Environmental Justice and Cumulative Impacts in California

• Pages: 10146-10152
• Date: 01 March 2025
• Published date: 01 March 2025
• Author: Emily DiGiacomo

COMMENTS

55 ELR 10146 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER MAR/APR 2025

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

AND CUMULATIVE IMPACTS

IN CALIFORNIA

by Emily DiGiacomo

Emily DiGiacomo is a 2025 J.D. candidate at Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law.

Yick Wo immigrated to San Francisco, California,

in 1861 and built his own laundry business.1 San

Francisco Order 1569 established a misdemeanor

oense for any person who opens a laundry within Sa n

Francisco city limits without obtaining a perm it from the

board of supervisors,2 which had exclusive discretion to

issue permits. Many Chinese individuals like Yick liv-

ing in San Francisco could not get permits to run t heir

laundr y businesses.3 Yick was arrested for continuing to

run his business, along with 150 other Chinese individu-

als living in San Francisco.4 e U.S. Supreme Court in

Yick Wo v. Hopkins held that the biased enforcement of

Order 1569 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the

Fourteenth Amendment.5

is is one example of discriminatory land use and zon-

ing policies in San Francisco. Since the late 19th century,

San Francisco has implemented many pieces of environ-

mental justice (EJ) and cumulative impacts legislation to

protect the rights of its citizens. How did San Francisco

go from discriminatorily enforcing its laws to establishing

important EJ protections? is Comment addresses EJ and

cumulative impacts legislation in San Francisco, and high-

lights the continued importance of addressing such legisla-

tion at the municipal level.

e California Environmental Protection Agency

denes “environmental justice” as “fairness, regardless of

race, color, national origin or income, and the meaning-

ful involvement of community in the development of laws

and regulations that aect every community’s natural

surroundings, and the places people live, work, play and

le ar n.”6 “Cumulative impacts” are dened as chemical and

nonchemical stressors that aggregate and accumulate over

time from one or more sources in the built, natural, and

social environments that aect individuals and communi-

1. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886).

2. S.F., C., O 1569 (1880).

3. Josephine Rosene, Cancer Alley: A Case Study of Environmental Injustice and

Solutions for Change, 16 U. S. T J.L.  P. P’ 501, 506 (2023)

(citing Yick Wo, 118 U.S. 356).

4. Id.

5. 118 U.S. 356.

6. California Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Justice Pro-

gram, https://calepa.ca.gov/envjustice/ (last visited Feb. 11, 2025).

ties.7 Many municipalities across the country already have

existing EJ and cumulative impacts legislation.

e Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) a nd

the Tishman Environment and Design Center at the New

School published a 2019 paper (the NRDC Paper) that

identies six types of EJ and cumulative impacts legisla-

tion and policies.8 e rst are bans, which seek to prevent

unwanted pollution and specic land uses that a re harmful

to public health and the environment.9 Second are general

EJ policies and programs, which seek to legislate exclu-

sively from an EJ perspective.10 ird are reviews, which

involve instituting a review process throug h zoning boards

for applicants.11

Fourth is proactive planning, which involves incorpo-

rating EJ and cumulative impacts into a municipality’s

comprehensive plan.12 Fifth is targeting existing land uses,

which involves mitigating harmf ul land use policies that

have been grandfathered in and do not account for EJ or

cumulative impact considerations.13 Last, public health

codes enforce nuisance protections that ca n cause or aggra-

vate health issues.14 San Francisco has created ve out of

these six type s of laws and policies.

is Comment surveys what EJ looks like in San Fran-

cisco. I will rst discuss the process of creating and imple-

menting EJ laws and programs, then address the impact

that state law and community organizations have had on

development of San Francisco’s EJ and cumulative impact

laws. California state law ha s had a signicant impact;

for example, California Senate Bill 1000 requires cities

7. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Cumulative Impacts Research,

https://www.epa.gov/healthresearch/cumulative-impacts-research (last up-

dated Feb. 11, 2025).

8. A I B  ., N S T E 

D C, L P  E J: A N-

 S (2019), https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/les/local-poli-

cies-environmental-justice-national-scan-tishman-201902.pdf.

9. Emily DiGiacomo, Environmental Justice and Cumulative Impacts: A How-

to Guide and Explanation for Interested Municipalities Part 1, in 47 Z

 P L R 1 (Supp. Oct. 2024) (citing B  .,

supra note 8).

10. Id.

11. Id.

12. Id.

13. Id.

14. Id.