Local environmentalists met at the Clean Air Summit of San Diego Climate Week on Wednesday, Oct. 7, to tackle environmental justice priorities for the Portside Community.

During the event’s panel, scientists and environmental activists discussed the need for pollution regulation to address the impact of diesel trucks in neighborhoods near the port.

In May 2026, the San Diego Air Pollution Control District failed to pass the Indirect Source Rule, an air-pollution policy designed to regulate warehouses and distribution centers that utilize highly polluting diesel trucks.

According to the Air Pollution Control District’s own 2021 Emissions Reductions Plan, “Barrio Logan’s rate of asthma-related hospital visits is higher than 92.9 percent of census tracts throughout the state,” while its cancer risk ranks in the 90th percentile nationally. 

Despite those findings, the board concluded the costs outweighed the benefits and decided not to pass the Indirect Source Rule. 

That decision angered community members and environmentalists. 

José Franco Garcia, executive director of Environmental Health Coalition, spoke during the panel about the need to regulate emissions from diesel trucks. He has witnessed firsthand the disappointment from Barrio Logan and National City residents who suffer disproportionately from air pollution caused by diesel trucks.

“What community members are dealing with is seeing these diesel trucks regularly, hearing the noises from them, seeing them drive by their kids’ school and knowing that their kids’ asthma gets aggravated,” Franco Garcia said. 

Paula Stigler Granados, an associate professor at San Diego State University, serves on the Air Pollution Control District as its science advisor. 

Stigler Granados voted in favor of the indirect rule source. She disagreed with other Air Pollution Control District Board members’ arguments that the costs were too high. 

“What cost is public health? We can’t put a price on our lives. We can’t put a price on our kids’ asthma,” she said.

The panel also discussed the sewage and air pollution crisis at the border.

Aurora Czajkowski, a PhD student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, studies the connections between water and air pollution. 

Czajkowski said people can choose not to go in the water, but they can’t choose to stop breathing. 

Czajkowski said scientists and community members need to be involved before local officials write policies.

“If we’re really trying to understand that our policies are working, we need to have the data to back it up,” she said. “That involves creating monitoring networks that span wherever the pollution is reaching. Our monitoring networks should not stop at international borders. They should extend across watersheds.”

Stigler Granados agreed: residents need to be more involved at the decision-making table.

“Making sure if we host a meeting, it’s at the right time, the right place, there’s food, there’s childcare, there’s enough people at the table, and if enough people didn’t show up, then we didn’t do our job,” Stigler Granados told Times of San Diego.

When asked what San Diegans who want to help can do, all panelists agreed the most powerful action is to get involved politically and to vote.

Other panelists mentioned specific ballot measures that voters can familiarize themselves with in regards to environmental justice, like Measure B and Proposition 45.

“This is the most important election of your lifetime,” said Franco Garcia. “I say that because it’s the one in front of us.”