Last month I moved into a new apartment in San Jose. For this blog entry, I decided to observe the county I just moved into, Santa Clara Country.
Santa Clara Country was ranked among the dirtiest/worst 10% of all counties in the U.S. for toxic chemicals released by Factories, Power Plants, and other Industrial Companies in 2002. The top two polluters are Owens Corning Corporation (180,227 pounds) and Hanson Permanente Cement (36,138). The top chemicals released into the country are Ammonia (130,175 pounds), Formaldehyde (54,992 pounds), and Hydrochloric Acid (36,542).
Only 1% of houses in Santa Clara country have a high of lead hazards
In 2004, Santa Clara County was ranked of the 10% dirtiest/worst counties in the US to have designated Superfund sites. Of the top Superfund sites were Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc. and CTS Printex Incorporated. AMD Inc. manufactures electronic equipment at a plant in Sunnyvale and has monitoring wells that are contaminated with like Chloroform, 1,1-Dichloroethylene, and Tetrachloroethylene. CTS Printex Inc. manufactures printed circuit boards in Mountain View and is known for high levels of copper and lead usage.
In 2003, Santa Clara County was ranked among the dirtiest/worst 10% of all counties in the U.S. for smog and soot as well as posing a cancer risk for hazardous air pollutants. The facility that let out the most emissions at 101 tons was Kaiser Cement Corp..
The water quality is just above the national average. The percentage of surface waters with impaired or threatened uses was at a 70%, while the number of impaired waterbodies was 60%.
Santa Clara County (95112) is rated poorly regarding environmental justice with the low-income communities and communities of color suffering greater impacts from environmental degradation.
Overall, learning these details about Santa Clara County was not all that surprising. San Jose is very much a town where you are in a nice neighborhood one minute and then a not very nice neighborhood the next minute. It is also a huge technology hub for many companies, so I am sure hundreds of toxic chemicals are being pumped into our environment without our knowledge everyday. I think just being aware of these different kinds of exposure is the most important part as we as humans can better protect outselves.
The amount of ammonia and formaldehyde that is being released in the county is alarming! I had assumed that Santa Clara County would be cleaner than SF because the surrounding area is predominately wealthy neighborhoods.
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