Jennifer Gomez, 42, has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer of the blood cells.
Her great grandmother, Irene Gonzalez, is a 94-year-old leukemia and breast cancer survivor. Paul Gonzalez, Jennifer’s father, beat testicular cancer — twice.
Since the early 1960s, the family has lived on Island Avenue, just one block from the Port of Los Angeles and about one mile from the Phillips 66 Los Angeles refinery. Jennifer jokes that a sane family would have moved, but the family knows it’s not that simple.
The EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory data does not include another major source of pollution in Wilmington: The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the largest in the nation as well as the single largest fixed source of air pollution in Southern California; collectively, they are responsible for more pollution than daily emissions from 6 million cars.
Since 2000, more than 16 million pounds of toxic chemicals, primarily hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide, have been spewed into Wilmington’s air from industrial sites in the city, according to the EPA.
A new community survey exposes widespread cancer, asthma, anxiety, and depression in Wilmington, California.
By Adam Mahoney
A project for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2021 Data Fellowship, this story was produced in collaboration with High Country News.
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