M3.4 Air Quality

  • Who and what are the top polluters in your zip code?

This list shows the top 10 polluters in my zipcode of 96815. There are 3 types of businesses that makes up this list, electric, gas, and cement companies.  The number 1 polluter Kalaeloa Partners are an electric company.

  • What percent of the homes in your zipcode have lead-based paint?
There are 1% of homes in my zipped that have lead-based paint which is considerably low.

  • Are there Superfund sites in your zip?  (In your BLOG, make sure to tell us what a Superfund Site is)
Superfund Site is establish by Congress to combat the hazardous waste dumps around the country. Super sites allows EPA to clean up contaminated sites and forces the parties responsible for the contamination to either perform cleanups or pay the government for having the EPA cleanup.

There are 3 Superfund sites in my zipcode.

  • What can you tell us about the Superfund sites that are near where you live?
The 3 Superfund sites where I live are 1 plantation, and 2 federal sites that deals with computers, telecommunication and shipyard. It does make sense that these 3 sites are Superfund, because they deal with a lot of waste products and if leaked out into the public, it may pose health issues.
  • What did you learn about the air quality in your zipcode?
According to the data,Honolulu do have good air quality 99% of days throughout the year, but we do rank unhealthful in the pollutant standards index which mean we are emitting pollutants into our air.
  • How about the water quality?
There were not much information provided for Hawaii regarding water quality, Hawaii was ranked 42 in the amount of animal waste in water which is pretty low, with Alaska having the lowest amount of animal waste.
  • How did your zipcode fair on a social justice / environmental justice basis?

There were information on environmental justice and it's based on race and ethnicity. Looking at the data, the numbers were close on the distribution of burdens. The largest gap was among working and non-working class people, which I think the results did take into the large homeless population in Honolulu.

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 6, 2018 at 5:30 PM

    Hi Feng,

    I am so jealous that you have such better air and water quality than here in the Contra Costa County. It must be because of the tropical weather. However, I thought there might be a correlation between the number of Superfund Sites and air quality but that looks like it is false. You should consider yourself lucky you live in such a beautiful area where you don't have to worry about as many contaminants.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFebruary 11, 2018 at 5:08 PM

    It is interesting to see that the distribution of burdens are close in your area. I think you are right though, the reason why there is a larger difference in percentage between working class people and non working class people might be because of the homeless population in Honolulu. I remember when I visited Hawaii for a few months (a number of years ago) I saw a larger number of homeless residents than other cities.

    ReplyDelete

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