Right in our backyard: PG&E Pollutes Hunter's Point Bayview Neighborhood for 77 years

Despite years of community protests, PG$E dragged its feet about the shutdown of the Bayview Hunters Point plant – one of the dirtiest and oldest power plants in the state – labeled as the single largest stationary source of air pollution in San Francisco. 

During it's 77 year life-span, it polluted the neighborhood heavily with nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds that have been known to be cause respiratory problems, cancer, dizziness, fatigue and other illnesses. Women under 50 in Bayview Hunters Point have twice the rate of breast cancer as women in the rest of the City.

As history notes, power plants are inevitably located in low-income neighborhoods of color. According to U.S. census data, approximately 90% of HPBV is African American, Asian, and Hispanic combined. Nearly 40% of Bayview Hunters Point residents have  annual incomes below $15,000 and the unemployment rate is more than twice  as high as the City as a whole.

Literacy for Environmental Justice, a non-profit group in the neighborhood, frequently conducts 'Toxic Tours' - a part of which talks about the pollution caused by PG&E in the area.

There is now evidence that the toxic waste from the now shut down plant is to be transported to another low income neighborhood of color:

Amongst the many community groups that worked tirelessly to shut down the plant are GreenAction (see photos of their protests), Gray Panthers of San Francisco, PODER and Literacy for Environmental Justice.

A short selection of articles about the issue:

BVHP Demands Closure of PG&E Power Plant (By GreenAction for Indybay) 

Shut Down the Hunter's Point Power Plant (By Gray Panthers of San Francisco) 

GreenAction's PG&E Factsheet 

PG&E's Toxic Toll (By GreenAction) 

City Delays PG&E Power Program after Activists note that it favors downtown (San Francisco Bay Guardian) 

Victory! PG&E's Hunter's Point Power Plant is Closed! (San Francisco Bay Guardian) 

Activists Protest PG&E's Broken Promises in Hunter's Point (BeyondChron)

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PG&E's Pollution of the Hinkley Captured in a Hollywood Movie: Erin Brokovich

Even hollywood has caught on to PG&E's dirty history. The Erin Brockovich story, and blockbuster movie, illustrates how PG$E knowingly decided to suppress the truth about toxic chemicals leaking into a town’s water supply.

Thealth of countless people who lived in and around Hinkley, California, in the 1960's, 70's and 80's had been severely compromised by exposure to toxic Chromium 6, that had leaked into the groundwater from the nearby PG&E Compressor Station. In 1996, as a result of the largest direct action lawsuit of its kind, PG&E paid the largest toxic tort injury settlement in U.S. history: $333 million in damages to more than 600 Hinkley residents.

Links and articles on the issue:

Erin Brokovich: The Movie

PG&E Begins Demolition Work at Hinkley(Desert Dispatch)

PG&E Critic Doubtful About Settlement (USA Today)

Bitterness Lingers Like a Toxic Plume at Hinkley(Southern California Public Radio)

Hinkley Residents Question PG&E on Cleanup (Desert Dispatch)

PG&E: The Corporate Criminal (SF Bay Guardian)

The Real Erin Brokovich(Conservation Matters)

Brokovich Goes After PG&E Again(SF Chronicle)