Protecting Vallejo’s Environment
For All of Us
Fresh Air Vallejo, Inc. is a group of volunteers of all ages working together, forging community coalitions, and promoting environmental justice. We work to protect our air, lands, water, health, and opportunities in the historically overburdened City of Vallejo. We embrace positive change, education, and equity, building a better tomorrow, today.
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Learn About Our Historic Victory Against VMT /ORCEM
We Have the Power to Change Our Future, and We’re Doing Something About It
Fresh Air Vallejo is a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit organization in the city of Vallejo, California, advocating for community Health, Environment, Environmental Justice, and Education. We work collaboratively with regional, state, and national allies on a range of issues, from climate change and remediation efforts to reviewing proposed industrial and development projects. Fresh Air Vallejo acknowledges the land where we live: the ancestral home of Patwin people, including the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation who have remained committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries: cherished and protected, as elders have instructed their young through generations. We are grateful and honored to live here on their unceded, traditional territories.
From 2015 to 2019, Fresh Air Vallejo worked to stop a disastrous proposal for a marine terminal and cement plant on Vallejo’s waterfront that would have operated 24/7 bringing fly ash, slag, and other hazardous materials, off-loaded in the open air. Their Draft Environmental Impact Report made it clear that their business would generate toxic air pollution exceeding legal limits close to an elementary school, senior housing, and other at-risk communities. This became the genesis of Fresh Air Vallejo, and are a few of many issues tackled by our volunteers. In May 2019, the project applicant withdrew thanks to our efforts and those of innumerable other supporters, agencies, organizations, and neighbors – possibly even you!
Environmental Justice
‘Fresh Air For All’ sounds reasonable, but clean air and environment don’t just happen, especially in an urban setting. Without community awareness and action, new pollution is always placed in areas already overly impacted. Vallejo is significantly stressed by environmental burdens: located in a web of refineries, heavy industry, and major freeways. Fresh Air Vallejo believes that environmental justice is an enforceable public policy, consistent with the active reduction of air pollution in redlined, environmentally-over-burdened sacrifice zones.
Collected Solano County data proves the negative health impacts of pollution showing that South Vallejo has some of the highest levels of asthma and allergies in California and the United States. We need to change that story to one where accountability and environmental justice principles guide city decisions.
Fresh Air Vallejo is working for environmental justice by raising awareness of local environmental concerns, organizing for positive change, and working to advance policy to protect our communities. We work with other groups through education and grassroots advocacy for social change. When we work together, change happens!
Vallejo is working on three critical elements as updates to its General Plan: Environmental Justice, Housing, and Safety & Resilience, which Fresh Air Vallejo will be following closely. You can get updates from the City here: https://www.myvallejo.com/3eu
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BREATHMOBILE
Fresh Air Vallejo is working with the Prescott-Joseph Center to bring the Northern California Breathmobile Program to Vallejo. The Breathmobiel is a sustainable, accessible, community-wide program that provide full-service asthma management and education primarily for underserved children and families in Alameda and West Contra Costa. Staffed by asthma specialists, the Breathmobile visits pre-schools, K-12 schools and community centers every 4-6 weeks, seeing children with asthma. This program is provided free to all patients. Its goals are to
- Reduce asthma-related emergency room visits;
- Reduce asthma-related hospitalizations,
- Reduce school absenteeism due to asthma, and
- Improve asthma management and education for families and children with asthma.
Expansion of this program to Vallejo is made possible through a grant from the California Air Resources Board and numerous additional donors, with the cooperation of the Vallejo City Unified School District, and Touro University. https://breathmobile-nca.org
STORYCorps
Our 4-year-long community and legal battle to stop a major polluter from seriously harming Vallejo’s community through over-the-legal limit air pollution is one of the most successful volunteer-led efforts in the nation. There are many, many people with action stories who involved themselves in the work of raising awareness on the health hazards and terrible long term costs of the proposed cement plant.
The volunteer stories are being collected through StoryCorps. This amazing non-profit project is a place where Americans are encouraged to tell their stories for permanent archive in the American Folklife center of Library of Congress.
Shamus Thornton interviews Jennifer Goheen and our co-founder Coleen Cole about our origin and history, and the fight to proptect Vallejo. StoryCorps’ mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories, to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world.
We’re in the Beta phase of this work. Do you have stories to tell? Would you like to help? Check the link below to see what we’ve begun.
Air Purifiers Distributed in Vallejo
Solano Community Foundation and Nonprofit Partners Distributed over 100 Air Purifiers in South Vallejo on Sunday “Solano Community Foundation Funds New Strategies that may Keep South Vallejo Kids Healthier During “Wildfire Season'” (Fairfield, Calif.) – It was cold...
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Fresh Air Vallejo would like to thank our past and present supporters.
