Flores Lopez had a habit of standing at her front gate to make sure the kids coming out of school crossed the street safely. The site stored more than public buses owned by Omnitrans, the county transit agency, and the natural gas tanks used to fuel them. Through those conversations, they began to wonder if all the activity around them — the buses, the trains, the trucks — could also damage the health of their neighbors and their children. Newman and another group of mothers started the group in the late s to protect their families from pollution coming from the Stringfellow Acid Pits , about 15 miles from San Bernardino.
According to an Omnitrans spokesperson, community concern was one of the main drivers behind the change — though the switch also saved money. Omnitrans maintains the storage tanks posed little health risk. Along the way, Flores Lopez and her neighbors also took action on the diesel trucks that suddenly swarmed through their neighborhood.
She says she asked city officials to put up signs warning trucks not to park in front of residences. And they successfully pushed the city to close off an entrance from her street to the nearby Mt. Vernon Bridge, forcing trucks to find another route. To the north, is a park, daycare center, and dozens of homes. As she and her group racked up community-wide victories, they suffered personal losses.
Flores Lopez and Alcantar both lost sisters to kidney failure and cancer, respectively. Not long after Alcantar started organizing with Flores Lopez, she was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is commonly linked to ozone pollution. Alcantar had never smoked. She lived with the disease for 15 years, as she continued fighting Omnitrans. Then, in , with nearly a decade left before she turned 70, her prophecy came true. Teresa Flores Lopez center, standing and Marilyn Alcantar sitting, center pose with members of the local public transit authority after the agency agreed to remove natural gas storage tanks from a facility in their neighborhood.
Flores Lopez told reporter Justine Calma about how she and Alcantar met. Photo courtesy of Teresa Flores Lopez. Flores Lopez had cajoled her into attending the ceremony days after Thanksgiving , even though her friend had to come in a wheelchair. When the two women saw the empty space where the storage tanks used to be — it looked like a tomb, Flores Lopez said — both cried. Less than a month after the ceremony, Alcantar died. Of the original group of women who initiated the campaign against Omnitrans, Flores Lopez is the only surviving member.
The others eventually succumbed to various forms of cancer, like Alcantar, or kidney failure. During her high-risk pregnancy, researchers at nearby Loma Linda University recruited Sanchez to join a study looking at mothers in the Inland Empire area whose children were all born with the same condition.
Examining cases of gastroschisis treated at Loma Linda University Medical Center between and , researchers determined that cases of the birth defect tended to occur around major transportation routes.
They said more research was needed to specifically look at the relationship between the clusters and environmental toxins from nearby Superfund sites and polluting industries. Shortly afterward, Sanchez said, a friend who lived nearby reached out to let her know she had also become pregnant with a fetus with gastroschisis. Researchers at Loma Linda University found that the birth defect could be linked to mothers living near major transit centers.
Pregnant women and babies are especially vulnerable to poor air quality in San Bernardino County. The county ranks in the top 10 in the state for percentage of infants born with low birth weight, a major risk factor for infant mortality.
A spokesperson for the San Bernardino County Health Department told Grist that the agency does not have the capacity to conduct research into whether air pollution is a contributing factor to the high rates of infant mortality and low birthweight in the county.
But other institutions have taken up the research. She found that infants between the ages of 7 months and 12 months who had been recently exposed to high levels of particulate pollution had double the risk of death from respiratory problems.
Babies exposed to nitrogen dioxide — one of the pollutants found in diesel emissions that leads to the creation of smog — showed an increased risk of SIDS. And air pollution contributes.
Sanchez has a daily reminder of the damage that air pollution can cause. Before Nathan was born, she had dreamed of being a nurse. Instead, she is attending Pepperdine University in Malibu to become an environmental lawyer. Her goal: protecting people in her hometown from polluters.
San Bernardino County residents have had a complex relationship with industry for decades. As Teresa Flores Lopez worked to clean up the air surrounding the railyards, her husband Nick went to work at the railway company, his employer for nearly 40 years.
Still, he remembers regularly cleaning a thick layer of black dust that gathered inside their home across from the railyard. After he retired four years ago, the couple sold their house next to the railyard and moved a few blocks away. The dust cleared. The nosebleeds stopped. The county has the worst ozone pollution in the country, and diesel emissions are particularly high in the neighborhood surrounding the railyards.
Many of the new warehouse and railyard jobs are temporary positions. Share: Share Tweet Email. Report a correction or typo. Related topics: science san bernardino county riverside county odor air quality. California says if you want a booster shot now, 'absolutely' get one. Biden honors first Veterans Day in office with expanded VA benefits.
LA County helps feed veterans and their families with food drive. LAPD union denied temporary restraining order over vaccine mandate. City News Service reports that that the smell, first noticed around 10 p.
Badgett also pointed to the Salton Sea as a possible suspect in the source of the smell, noting to CNS, "We had that storm system dragging everything up from the desert yesterday, so who knows?. Eastern Municipal Water District offcials -- servicing customers from Moreno Valley to Temecula -- said the stench was not connected to any of the district's operations.
Throughout the day, the terrible smell has traveled a distance across Southern Califonia. Lisa Brenner September 10, Reports are wafting in from the Inland Empire about a foul odor in the area.
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