| Comment | My name is Jennifer Holden, and I support the position of the
Sacramento Environmental Justice Coalition that AB617 has not been
as effective as possible due to following issues:
Lack of transparency and commitment to the law. AB617 is intended
to address non-mobile pollutions sources. The local AB617 committee
and Sacramento AQMD deliberately avoided major areas of concern to
local BIPOC and low-income communities by creating boundaries and
geographic restrictions to exclude high impacted areas.
$23 Million has been with AB617 spent and it has had no impact on
the most polluted neighborhoods intentionally excluded from the
process.
We ask that CARB establish higher standards for local Air Quality
Management Districts to have a robust, inclusive and broad based
process to implement AB617 according to the law.
The number of committee representatives on AB617 cannot be
arbitrarily restrictive. The Sac-EJC.org is the largest EJ
organization in Sacramento and after several attempts to join,
BIPOC EJ leaders were not selected to be on the board.
There has to be an accounting of how the funds are used with strong
evidence that marginalized communities in EJ zones directly benefit
significantly through transformative health outcomes and cleaner
industry practices. Health Program Evaluators must be included in
the process.
And I personally am still waiting for a Federal EPA air quality
monitor to be installed and connected to the SMAQMD
minute-by-minute online reporting of PM2.5 and ozone levels at:
https://www.sparetheair.com/aqirealtime.cfm so that South Area
residents can finally see their PM2.5 and ozone levels the same as
Arden-Arcade and Elk Grove. The largest hole in an urban area in
this County-wide reporting system is over South Sacramento.
Sincerely, Jennifer Holden
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