EDITORIAL: PARKS NOT TRUCKS!

Guest Editorial by Extli Chávez

On a warm morning last September, my mom and I woke up to flyers all around our neighborhood urging us to stop a diesel truck distribution center from being built just down the block from where we live in Lincoln Heights. The 60,000 square-foot distribution center would be built on an empty lot located across the street from Hillside Elementary School in a neighborhood that is densely populated, working-class, and mostly Latino and Asian. My family and I attended a town hall meeting hosted by Los Angeles City Council Member District 1 Eunisses Hernández where I heard city officials and community organizers talk about the dangers of diesel exhaust and about the empty lot where the distribution would be built.

I learned that the empty lot used to be a dry-cleaning facility and is deemed a brownfield because it is likely polluted already. I also learned that the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) identifies Lincoln Heights as a disadvantaged community based on geographic, socioeconomic, public health, and environmental hazard factors. Imagine what hundreds of diesel trucks going up and down our streets at all hours of the day and night would do to our neighborhood and to our health!

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), exposure to diesel exhaust can lead to serious health problems like asthma and other respiratory illnesses. It can also worsen existing heart and lung diseases, especially to vulnerable populations like children or the elderly. Diesel pollution also has a negative effect on the environment and can cause acid rain.

Living in Lincoln Heights near both the I-5 and 110 Freeways, we are already exposed to high volume traffic and the air pollution that comes with it. Adding diesel truck exhaust could be a death sentence, especially to us kids and elders like my own grandmother. This was something many of those in my community expressed the most concern about at a recent rally held in front of the vacant property where the distribution center would be built. Despite rain showers, over a hundred of my neighbors gathered to protest the proposed industrial project.

Instead of a diesel truck distribution center—which would bring pollution, risks to pedestrians, and deadly diseases, we could have clean air, trees, and a place to walk and play if a park was built in that empty lot. According to the article “How do trees and green spaces enhance our health?” published by Harvard Health Publishing on April 19, 2024, trees help prevent flooding, release oxygen, reduce pollution, and boost health and mood. Just seeing trees can have positive mental health benefits. Both Lincoln Park and Ernest E. Debs Regional Park, the nearest available public recreational facilities, are each a challenging 40-minute walk away from where we live. So we really don’t have any green spaces to walk around, play sports or just appreciate nature in. What would be the best way to fix this? Instead of forcing trucks on us, build parks!

Considering its negative health impacts, allowing the diesel truck distribution center to be built in Lincoln Heights would be criminal. It would also be an example of environmental racism. According to The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), civil rights leader Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. defines environmental racism as “the intentional siting of polluting and waste facilities in communities primarily populated by African Americans, Latines, Indigenous People, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, migrant farmworkers, and low-income workers.” Our communities deserve better. We should have healthy food stores, green parks and clean air, not dangerous diesel pollution. We deserve parks, not trucks!

Extli Chávez attends Kipp L.A. Prep and is an 8th Grade student in good standing there, He is and has always been a resident of Lincoln Heights. Above photo by Brenda Chávez.


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