Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice

CCAEJ mobilizes overburdened communities to fight for their desire to live, work, learn and play in a healthy environment free from toxics and pollution.   Our vision is that people who live in overburdened communities hold the power to create opportunities to improve, attain and sustain a non-toxic environment.   By addressing disparities in Environmental Justice communities, we create a cleaner, more just and democratic society that will benefit everyone.

Maribela unzips her granddaughter Anna’s blue back pack.  Instead of toys and books, Maribela removes boxes of medicine and a large machine with tubes coming out of it, “it’s her nebulizer”, Maribela explains, “she uses it so she can breathe”.  At age three Anna has already been diagnosed with severe asthma.  Anna is six years old now and as a first grader, has missed many school days.  She has been in and out of the hospital over the past two years – we often wonder what will happen to her future….

Anna is one of many children living near rail yards; warehouses; truck routes and freeways.  For children, who are sensitive to environmental hazards, diesel pollution is particularly dangerous to their healthy development.

The development of warehouses, distribution centers, and intermodal facilities has resulted in a significant rise in truck traffic, creating safety concerns for local drivers and a myriad of negative health effects for residents. Diesel pollution in areas near logistics operations has had severe health consequences on local residents – asthma and cancer rates are significantly higher in the Inland Valley region, and a recent study by researchers at the USC Keck School of Medicine determined that children in the Mira Loma region have the weakest lung capacity and slowest lung growth of all children studied in Southern California. Mira Loma is home to the highest levels of particulate pollution anywhere in the nation, and the fourth highest levels anywhere in the world.

“Welcome to life in the smog belt. Riverside not only has to deal with its own pollution but also takes the leftover pollution from the L.A. basin as well as particulates that drift over from the port of Los Angeles — the busiest container port in the U.S. Last year, Riverside had 105 days of unhealthy ozone levels — pollution that can exacerbate asthma and other respiratory conditions” stated a Riverside reporter

CCAEJ Cares!!  We do what we do because every human being on earth has Human Rights – including economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, at CCAEJ we recognize that all people require the same basic necessities in order to live a dignified life:  access to water, food and shelter, safe and healthy working and living conditions, a voice in decisions that affect themselves and their community, among others.