Amazon-led US warehouse expansion fuels health concerns
In the United States, the rise of e-commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated investments in logistics infrastructure, particularly in warehousing. Despite a possible downturn in the logistics sector this year, the warehouse boom continues.
Industry giants like Amazon are setting up warehouses in rural Southern California, where affordable locations are near two of the world’s busiest ports. As of 2021, there are over 4,000 warehouses in the Inland Empire region, spanning over a billion square feet.
While developers tout logistics projects as job creators, environmental and community advocates are sounding the alarm about the facilities’ destructive impacts.
“It’s a situation where we continue to invest in polluting infrastructure that is specially organized to primarily impact poor people of color, the majority of whom are Latino,” Susan Phillips, professor of environmental analysis at Pitzer College, told DW. “Your kids come home with bloody noses from playing outside. They miss days of school because of asthma attacks.”
Advocates called on the state government to implement a moratorium on building warehouses to analyze their impacts and artisanal solutions.
Warehouse center or ‘sacrifice zone’?
Diesel trucks, trains and planes transport 40% of the country’s goods through the Inland Empire, and researchers and community groups believe the resulting pollution is making people sick. “It’s what people call the sacrifice zone,” Phillips said.
According to “Warehouse CITY,” a project led by the Robert Redford Conservancy of Pitzer College for Sustainability in Southern California, directed by Phillips, warehouses in the region generate more than 600,000 truck trips a day. Annually, operations release more than 300,000 pounds of diesel particulate matter (PM), 30 million pounds of nitric oxide and 15 billion pounds of CO2.
A report by the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ), The Robert Redford Conservancy and the Sierra Club point to unusually high rates of cancer, asthma and other illnesses in San Bernardino and Riverside counties of the Inland Empire. These counties have some of the worst air quality in the country.
Ana Gonzalez, executive director of the CCAEJ, became involved in environmental activism after her son developed asthma in 2015, at the start of the warehouse boom. Gonzalez and her family lived near a cement factory and other “dirty” industries in north Rialto, California.
“I thought I wasn’t saving [my son] safe, or I wasn’t feeding him right or something,” Gonzalez told DW. She finally asked the pediatrician why he was having to go to the hospital five times a year for bronchitis and pneumonia. “Sure enough, the test came back that he was developing asthma due to PM 2.5.”
As an educator at the time, Gonzalez had already noticed that nearly half of her students needed inhalers. In fact, hundreds of Inland Empire warehouses are within 1,500 feet of schools, according to Warehouse CITY.
fake promisses
Warehouse developers and supporting politicians have presented warehouses to inland communities, many of which are predominantly poor and Latino, as vehicles for economic development.
In an article from January to The Press EnterpriseSan Bernardino County Board of Supervisors member Curt Hagman argued that “storage and logistics centers are a critical component in cargo movement and an important job-creating industry in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.”
Manfred Keil, chief economist at the Inland Empire Economic Partnership (IEEP), told DW that the logistics sector has created 80,000 jobs in the Inland Empire since February 2020, or two-thirds of all new jobs.
But Phillips, Gonzalez and other advocates say the environmental costs and poor job quality far outweigh any gains.
“What we see from birth is this kind of cycle in compound forms of illness and disability,” explained Phillips. Children born with low lung capacity or cognitive problems due to pollution are pushed into schools located near warehouses, further damaging their health. Phillips adds that children are then recruited to work in warehouses, where they are required to perform physically taxing jobs, resulting in high rates of disability.
Research has shown that warehouse workers at Amazon, one of the main players in the region, suffer serious injuries at twice the rate of other companies.
Gonzalez and Phillips also stressed that the wages received by workers are inadequate. “These jobs are basically locking the entire population into poverty at $17 or $18 an hour,” Phillips said.
Gonzalez explained that many Inland Empire communities are targeted by logistics companies precisely because they have few options for economic development.
The region’s overdependence on warehouses is another concern, as it leaves it susceptible to demand shocks. “You would never invest your inventory the way this region has invested in warehouses,” Phillips said.
Source: DW
Lori Barajas is an accomplished journalist, known for her insightful and thought-provoking writing on economy. She currently works as a writer at 247 news reel. With a passion for understanding the economy, Lori’s writing delves deep into the financial issues that matter most, providing readers with a unique perspective on current events.