More than 900 hazardous sites — power plants, sewage treatment plants, refineries, cleanup areas and other facilities — across California could be inundated with ocean water and groundwater by the end of the century, according to climate scientists at UCLA and UC Berkeley.
“Climate change is presenting new risks that can lead to excess releases of hazardous materials from these highly industrialized parts of our coastline,” said UCLA’s Dr. Lara Cushing. “Our analysis also shows that communities of color are much more likely to live near one of these risk sites, as are lower-income communities.”
Cushing and UC Berkeley’s Rachel Morello-Frosch, both environmental health scientists, last year launched an interactive tool, Toxic Tides, mapping California’s hazardous sites that could be inundated by sea level rise.
