On April 14, our Annual Awards Celebration, One People, Una Frontera, recognized the individuals and groups that have dedicated their lives to building a healthy, unified border region.

With a room full of people passionate about cross-border environmental justice, we celebrated One People, Una Frontera and EHC's 36th Anniversary with an uplifting night of inspiration, awards and friendship.

Elected officials and community leaders alike spent the evening celebrating the progress of our Border Environmental Justice Campaign and helping us award those spearheading cross-border efforts. These heroes include:

• Spirit of Justice Award
  • These government agencies worked to confine more than 42-tons of lead-contaminated waste from a Tijuana battery plant. This award recognizes their leadership and steadfast commitment to the health and safety of our neighborhoods.
    • SEMARNAT
    • EPA Region 9
  • Speaker Emeritus Toni Atkins: As the leader of the California Assembly, Speaker Atkins received a perfect score for environmental justice bills in 2015. Her own bills created seats on the California Air Resources Board for environmental justice representatives and directed new resources from penalties to be directed to impacted communities.
• Environmental Justice Champion Award 
  • From producing powerful documentaries to ensuring healthy development practices on the Alamar River, these awardees display unparalleled professional effort and commitment to equitable, balanced development in cross-border communities.
    • The Rodriguez Griswold Family
    • Vicky Funari and Sergio De La Torre
    • Enrique Medina
    • Ana Elena Espinoza
    • Saúl Guzmán
• Healthy Neighborhoods/Barrios Saludables Awards
  • These groups have offered opportunities for concerned Tijuana citizens to get involved in their communities. Their advocacy and organizing efforts have led to toxic site cleanups, preservation of declining natural space and a strengthened concept of environmental justice in the border region.
    • Consejo Consultivo Para el Desarrollo Sustentable
    • Tijuana Calidad de Vida
    • Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación Ambiental
    • CICEA Papalotzin
    • Red de Ciudadanos para la Mejora de las Comunidades (RECIMEC)
    • Colectivo Chilpancingo
    • Jóvenes Pro Justica Ambiental
  • Neighborhood leaders: 28 adults and youth were recognized for their outstanding civic engagement in the struggle for healthy neighborhoods.

The celebration was highlighted by a video sharing the victories, challenges and vision for the future of the San Diego/Tijuana region.

Thank you to all of our generous sponsors, including our presenting sponsor, Pacifica Companies, for your support and leadership in merging two cultures into one unique way of life.

To everyone who attended, contributed and volunteered to make One People, Una Frontera a success, we can’t thank you enough. Because of your dedication, we are closer than ever before to creating a region where all people can live, work and play in a healthy and safe environment.

View more photos from the event on Facebook.

Thank you, and see you next year.

Who will be San Diego's next great City Councilmember? 

San Diego City Council District 9 is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city. There are multiple candidates in the running to succeed Councilmember Marti Emerald and it's up to us to ensure that the next Councilperson is another champion for progressive values. We need a candidate who will stand up for working families, bring good jobs and housing to our neighborhoods and protect our health, government and right. 

That's why we're joining Engage San Diego and other local organizations to host a District 9 Candidate Forum on Wednesday, October 14 from 5 - 7:30 p.m., at Ly's Chinese Restaurant (4350 54th St, San Diego, 92115). Please join us. 

We've already told you what 35 years of EHC means to us. But we wanted to show you.

On Saturday, September 12, we hosted a community celebration to celebrate the community members, supporters, neighbors, friends and family that make 35 years of environmental and social justice possible. With great people, great food, great music and great weather we had the perfect day.

To view more photos from our celebration, visit us on Facebook.

We would also like to extend our gratitude to Cafe Moto for sponsoring our celebration and being a great supporter of the work EHC does. Thank you, Cafe Moto!

SOMAH Drives Climate Resiliency in Environmental Justice Communities 

The need for bold action on energy justice was made devastatingly clear through the recent Texas energy crisis, which exposed tens of millions of people to the chill of a historic winter storm. This climate disaster was made even more dangerous by failures in the state’s isolated energy network and insufficient weatherization that left vulnerable families across the state without heat, clean water, or power for days after centralized power plants went offline.

What happened in Texas is all too familiar to us in California, as worsening climate disasters disproportionately impact the most marginalized communities as a result of historic divestment in community resources and resilience. Just last summer, we also saw failures in old, fossil fuel dependent energy systems, causing rolling blackouts through dangerous heat and wildfire air pollution. We need new solutions to put us on the pathway towards building energy resilient communities with decentralized, local energy production. That starts with investing in renewables, like rooftop solar, for populations who have often not been able to benefit from solar.

From the wildfires in California to the winter storms in Texas, we’ve seen community based organizations directly serving the needs of those communities by organizing relief funds, distributing masks, offering multilingual outreach, and more. CBOs have deep roots in the communities that we serve, which is why our voice in shaping policy and implementation is vital to ensuring that programs - like the Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (SOMAH) program -  continue to serve the needs of environmental justice communities, and in particular renters in disadvantaged communities, who bear disproportionate pollution burdens. The SOMAH program has an annual budget of up to $100 million for ten years to bring the economic and environmental benefits of solar to California’s low-income renters, and provide an entry point for careers in clean energy.

SOMAH serves as an implementation blueprint for all policies and programs that aim to address disparities in under-resourced communities to ensure that even in the face of disasters, there is not only immediate support for our communities but also long-term community-lead solutions for resilience. SOMAH is the first of its kind to resource and develop strong relationships with CBOs as critical partners in the implementation of a program that is aimed to directly serve environmental justice communities.

EHC’s work on the implementation of this program, alongside the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA), Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), and Self Help Enterprises (SHE) has helped low-income renters access solar, putting our communities on the path to developing clean energy resilience in the face of a changing climate. To date, the SOMAH program has 386 active applications with an overall capacity of 68 MW AC (production capacity in megawatts). These applications account for 32,049 affordable housing units with an average 90% allocation of solar energy to tenant units.

We’re proud of the first couple of years of SOMAH implementation, but we know there’s still so much work to do to build the resilience our communities need. Especially now, as we mark a full year of the pandemic’s devastation and utility bill debt mounts to new highs, the need for energy bill relief and locally generated, abundant, sustainable energy is urgent.

Climate disasters like the deep freeze southerners experienced this winter and the heatwaves we endured locally are predicted to increase in frequency and severity in coming years. EHC will continue to drive investments in climate resilient clean energy through SOMAH and other advocacy efforts, and we’re looking for EJ champions from the community to get involved. If you are a renter and you want the benefits of renewable energy sourced at your building, please contact SOMAH coordinator Monica de la Cruz at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Environmental Health Coalition's statement on California State Auditor report on the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District.

Environmental Health Coalition appreciates the leadership of Assembly member Gloria to request this investigation and thanks the Auditor’s office for its comprehensive research. Read full press release from Assembly member Gloria.

This report validates the experiences of residents who live in the communities most impacted by poor air quality.  Their voices have not been heard as complaints languish for months, monies have not been spent appropriately to reduce pollution and San Diego’s air quality is worsening.  EHC looks forward to working with the new Air Pollution Control Board to rectify these problems.

We are dismayed by the corporate subsidies of nearly $4 million that have been provided to industrial polluters.  The permit program should be a ‘full cost recovery’ system with permit holders paying for the total cost of regulating them.  We are concerned that permit fees have been kept low to accommodate demands from industry.  The public’s vehicle registration funds were used to subsidize these companies. Those funds should have been used for programs to reduce air pollution throughout the region and particularly in those communities that are most impacted.

Lack of public participation has been an ongoing and decades long concern.  APCD has improved its community involvement with the Community Air Protection Program but the lack of authentic participation in the advisory board and at APCD board meetings is stunningly poor.  Most board decisions are on consent with only 3 public commenters in 3 years.  The APCD website is not user-friendly and lack transparency.  These are issues that are required to be managed by the passage of AB 423 that creates a new board structure and requirements for improvement.

This March, our lives were completely changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Public transit ridership plummeted and unemployment skyrocketed. The pandemic spread, and by April 20, nearly 100 transit workers in the US had died from the coronavirus due to the lack of basic safety measures. The world came to an abrupt stop and we all pivoted to adjust to our new reality.

EHC’s transportation justice work had to pivot as well. Along with community members and partner organizations, we had worked tirelessly for the past two years advocating for MTS to prioritize equity and environmental justice (EJ) communities as it shaped the Elevate SD 2020 ballot measure. Then in April, MTS took Elevate SD 2020 off of the November ballot in response to the pandemic. The potential for an infusion of $24 billion in transit funding over the next 50 years – gone!

The pandemic is still with us. Clean and safe transit is still a critical need. So despite the loss, EHC and the San Diego Transportation Equity Working Group (SDTEWG) have continued our work for transit justice.

And, we are making progress!

On June 18, MTS strengthened its commitment to zero-emission buses by unanimously approving our recommendations to improve its transition plan, which lay out how the agency will move from dirty to clean buses:

• Prioritize environmental justice communities to get zero-emission buses first
• Provide a meaningful community engagement process
• Include workforce training and safety for transit workers
• Develop more optional scenarios that accelerate the transition
• Develop greenhouse gas emission reduction analyses to meet state goals

Our communities need and deserve a just recovery. They cannot afford a “return to normal” that locks in decades of toxic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, which will lead us into another health crisis from worsened air pollution and climate change. EHC stands ready to work with MTS and our transportation justice allies to ensure a just recovery for all communities.

Image credit: MTS

Below please find the text of a letter sent to Governor Gavin Newsom from members of the State Legislature regarding environmental and health regulations amidst the COVID-19 pandemic (Download the PDF).

April 27, 2020

The Honorable Gavin Newsom Governor,
State of California State Capitol, First Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814

RE: Urgent Need to Defend Environmental and Health Regulations

Dear Governor Newsom:

Our state is facing an unprecedented public health crisis and many of our residents are experiencing extreme health and economic hardships due to COVID-19. We know firsthand how this crisis is impacting our communities that are complying with the shelter-in-place mandate in Executive Order N-33-20. Additionally, we know this is forcing the Administration and its Agencies to continue to implement regulations and programs that safeguard and protect public health, our environment, and natural resources. We are concerned by recent accounts in the press, as well as letters that the Legislature has received from regulated industries, that are using this public health emergency as an attempt to stop, delay, or otherwise weaken California’s environmental and public health protections. In light of this emergency, it is imperative that we resist efforts to roll back any current protections, and that we instead focus on raising awareness on the importance of healthy lungs, healthy immune systems and maintaining safeguards and health protections in place.

The health of millions of Californians -- many of whom already bear the greatest burdens by living in our state’s most polluted cities -- relies on you maintaining momentum in implementation and defense of clean air and climate protections, including those recently passed by the Legislature and signed into law. Our disadvantaged communities in particular, which would most benefit from regulations to clean up our air, are more at risk from COVID-19 due to harms from consistent air pollution exposure to their respiratory systems. We know that maintaining these safeguards will be important as our state is likely to experience more unpredictable and unforeseen events in the future. Maintaining resilient government institutions must continue to be a hallmark of California public policy, even as we are acutely challenged by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

We have taken a leading role in addressing air pollution and the climate crisis by setting model standards for the rest of the world. We cannot stop. Undoing or delaying these regulations would not only damage our health but also our economy. Scientists warned of a pandemic and the climate crisis -- it is critical that we move towards combating and protecting people from both. Our agencies must resist attempts by polluting industries to exploit our current crisis to loosen, rollback or delay the adoption of vital environmental regulations that protect the health and safety of Californians. We ask that you continue to move forward on critical rulemakings with an emphasis on maximizing equitable and meaningful public participation and community-based feedback. Now more than ever, even as the Federal Administration works to dismantle fundamental regulations, we must uphold our commitment to safeguard Californians’ wellbeing.

We appreciate your continued hard work during these times, and we look forward to working with your agencies to defend California’s life-saving regulations.

Your voice is important in planning the future of transit in San Diego.

MTS wants to know how YOU would invest in San Diego’s transit. They have launched a public outreach tool called Vision Builder to collect feedback on the type of projects that should be funded by a new tax measure. The tool mimics an online shopping experience. Users can add projects to their cart and spend up to 1,000 coins.

Tell MTS to prioritize Transportation Justice by selecting a mix of the following projects for up to 1,000 coins:

Download our Transportation Justice Shoppers Guide for more information.

LEARN HOW THE VISION BUILDER TOOL WORKS

• Spanish Instructions and Video
• English Instructions and Video

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Environmental justice (EJ) communities are the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System’s (MTS) number one customers, but the system does not serve them the way it should. In 2020, MTS will have a tax measure that can fund the transformation of San Diego’s inequitable, car-centric transportation model into an equitable public transit network that:

• Connects EJ communities to jobs
• Makes it affordable to ride the bus and trolley
• Ensures the region meets regional climate goals

Health inequities are strongly related to issues such as unemployment, poverty, underfunded schools, and a lack of affordable housing. The Healthy Cities, Healthy Residents (HCHR) project was launched to address these inequities, notably in terms of community-driven policies on healthy food systems, safe streets, active transportation, and active living.

On September 12, 2019 EHC, Circulate San Diego, the County of San Diego, and community partners hosted a pop-up event to celebrate the conclusion of the three-year HCHR grant funded by the County of San Diego and managed by EHC. The event focused on engaging and educating National City community members on important issues related to sustainable changes in city planning, policies, and neighborhood environments.

National City Mayor Sotelo-Solisand Councilmember Ron Morrison attended the community event where community partners, SANDAG and other agencies showcased their work. The event coincided with a half-day at Kimball Elementary so that students and their parents could participate together.