A letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom urges him to impose a moratorium on new Inland Empire warehouses, arguing the region’s ongoing logistics boom threatens public health and perpetuates environmental racism.
The Jan. 24 letter, signed by more than 60 Inland groups, calls the massive expansion of the Inland logistics industry “one of the most critical environmental justice issues of our time” and are calling for a public health emergency declaration and a one- or two-year moratorium to better protect residents from problems associated with warehouses and warehouse-bound diesel trucks.
“We have a right to a life not impacted by asthma, heart disease, cognitive, and reproductive problems related to pollution exposure,” the letter states. “We have a right to not be made sick by the air we breathe.”
San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman defended the logistics industry and how local governments handle warehouse projects in a Jan. 25 commentary published by the Southern California News Group.
Inland air quality is improving because the logistics industry “continues to invest in environmentally friendly buildings and the trucking industry commits to vehicles with reduced or near zero-emission emissions,” Hagman wrote, adding that local governments must follow “California’s stringent environmental laws.”
Newsom’s office has not yet received the letter, Daniel Villasenor, a spokesperson for the governor, said via email.
Administration officials noted the California Air Resources Board weighs in on warehouse plans, adopted new rules to curb truck smog and defended the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s rule requiring Los Angeles and Inland warehouses to cut emissions.
A range of progressive groups and organizations dedicated to environmental justice and immigrants rights signed the letter, which also went to California Attorney General Rob Bonta and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. No cities or local public agencies signed it.
The letter is a product of frustration over local governments’ unwillingness to curb logistics growth or address its problems, said Susan Phillips, a professor of environmental analysis and director of Pitzer College’s Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability.
“We have felt there is no other pathway forward other than to ask the state leaders to intervene,” she said. “We’ve tried everything. Our environmental justice partners have tried everything. The system is totally biased toward development and community input is virtually meaningless. It’s a box you check and that’s what needs to change.”
The letter signers are not asking to shut down existing warehouses, Phillips said.
“I think people get really scared when you talk about a moratorium because … it’s like a very serious word,” she said. “What it really is is a pause and it’s a pause for reflection and collaboration.”
According to the letter, 90% of Southern California’s warehouse growth in the past decade occurred in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and the Inland Empire today has 1 billion square feet of warehouse space with another 170 million square feet approved or pending.
The letter states that Inland warehouse truck traffic generates 15 billion pounds of carbon dioxide — the major climate change culprit — as well as 30 million pounds of nitric oxide and 300,000 pounds of diesel particulate matter. Both are blamed for a variety of health ailments, with diesel particulate being linked to cancer.
New warehouses are being built at a rate that’s five times the Inland population growth rate, and efforts to phase out diesel truck engines in California won’t be completed until 2045 and won’t solve other issues like warehouse worker safety and truck noise and traffic, the letter read.
More than 300 warehouses are 1,000 feet or less from 139 Inland Empire schools and 60% of the people who live within a quarter mile of a warehouse are Latino, according to the letter.
“Continued warehouse growth despite community harm and widespread neighborhood opposition is environmental racism in its classic terms,” the letter argues.
The letter proposes a one- to two-year moratorium on new Inland warehouses to take steps to protect the public. These include having California Department of Justice lawyers represent residents near warehouses, retrofitting schools near warehouse or truck routes and require city council members to get training in environmental justice, community health and climate change.
In his piece, Hagman called warehouse moratoriums or bans “misguided proposals (that) gloss over the real-world and draconian impact their potential bans would have on supply chains in local communities and the entire region.”
“Virtually everything” in Hagman’s commentary is “totally refutable,” Phillips said.
“I’m actually more interested in co-creating a vision of the future that we want to fight for together,” she said. “But there’s no way that will ever happen. There’s just … this entrenched divisiveness … It’s really toxic and it’s really depressing.”
