City of Fresno must balance economic growth with residents’ health, well-being | Opinion
In South Central Fresno, we've seen firsthand how planning decisions made by our local representatives have long-lasting impacts on our environment, health, and well-being. It's well-documented that residents living in Fresno's south and southwest communities live, on average, 20 years less than our neighbors in the north.
According to the California Environmental Protection Agency, our community is among the most environmentally burdened in the state. Our extraordinarily high levels of hazardous air pollution led the California Air Resources Board to select us for a Community Air Monitoring Plan and Community Emissions Reduction Program.
But all of these plans, programs, and environmental review processes put in place by the state to protect us are meaningless when local city and county officials continue to support the decades-long tradition of zoning our neighborhoods for industrial development, no matter the costs to our lives.
And the question we get most often in response to our concerns is, why don't you move? We, and thousands of other South Fresnans, have families who have lived here for generations, we've built our homes here, raised our families here, and dedicated years of our lives to ensure our community remains standing.
But we deserve more than just to survive. We deserve a community where we can walk our children safely to school, sleep soundly through the night without noise and vibrations from heavy duty truck traffic and light pollution from warehouse facilities just outside our doors. And breathe our air and drink our water without thoughts of cancer, heart disease, respiratory illness and premature death that have touched the lives of every person in our community.
It's not just our community who deserves these rights, but all communities in Fresno. It's why we exercise our inherent right to participate in public decision-making that impacts our health and our community.
Those who have met with us and listened to our concerns understand why we filed a lawsuit demanding that the City of Fresno adhere to environmental laws when making long-range planning decisions. They may not agree with it, but a court did last month, ruling that the city had in fact failed to complete an adequate and legally compliant environmental review of its General Plan.
Environmental impact reports, required by state law, ensure communities understand how projects will impact their community's future and mitigate any significant impacts on communities' environmental quality and public health. The city unfortunately cut corners with its General Plan Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR), allowing developers to streamline projects without fully assessing potential impacts.
Despite extensive and detailed comments by our community throughout the nearly three year process to develop the PEIR, the city approved a legally deficient document in 2021, leaving a lawsuit as our last resort to ensure projects that would harm communities don't move forward without a clear assessment of impacts and implementation of adequate mitigation measures.
Since the court ruling, developers and even some local electeds have questioned the intentions of our community group. While not surprising, it is disheartening, and only confirms that community concerns are too easy for them to ignore unless the burden borne by communities becomes a burden to them and their interests.
We are not deterred. We'll keep fighting for a Fresno where industry and community concerns are considered equally and welcome collaboration with local representatives and others that wish to do so. There are many opportunities in front of us right now to build a healthier and safer Fresno beyond completing legally compliant environmental reviews. In fact, several plans are under review at present, including the Truck Reroute Study and South Central Specific Plan.
In all of our advocacy for our vision of South Central, we've never said "no" to economic development that protects our health and well-being. But Fresno's economic growth cannot be built on the backs of people who already suffer from the worst impacts.
This administration has an opportunity to succeed where others have failed by breaking the pattern of harmful planning decisions and adopting protections for communities near industrial projects. We believe there is a path forward that prioritizes all residents of the fifth-largest city in California, and we look forward to working with the mayor and city council to find solutions.
Panfilo Cerrillo is a member of the community group South Fresno Community Alliance.
