STOP: PACOIMA
LISTEN/DOWNLOAD [MP3]
SB CUE Where I-5 and I-405 diverge
NB CUE Immediately after you finish Burbank, or at Van Nuys Blvd.
SITE
Multiple sites
View LANDSAT Map
LOCATION
Price-Pfister Faucet Manufacturing Plant, 13500 Paxton St.
Holchem, Inc. 13546 Desmond St.
THREATS AND CONTAMINANTS
Diesel emissions, particulate matter (PM), chrome, lead, groundwater contamination, Brownfield redevelopment with inadequate remediation, asthma
VOICE
Lucia Torres, Pacoima Beautiful
First permanently settled in 1887, Pacoima was an agricultural community that grew up around the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. The Southern Diaspora fed the growing World War II manufacturing industry in the San Fernando Valley, and the need for worker housing at Lockheed's Burbank aircraft plant led to the construction of the racially integrated San Fernando Gardens housing project in Pacoima. After the war, Pacoima continued to house manufacturing industries now associated with groundwater contamination, such as hexavalent chromium, from chrome plating.
Surrounded by three freeways, Pacoima covers nine square miles of the San Fernando Valley. The community is eighty-two percent Latino, with a population of over 97,000. Pacoima is heavily residential, and diesel trucks cycle through residential neighborhoods, emitting diesel fumes into homes. Schools in Pacoima are located close to the freeways, contributing to a high rate of youth asthma. Additionally, weather patterns push and hold air pollution in Pacoima against the San Gabriel and Verdugo Mountains. Daytime heating patterns in Los Angeles also complicate the problem of groundwater contamination, causing it to vaporize in the day and recondense at night, leading to the potential for subsurface vapor intrusion into homes.
Pacoima is home to five Superfund sites; American Etching and Manufacturing, D & M Steel, Holchem, Inc., HR Textron-Glenoaks, and Price Pfister, Inc. The former Price-Pfister Faucet Plant Superfund site was recently redesignated as a Brownfield for redevelopment. After Pacoima residents were sickened during the removal of contaminated soil at Price-Pfister, Pacoima Beautiful succeeded in halting unsafe clean-up practices, and adding community input to the soil remediation process.
LISTEN/DOWNLOAD [MP3]
SB CUE Where I-5 and I-405 diverge
NB CUE Immediately after you finish Burbank, or at Van Nuys Blvd.
SITE
Multiple sites
View LANDSAT Map
LOCATION
Price-Pfister Faucet Manufacturing Plant, 13500 Paxton St.
Holchem, Inc. 13546 Desmond St.
THREATS AND CONTAMINANTS
Diesel emissions, particulate matter (PM), chrome, lead, groundwater contamination, Brownfield redevelopment with inadequate remediation, asthma
VOICE
Lucia Torres, Pacoima Beautiful
First permanently settled in 1887, Pacoima was an agricultural community that grew up around the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. The Southern Diaspora fed the growing World War II manufacturing industry in the San Fernando Valley, and the need for worker housing at Lockheed's Burbank aircraft plant led to the construction of the racially integrated San Fernando Gardens housing project in Pacoima. After the war, Pacoima continued to house manufacturing industries now associated with groundwater contamination, such as hexavalent chromium, from chrome plating.
Surrounded by three freeways, Pacoima covers nine square miles of the San Fernando Valley. The community is eighty-two percent Latino, with a population of over 97,000. Pacoima is heavily residential, and diesel trucks cycle through residential neighborhoods, emitting diesel fumes into homes. Schools in Pacoima are located close to the freeways, contributing to a high rate of youth asthma. Additionally, weather patterns push and hold air pollution in Pacoima against the San Gabriel and Verdugo Mountains. Daytime heating patterns in Los Angeles also complicate the problem of groundwater contamination, causing it to vaporize in the day and recondense at night, leading to the potential for subsurface vapor intrusion into homes.
Pacoima is home to five Superfund sites; American Etching and Manufacturing, D & M Steel, Holchem, Inc., HR Textron-Glenoaks, and Price Pfister, Inc. The former Price-Pfister Faucet Plant Superfund site was recently redesignated as a Brownfield for redevelopment. After Pacoima residents were sickened during the removal of contaminated soil at Price-Pfister, Pacoima Beautiful succeeded in halting unsafe clean-up practices, and adding community input to the soil remediation process.
