When I became City Attorney, I pledged to do my part to stand up for environmental justice and equity because every San Franciscan deserves to live in a safe, healthy environment, no matter their zip code.
That’s why, this past week, my office intervened to stop toxic dust pollution in San Francisco’s Bayview community. Several construction companies were illegally operating in the Bayview Candlestick Point neighborhood right next to a dense, residential area, and my office issued an order to these companies to immediately cease and desist their operations.
The neighborhood is not zoned for the industrial work that these companies were doing. More importantly, the intense dust, pollution, and noise from the construction had become both public health and environmental hazards for the Bayview community.
These conditions would not be tolerated in any other San Francisco neighborhood, and we cannot tolerate them in the Bayview. There have long been concerns about environmental health hazards in the southeast portion of our City, part of a historic trend in cities across America of predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods being treated as a pollution free-for-all.