Airport Ultrafine Particulate Pollution

7/20/23 Hosted by Communities for a Better Environment and Stop OAK Expansion Coalition

Link to Recording

Learn about ultra fine particles (UFP's), tiny particles from airplane emissions that have a huge impact on the air quality and health of communities near airports, from guest presenter Debi Wagner, longtime activist at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Debi Wagner will be presenting information on a multi year investigation of an invisible threat-the aviation sourced ultrafine particulate emissions (UFP) from primarily jet aircraft in the vicinity of Sea-Tac Airport in Washington State. As an advisory board member on the UW MOV-UP studies (https://deohs.washington.edu/mov-up) since 2016/2017 looking at UFP in neighborhoods around the airport, her focus for this presentation is to share information she believes most relevant to airport impacted communities’ public health concerns.

  • Community Advocate, University of Washington MOV-UP Advisory, Quiet Skies Puget Sound, Quiet Skies Coalition

    Debi Wagner became involved as a community advocate in the early 90’s as a newly impacted resident under a busy sky highway near Sea-Tac Airport. As a vocal opponent to a third Sea-Tac runway, she was elected President of a large grassroots organization. She was subsequently hired as Administrative Director of a non-profit umbrella organization Regional Commission on Airport Affairs reaching 34,000 residents with news and information. She authored the book Over My Head documenting events of the nearly 15 year opposition to the third runway. In 1998 Debi co-founded a national environmental organization of US groups with ties to 26 European countries. She has continued to advocate for the interests of communities impacted by aviation, network with researchers and work with local, state and federal representatives.

    Debi’s primary interest for nearly 30 years has been to gain understanding of the impact of aviation emissions on health, welfare and the environment. In 2014, as an elected City Council Member she had a greater opportunity to make connections with decisionmakers and community. This experience has helped her be part of a successful model collaborating with researchers, legislators and community groups for funding and academic pursuits resulting in changes in legislation, broadening scientific knowledge, and pursuing environmental justice. For the past six years she has been an advisory board member for the University of Washington MOV-UP (UW DEOHS) studies and currently a member of the King County Climate Task Force.

Flight or Fight? The Climate Justice Impacts of Air Travel and the Oakland Airport Expansion

2/13/22 Hosted by Sunflower Alliance, 350 Contra Costa, and Stop OAK Expansion Coalition

Link to Recording

Dan Rutherford, Aviation Director at the International Council on Clean Transportation, has advised international, national, and local governments on emissions control policies for aircraft for almost 15 years. He speaks about ICCT’s research on airline and airport emissions and linkages between fuel efficiency, traffic growth, and airport capacity. The ICCT has developed the Airport Tracker, an online tool that illustrates the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated from aircraft departing from airports around the world: https://airporttracker.org Look up Oakland International Airport and the other bay area airports to see the climate impacts of air travel. 

Casey Coward, shares how the SEIU United Service Workers West, the union that represents thousands of service workers at California's airports, organized over the past year against the LAX airport expansion plans in a campaign that brought together union and climate activists. Casey Coward touches upon the environmental justice concerns and other common threads between the LAX and OAK campaigns. For further reading check out this report: TURBULENCE AHEAD What LAX’s Expansion Means for the City of Los Angeles’ Legacy on Racial Equity & Environmental Justice.

Other Information Given out at the event: https://stay-grounded.org/

Biofuel and Refinery Transition: Report from KPFA Terra Verde featuring neighbors of P66 Rodeo Refinery speaking about hard realities of conversion of the refinery https://kpfa.org/episode/terra-verde-december-3-2021/ This blog post includes links to comment letters on Draft EIRs of refinery conversions, addresses lots of issues of feedstocks in the refining process; the letters are really substantive.