Shortly after my husband and I had our daughter, Alani, we decided to move to Fontana, California, because it's close to my family. This town is where I grew up and is home to my roots and my community. Watching Alani grow up here, near my brother and my parents, is a true blessing and has played a big part in shaping who she is-- an awesome five-year-old kid with incredible spirit.
Living in this area, though, has affected Alani’s health. She and so many kids in our community are breathing the dirtiest air in the nation, which is affecting her ability to run, play and be a kid. We shouldn’t have to choose between breathing clean air or being close to my family.
Communities like ours are on the frontlines of air pollution. We’re neighbors to gas plants like Etiwanda and Mountain View, highways, and big warehouse developments. Over the years, we’ve watched how our environment is affecting Alani. Her upper respiratory infections routinely wake her up in the middle of the night or in the morning. The panic and fear on her face still rattles me every time she struggles to breathe. In just five years on this earth, Alani has been rushed to the hospital as many times due to severe attacks.
After Alani’s first visit to the emergency room, she was prescribed an inhaler to fight off future flare ups and calm her wheezing. But the devices were scary to her. We called the first inhaler “Teddy Bear” to help make Alani feel less scared. It breaks my heart that we’re relating an inhaler to a child’s toy.
To say I’m furious would be an understatement. Study after study has shown what air pollution does to kids’ lungs, brain development and overall quality of life. Watching what Alani and kids like her go through should be enough to inspire real and meaningful action, but for decades it hasn’t.
Our air regulators cave to polluters time after time at our expense. They’re taking a pass on cutting vehicle pollution that warehouses attract, one of the biggest sources of air pollution here in the Inland Empire. One of the new warehouses would bring 14,000 trucks and their diesel-spewing tailpipes through our community each day. They’re giving refineries and gas plants our money to encourage polluters to do the right thing. Meanwhile, cheap, local and reliable clean energy solutions sit on the table. The South Coast Air Quality Management District, or AQMD, has to demand polluters to follow the law instead of paying them to do so.
Our regulators talk about how hard it is to make the air safe to breathe, but I promise you it’s harder being five years old and unsure of your next breath. I’m sick of seeing Alani suffer. I’m tired of talking with other parents about watching their own kids suffer with asthma. It’s unacceptable that we’ve carried on like this for so long when all the solutions to achieve safe air are on the table in front of us. The AQMD has all the authority it needs to clean up the air. I plead with them to do it for Alani and the millions of kids that live here.
For the sake of our children and community health as a whole, the people charged with protecting our air must do more and prioritize the people most heavily burdened. If they don’t, my child will grow up not knowing what it’s like to breathe clean air every day.