A Historical Examination of Environmental Inequity

The city of Commerce, a largely industrial and Latino city east of Los Angeles, contains a dispro-portionately high concentration of manufacturers that emit toxic chemicals. The coincidence of a minority population and toxic sites is a classic example of environmental inequity. The authors seek to understand why industry located in this community. A historical investigation of the development of a hazardous community suggests that demographics alone are not responsible for the concentration of manufacturing in Commerce. The zoning decisions of the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission in the 1920s and 1930s set the pattern of industrializa-tion in Commerce. In December 1963, the Monsanto chemical company called the fire depart-ment and sheriff to its facility in the city of Commerce, California. The cause of alarm was an expanding drum of isocyanate, which the company warned could “injure anyone within a 1,000 feet ” if it exploded. When the sheriff arrived, he shielded himself behind a warehouse wall, raised his shotgun, and fired a bullet into the expanding drum. Certainly this was not standard proce-dure for handling hazardous materials, but on this occasion it worked. The bullet released the pressure building up in the container, and the sheriff pre-vented a possible explosion (Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, 6 Decembe