Will Los Angeles Join a Ban on New Gas Stations?
byLinda Poon (Bloomberg) The small but growing Safe Cities movement is looking to LA to help stop the construction of new gas stations across North America. — … Cities in the North Bay area of California, New York and British Columbia have passed moratoriums on future fuel outlets or are developing policies to do so. They’re part of the small but growing Safe Cities campaign, a movement backed by the environmental group Stand.Earth that supports local efforts to phase out fossil fuels.
Now the group is counting on Los Angeles to give its effort increased momentum. The city would no longer issue permits for new gas stations or allow existing sites to add fuel pumps under a proposal from LA councilmember Paul Koretz. Current gas stations could, however, add chargers for zero-emission vehicles, according to a motion filed in May 2021.
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Gas stations, which tend to be located near minority communities, release far higher levels of known carcinogens like benzene than estimates from industry-wide risk assessments, according to a 2018 study from Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University. A separate report also found that children who live near gas stations have elevated risk of childhood leukemia.
‘Slow and Bumpy’
Meanwhile leaks and abandoned sites pose environmental risks to cities by contaminating the air and drinking water supply to surrounding neighborhoods. There’s also the financial cost of millions of dollars in cleanup in some cases, according to a recent report from Stand.Earth. There are an estimated 450,000 brownfield sites in the US, roughly half of which are the result of leaking underground storage tanks at defunct gas stations. Some environmentalists say the best way to prevent future sites is to prohibit new gas stations.
Jeff Lenard, a spokesperson for the National Association for Convenience Stores, warns against a rush to ban new fueling outlets considering that there are still some 280 million cars on the road nationally, and any transition to EVs is poised to be a “slow and bumpy process.” He also said that decisions to pass such policy may not have customers’ best interest in mind, and that the absence of new competition could keep gas prices high in some neighborhoods.
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Across the US, there are more than 100,000 public fueling sites, down from some 170,000 two decades ago.
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… while the US is seeing fewer gas stations each year, the size of newly built ones are growing.
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The Safe Cities movement is ultimately a part of a larger effort to shrink the nation’s dependency on fossil fuels, even as both Krogh and Fischer acknowledge that banning future gas stations may not have sweeping effects on reducing emissions. States and cities have taken aim at banning oil drilling, and prohibiting new developments like power plants and oil refineries; others are mandating cleaner buildings and banning gas stoves. Together, these polices have become all the more urgent following the Supreme Court’s decision last week to limit the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to limit power plant greenhouse gas emissions.
“For a lot of folks who are interested in cleaning the air or getting off of fossil fuels, or both, it’s frustrating seeing failures at the national level,” Krogh says. “And when we turn to where we really do have power, it’s in our backyards.” READ MORE
On a High Note: California Cracks Down on New Gas Stations (World War Zero)
