I recently moved to Santa Clara County, California. It’s
been close to year and half in this county and country. The environmental
health services offered by Santa Clara County are:
- Consumer Protection
Division (CPD)
- Drinking Water
- Food Program - Pool Program
- Tobacco and
Smoking Ordinance
- Indoor Air Quality
- Radon
- Lead Poisoning
Prevention
- Hazardous Materials
Compliance Division (HMCD)
- Hazardous
Materials
- Site Mitigation
Programs
- Underground
Storage Tanks
- Solid Waste
Programs (SWP)
- Body
Art
- Medical Waste
Management
- Pumper Management
- Solid Waste (LEA)
- Waste Tire
Enforcement
Who and What are the top polluters?
AMMONIA,
FORMALDEHYDE, MANGANESE COMPOUNDS, LEAD COMPOUNDS, HYDROCHLORIC ACID, MERCURY
COMPOUNDS, CHROMIUM COMPOUNDS, NICKEL COMPOUNDS, STYRENE.
What percent of homes in your zip code
have lead-based paint?
Are there SuperFund sites in your zip?
Superfund
sites are the nation's worst toxic waste sites.
What did you learn about the air quality in your zip code?
Santa Clara County ranked among the dirtiest/worst 10%
of all counties in the U.S. in terms of person-days in exceedance of national
air quality standard for ozone (8-hour).
How about the water quality?
How did your zip code fair on a
social justice/ environmental justice basis?
Santa Clara County
comprises of different races and ethnic communities with varied socio economic status.
Low income groups (occupational workers) are at high risk for diseases like asthma,
allergy and dermatitis. The worst part
is that, their insurance will not cover the burden of the disease. I could
clearly sense it during my internship tenure at Breathe California.
I would say,
screening programs for these high risk groups should be made mandatory by the
policy makers and public health departments. In that way, public health issues
can be narrowed marginally in high risk groups.
