Suing to Protect Community’s Air and Earth

For generations, Dow Chemical, now Corteva, operated a chemical plant in Pittsburg, Contra Costa county, where it conducted chemical R&D and manufactured products for largely agricultural operations. The facility operates as a state-permitted treatment, storage, and disposal facility and operates under two hazardous waste permits issued by the Department of Toxic Substances Control (“DTSC”) – a permit for hazardous waste drum storage and a permit for two boilers and industrial furnaces.

During a 2016 inspection, U.S. EPA documented violations of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”) and of Dow/Corteva’s hazardous waste permits. After the inspection, neither EPA nor DTSC took enforcement action. In December 2019, we filed a federal complaint, and have intervened in a state case brought by Cal/EPA and DTSC.

Corteva has announced it will cease operation of the facility, and we are negotiating to ensure ongoing community safety.

The former Central Metal, Inc. (“CMI”) site was a scrap metal facility that dismantled large metal objects, like buses, house trailers, fire engines, and rail cars.  Despite a long history of hazardous releases documented by DTSC, the Water Board, the Air District, CARB and U.S. EPA, CMI was allowed to operate for decades next door to residents in Walnut Park and just two blocks from homes in Florence-Firestone.  After years of CBE organizing and community action, L.A. County denied CMI’s permit to operate in 2016, and recycling activities were prohibited.   

Members were excited to weigh in on the future use of the site. However, U-Haul purchased the site in 2021. Without consulting the community, U-Haul plans to develop a self-storage facility with a rental vehicle repair shop and a resident manager’s apartment. Despite community members’ active advocacy to reenvision the site, this project was approved ministerially and without addressing residents’ concerns regarding contamination risk from grading heavily contaminated soil, increased air pollution from the additional truck traffic to and from the site, the extraction and transporting of hazardous waste, and potential exposure to VOCs from vehicle repair operations.   

In a 2024 draft Response Plan, U-Haul described the proposed clean-up, involving a “dig and haul” operation to remove contaminated soil.  Though flawed, the Plan gives a harrowing picture of the vast unknowns regarding how much toxic materials are on site, where they originate, and what emissions may result from remediation. Additionally, while the Plan estimates 360 truck trips will transport contaminated soil, it does not analyze emissions coming from any truck trips.

Moreover, the Plan admits that fugitive dust emissions of contaminant-laden soil could affect passers-by and members of the public in adjacent residential and commercial properties.  Lastly, the Plan acknowledges that the extent of off-site residential vapor intrusion contamination for the homes less than 100ft from the site is unknown, anticipating that DTSC will be “requesting additional on-site delineation” to assess the risks.  On June 25, 2025, DTSC approved the Response Plan with minimal changes, and filed a Notice of Exemption, asserting that based on the Commonsense Exemption from CEQA, it was obvious the remediation activities would not have a potentially significant impact on communities or the environment. 

The clean-up activities began almost immediately upon DTSC approval, including loud noises, vibrations and dust from site disturbances. CBE filed suit within days, seeking a restraining order. While the court denied our request, U-Haul acknowledged it had not secured the necessary grading permits to conduct the operation and temporarily halted.

Founded in 1906, the AB&I Foundry (AB&I) in East Oakland was one of the largest industrial sources of air pollution in the City of Oakland, located less than half a mile upwind of a public library and two elementary schools with over 600 students. AB&I has repeatedly been found to violate permitting requirements and has faced thousands of dollars in fines for other violations.  After years of community odor complaints to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (“BAAQMD”), the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”), and California Environmental Protection Agency, Notices of Violation and Public Nuisance were issued beginning in 2019 by both BAAQMD and CARB. 

When a BAAQMD health risk assessment (“HRA”) showed a substantial cancer risk from hexavalent chromium CBE brought suit under California’s Proposition 65 (Prop 65). Prop 65 requires businesses like AB&I to warn the public about “significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.” Hexavalent chromium is one of the most potent carcinogens on the Prop 65 list, but the HRA was the first inkling CBE received suggesting exposure. 

The California Attorney General’s office filed a related suit, and in 2023, AB&I announced it would close the facility entirely. With lead counsel Michael Freund, CBE, the AG’s office and CARB negotiated a settlement directing funds to provide healthcare services to residents, and support youth air quality monitoring.  

Los Angeles is home to an extensive warehouse industry that primarily serves the LA and Long Beach ports. These warehouses are concentrated in frontline communities like Wilmington, with historically high pollution burdens. They are served almost exclusively by diesel trucks. As a result, communities living in close proximity to warehouses and truck routes are regularly cloaked with toxic doses of diesel particulate matter—and suffer from elevated ozone levels due to NOx emissions from passing trucks. To make matters worse, as the e-commerce industry continues to grow, so do the number of warehouses, the distribution channels that support them, and diesel emissions from increased truck traffic. 

Although the South Coast Air Quality Management District (“SCAQMD”) does not have power to regulate mobile sources such as diesel trucks, it is granted authority under the federal Clean Air Act and California law to enact indirect source rules (“ISR”) covering warehouses. ISRs operate by treating a collection of mobile sources as a stationary source which is then subject to regulation. The indirect source rule for warehouses (“Rule 2305”) is the first of its kind. Rule 2305 will require warehouses greater than 100,000 square feet to directly reduce NOx and diesel PM, or to facilitate emission and exposure reductions of these pollutants. 

On August 5, 2021, shortly after SCAQMD adopted Rule 2305, the California Trucking Association filed a complaint in federal court seeking to overturn it. Natural Resources Defense Council’s (“NRDC”) and Earthjustice’s LA office intervened, and are representing CBE and other community voices to provide a community-centered viewpoint to the court.

Located on the Bay edge of East Oakland, the Oakland airport (OAK) contributes vast amounts of air pollution, traffic and noise to the neighborhoods where we organize.

In 2024, the Port of Oakland circulated a draft environmental impact report with vague descriptions of a massive expansion project that may double the number of gates at OAK. CBE and many allies submitted comments decrying, among other things, the failures to comply with CEQA’s most basic project description requirements, to acknowledge the harms the project may impose on the community, and to mitigate and choose alternatives that would reduce the impacts.

The Port nevertheless approved the EIR, and CBE sued, with lead counsel Jonathan Weissglass representing CBE and Sierra Club.