Pollution-Burdened LB Youth Fighting for a "New Normal"

Photo Credit: halbergman

For many Californians, “earthquakes” aren’t out of the norm. But the rotten egg-like odor may be. It's how 16-year-old Dennise Lievanos knew the shaking her community experiences isn’t actually an earthquake. It’s just another of the disruptions to daily life that has been forced upon residents living near refineries.

“When one of those first happened, the houses shook from side to side, but everyone really took it as like, ‘Oh, it's an earthquake. It's nothing too serious,’” Lievanos said. “But then, this egg smell started coming and we were kind of confused.”

Lievanos has lived in this area of West Long Beach her whole life, and she said the exposure to pollution caused members of her family to develop asthma.

West Long Beach is known for facing higher exposure to pollution than other areas of the city, especially more affluent areas. Residents of the area live next to multiple refineries and the 710 freeway, which is heavily used by truck drivers moving goods to and from the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles. Both ports describe themselves as among the busiest ports in the nation.

Youth members of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice during a 2019 protest against freeway expansions. Photo Credit: Ceferino Martirez

Business as Usual

The three most recent versions of the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s CalEnviroscreen, which collects emissions and environmental data for census tracts, show that most of both North and West Long Beach rank between 80% to 100% in pollution burden.

Emergency department visits for asthma and cardiovascular diseases in these areas also rank between 80% and 100%. Rates in these regions only dip into the 70s in the 2014 CalEnviroscreen.

Ruthie Heis, a freshman at Long Beach Polytechnic High School, who also lives in West Long Beach, has experienced seeing the impact these emissions have on residents’ health as well.

“Growing up in Webster [Elementary], we were assigned buddies to help carry classmates when they could no longer walk to the nurse's office because they had asthma attacks,” Heis said.

Heis explained that on days when emissions from refineries were high, students would have to stay indoors.

“We were running around once and there's a kid who was running around and suddenly he just dropped and the bell rang. We all had to rush back inside,” Heis said, recalling a day during a physical education class.

Heis felt lucky to not experience the respiratory illnesses many others exposed to these conditions live with, which some of her friends do. Rohan Reddy, who Heis works with as a part of the Long Beach Green Schools Campaign, had to use his inhaler in between parts of a speech at a rally, where he was speaking about the environment and his asthma, according to Heis.

Reddy, who lives in the Los Cerritos neighborhood near two freeways, said he has been dealing with asthma since he was six months old.

“Every morning, when I wake up I do two things,” Reddy said. “I check the weather and I check the air quality.”

He does this to know two things, if he needs to prepare to use his inhaler and if he needs to stay indoors as much as possible. Though the start of the pandemic led to him seeing better air quality than is normal, the pandemic itself made going outside something he couldn’t do anyways.

The prevalence of these emissions has had long term impacts on the areas’ residents. Per the Long Beach Health Departments’ community health assessment, areas like North and West Long Beach have lower life expectancy than parts of the city closer to the coast and farther from freeways or refineries.

Members of the Long Beach Green Schools Campaign march during a rally in support of transitioning the school district away from fossil fuels. Photo Credit: Briana Mendez-Padilla

Envisioning a new normal

While the environmental burden these youth experience has largely remained the same, they’ve recently found themselves getting involved in campaigns aiming to change their day-to-day conditions.

“I'm a child and I'm out here, spending my free time advocating,” Heis said. “So I want to see older generations putting in the effort to make a difference and kind of allow us to do the things that we're proposing.”

As members of the Green Schools Campaign, Reddy and Heis have been advocating the Long Beach Unified School District to transition away from relying on fossil fuels for the school district’s energy needs. But their hopes lay beyond the school district.

“I know that a major contributor to the pollution is obviously burning fossil fuels, cars, power plants, oil refineries, things like that. So if we could start to transition off of fossil fuels to clean, renewable resources that would help to improve life for everyone,” Reddy said.

Meanwhile, Lievanos has become involved with the local organization East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, which has given her a place to connect with other local youth experiencing similar issues — and learn how to advocate for better conditions. She recently joined the organization in advocating against a railyard proposed to be built in her community, which has currently been delayed.

“The more you start speaking the more you start valuing your own words and your own perspective,” Lievanos said. “And, you know, our mentalities change to like no, we're gonna make them hear us. Like if they don't want to hear us, they're gonna hear us,” referencing organizations like the ports.

Lievanos hopes her efforts can help play a part in changing the environment her community lives with, diminishing the headaches and heat they experience.

“I just hope, one day I don't have to ride the bus to school and see all this smoke from refineries and instead see more green [space], more blue skies,” Lievanos said. “Stars up in the night, like that's literally what we all hope for.”