How much air pollution will hospital construction produce?

Construction of Sutter/PAMF's mega hospital will last over two years, day after day, month after month. Sutter/PAMF refuses to use environmentally friendly construction equipment, instead opting for toxic diesel-powered machinery.² Diesel fumes are infamous for causing cancer yet Sutter/PAMF fails to provide detailed information about the rates and amounts of these toxic pollutants that will be emitted into our air.³

Other hospital construction projects, such as Long Beach Memorial in Long Beach, CA, have emitted as much as 1000 lb/day of air pollution, including diesel fumes. ⁴

What about after Sutter/PAMF's hospital is built?

Sutter/PAMF admits that after construction the mega hospital may use oil burning boilers to generate energy. Oil burners release toxic emissions into the atmosphere. Most hospitals burn clean natural gas in their boilers. Sutter/PAMF also refuses to indicate the size of the oil burners or the amount of pollution they will release on a daily basis. But they plan to build a mega hospital that will need the equivalent of a small power plant for its heating and cooling systems. Even worse, the hospital's smokestack emissions will produce a combined total of 211 lbs of pollution per day.⁵

Sutter/PAMF's mega hospital is going to create major traffic. Won't this also produce air pollution?

Yes. Increased traffic caused by Sutter/PAMF's hospital will emit large amounts of tailpipe pollution. This will be particularly harmful at "hot spots" or gridlocked intersections full of idling cars.⁶ (Sutter/PAMF's hospital will cause traffic gridlocks at five major intersections along Holly Street, Industrial Road, Alameda de las Pulgas El Camino Real, and Brittan Avenue.)

Despite the hazard that these hot spot emissions could create, Sutter/PAMF insists that it will not be a problem because in 20 years tailpipe emissions will have been lowered. However, vehicle emissions linked to the hospital will still exceed 300 lbs per day through the year 2011. Even if future regulations drastically reduce motor vehicle emissions, pollutants released into our air will still exceed 178 lbs per day.⁷

 

 

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¹ Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), pages 3.5-18
² Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), page 3.5-8
³ Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), page 3.5-8
⁴ The Long Beach Hospital EIR states in Table 3.2.4-2, page 3.2-12, that construction air emissions will total 956.56 pounds/day.
⁵ Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR), pages 3.5-18
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.