Open letter to the board of directors Bay Area Air Quality (BAAQMD)

Dear Leaders,

Several years ago I organized a small group of moms — The Defenders of Clean Air eQuality. We have spoken to, met with, emailed to, and called: code enforcement, SJBeautify, Bay Area Clean Air Management, Water Board, Water District, fire departments, police departments, the EPA and the district attorney. No organization is more enabled for protecting our air, than BAAQMD.

The priority for air quality should be to immediately stop the plastic, rubber, debris, and computer components fires at the numerous encampments in San Jose. Downtown San Jose has the most encampments of any other district and any other Santa Clara County city. San Jose had 22,000 encampments fires over the past two years and this does not included the multiple unreported fires.

Our children are our priority and Stanford recently came out with research showing — children who breathe the air from these polluted fires, suffer permanent and irreversible IQ damage.

We are exhausted by putting data into the BAAQMD phone app and reporting the various plastic smells with no results. Read our history here Moms on Fire

We need your leadership to develop an immediate plan to prioritize and protect the air we breathe from these daily fires, along with success metrics. Please let us know when we can expect the BAAQMD plan and metrics.

Thank you,

Irene

The Defenders of Clean Air eQuality