understood to be deeply connected and intertwined. It is not by chance that Black people are facing higher rates of public health concerns, poorer economic status, and higher vulnerability to climate change– it is a result of decades of structural violence. The devaluation of West Oakland property and the subsequent segregation of races through the refusal to grant loans has impacted the community to this day.

Marginalized communities are facing the strongest impacts of climate change, as demonstrated by West Oakland’s struggles with pollution. To combat the mounting issues marginalized communities face as a result of systemic racism and structural violence, more funding from the state and federal levels is necessary to mitigate healthcare impacts like asthma, lung disease, and heart disease through innovation and green city design. Organizations like WOEIP are at the forefront of creating positive change for these communities; however, the necessary changes are not possible without adequate funding.
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