I was right to desire my anonymity during my campaign, as the method for curbing my efforts came in a letter of retaliation from the property manager at The Arbors a week before Christmas and then a Cease and Desist letter from the lawyers representing the Carmel Partners was to follow a week before the meeting contracted by the US EPA. I was lucky in that the Sacramento News & Review published a wonderful article about our plight in the beginning of January called Left fuming. And I had made some influential contacts along the way to give me much needed advice and guidance. In addition, Senator Darrell Steinberg’s office was instrumental in helping me to invite the appropriate influencers to the upcoming meeting.

Despite the possibility of an impending lawsuit on charges of defamation, amongst other threats eluded to in the Cease and Desist letter, I managed to organize enough volunteers to have a flyer placed on every door at The Arbors as well as many of the homes in the surrounding area. I was too close to being able to share my story and ask for a change to the alternative roofing method to give up.

On January 28th 2009, we held the public meeting that included a representative from the following organizations or agencies: The Sacramento Air Quality Management District (AQMD), The US Environmental Protection Agency and TASC’s E2 Engineer, Senator Darrell Steinberg’s office, The California Air Resources Board (CARB), The American Lung Association, Legal Services of Northern California, and the Arbors Management. Residents were also present. This meeting was reported on two local news stations: Channel 3′s My 58, and channel 13 at 10 PM that evening.

During this meeting, I stood up and asked the property managers again to switch to the alternative, safer roofing method, but they did not respond. However, a meeting between the Air Quality District, my Senator’s office, and the corporate owners of the property was scheduled for a few weeks later.

I found out the good news in April of 2009, just as I was finishing my Master’s thesis, that a decision was made by the Carmel Partners to exclude asphalt roofing tar as an option when re-roofing began again in the future. Just this week, my heart began to pitter patter again as I spied the roofers driving through my neighborhood again. The next day, I found them tucked away in a back street re-roofing another home, only this time it was not tar, there were no fumes and the method of choice was the one I had suggested all along, the TPO “cool” roof.

When I drove away, looking at this clean looking modern roof, with the memories of the hard work that led to this moment fresh in my mind, I became so emotional. I felt like I had come full circle, that I had made a difference and felt a sense of accomplishment that made it all worthwhile. Not that I don’t think about how lucky we are everyday, when I open my windows, or walk Elise to school, because I do and always will be grateful for clean air. I will never take that for granted the rest of my life.

My understanding is that if the owners are pleased with the product this will be the chosen method as work begins again next spring.

My reason for sharing this with all of your readers is that we should always advocate for our health and the health of our community, but especially the health of our children. As Mark Miller MD, MPH, the Director of the UCSF Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit said in a letter of endorsement for my campaign “whatever ill health effects one might expect [due to the ongoing roofing project] would more than likely be disproportionately shouldered by the children of the community”.

And also, I am so grateful to the Sacramento Metro Air Quality District for all that they did to move this in the right direction.

I want to give a big thanks to all of my supporters and advisors, who without their help I could have been completely lost as to how to succeed.

Last but not least, I also want to thank the Carmel Partners for stepping up and changing their roofing method for the betterment of all of their residents, especially the children, the elderly, and those with special health needs that were affected most by being home during the peak work hours for the roofers.

Finally, there are changes that need to be made within our system that makes the health of our Nation at a higher precedence than the progress afforded by allowing toxins in our environment. We are smart; we are worthy of the best. Regardless of your status in society or how much money you have, if you think a product is unsafe say so, and try to get others to listen. Be kind to your future selves and to the future of our Nation’s children. Thank you.

I knew I had a window of opportunity during the winter, in that I could breathe clean air for the first time in months, and could now focus on developing a strategy to keep the roofers from coming back with asphalt for the remaining 100 roofs in the spring of 2009. Getting over my fear over speaking to my neighbors came naturally to me as I walked around and shared my story, talked to them about the progress I’d made, got their signatures on the petition, and also heard of their health problems associated with breathing these fumes as well.

I found out that one family near one of the homes being tarred had experienced nausea to the point of vomiting. Then, I went out again a few days later (when I should have been working on a paper for graduate school) armed with flyers, camera, and notebook and met so many wonderful people living in my community.

Out of the 20 or so people that I actually talked to many of them had become sick from the fumes and many of them did not connect their illness to the roofing project until I talked to them. Some people that stand out for example were a student who lived right next to the storage area where all of the simmering asphalt kettles were parked at night. She worked and went to school and wasn’t even aware that there was a roofing project. I believe she said she moved in to her home in July (one month after me).

She asked me what my symptoms were and I told her that I had sores inside my nose, my throat hurt, my lungs felt as though I’d smoked 1000 cigarettes, my lungs twitched and I could not stop coughing despite taking asthma medication. She looked so shocked as she told me that she had experienced the same exact symptoms. She thought she had allergies but couldn’t explain the sudden onset or the sores on the inside of her nose.

Also, there was a man who had a small infant. His wife was pregnant while asphalt roofing had been ongoing. She personally experienced migraines and then their son was born premature and underweight. The baby also had severe respiratory problems. Later, online petition signers indicated respiratory illnesses similar to mine and one even had scarring inside her lungs visible on a CT scan. Here is one of the comments left on the petition:

“I have lived here 3 years and have been extremely ill for the past two years. I have been to several doctors trying to figure out what was wrong. I have had a terrible cough along with uncontrolled vomiting and I have been really lethargic. I have had a ct scan of my lungs which showed scarring and bruising from all of the coughing and been on countless medications. This progressively got worse and then around september just started to go away. I am now feeling better than I have in a very long time and am positive that it is from the roofing. The timing is just to coincidental for it to be anything else. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention”. –Michelle Wagner, online petition signer

Oddly enough, September of 2008 was the last time a roof was tarred here at The Arbors and the tarring had been going on for two years, with one year left to completion which coincides with her illness. But I still had to work hard to influence a switch to TPO “cool” roofs which would be a cost effective, and environmentally friendly, non-toxic alternative to asphalt roofing tar. As a kettle with an afterburner was no better than putting a filter on a cigarette and would not protect us from harmful pollution.

Living in this community with constant roofing tar fumes felt like Russian roulette; never knowing which house was next and how far away the source of the fumes would be from our home was a constant source of anxiety for me.

Just looking around our general area, homes still in need of a new roof was my own home, the home across the street, the one to the right of me and several directly behind our house in addition to nearly 100 others within the community.

I was fair about it and only filed complaints with the Air Quality District on days when the roofing tar fumes were actually bothering me and keeping Elise and I inside or forcing us to leave.

I had received some great advice from my local Sierra Club and American Lung Association; after which I began handing out flyers with the headline “What’s that Smell?” that gave information about the fumes, the alternative roofing method, and who to call to make a complaint themselves.

Since I was only one person, I had to limit the placement of flyers to the homes around a roof being tarred, which amounted to about three to four roofs per week. I would go out at night while my husband watched our daughter and quietly place a flyer on their doors without a word.

It wasn’t long before I saw some important looking men standing on the roof of the leasing office like the kings of their domain, and then later received a call from my contact at the Air Quality District informing me that the corporate office had decided to halt the project until the spring of 2009 until they could get an asphalt kettle with an afterburner in the hopes that doing so would reduce fumes and appease their anonymous complainant: Me.

I also found out later that residents were calling the leasing office to complaint about the fumes after they read the flyers, which may or may not have played an important role in getting the project halted.

Also, around the same time, another one of my letters paid off when I received a phone call from Luis Garcia-Bakarich from The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Technical Assistance Service for Communities (TASC) program which set in motion a process to help evaluate asphalt using help from technical experts such as environmental engineers and scientists from private companies. This much needed gift resulted in a report and a presentation to the community in January of 2009.

After I’d had a bit of success and thought I had some time to gather help and advice, three more roofs were tarred before the project was officially halted in September, 2008.

My friends over at the Clean Air Revival’s Burning Issues Forum encouraged me to go out there and get footage of the roofs actually being tarred.

Having done so proved to be a very good visual for others to understand the circumstances that we were living in and would continue to live through for one more year if I wasn’t successful in stopping this project and convincing the corporate office to use the alternative roofing method.

How does one become an activist? I cannot speak for others, but for me, I became an activist out of pure necessity; to heal my lungs from exposure to hot asphalt roofing tar, and to protect my daughter from the same fate. The first step was in researching the product and finding out who to reach out to with proof that what we were living through was unlivable.

Asphalt is an oil (petroleum) product and comes from the bottom of the barrel, the worst of the worst even before additional chemicals are added to it. When heated to high temperatures in order to make it fluid for roofing applications it emits polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which is a group of over 100 different ambiguous chemicals as well as PM 10 and PM 2.5, which is regulated by the Clean Air Act’s Primary standards which sets limits to protect public health, including the health of “sensitive” populations such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly. Fine particulate pollution is heavily regulated because of its ability to bypass your regular defenses and go deep into the lungs where it can do the most damage and then be absorbed into your bloodstream.

My first round of letters came back with some advice from local non-profits like Organic Sacramento and Pesticide Watch. I was discouraged because I wanted to hand this problem over to someone to fix it for me. After all, I had read about the Precautionary Principal by the US EPA, which states that when there is a question about the safety of a product it shouldn’t be used in order to find out if it’s unsafe or not and that alternative should be used instead. I thought it might be the magic code and by citing it they would be forced to stop the project right away. Boy was I wrong.

Even after I’d made contact with local government like my Supervisor and my Assemblyman, (who were the least help and passed me off to one another rather than help) and then the Sacramento Air Quality District to file a complaint about the fumes I was told in response to my question “how do I make this stop” that I couldn’t stop it because I was just one person. It was at that moment that something clicked for me, it was a moment I’ll never forget because it was the moment I ceased to be a helpless victim and began to give myself permission to stand up for what was right, what we should be entitled to all along: clean air.

How often do you think about the air you breathe? If you’re like I was, most likely thoughts about air, or air quality, are limited to only really bad air quality days, if at all. Other responsibilities took precedence for me such as taking care of my child, attending graduate school, keeping up on household duties. After the birth of my daughter I made it a priority to curb bad indoor air quality by using natural cleaning products and became much more conscious about avoiding chemicals in conventional foods and products.

For me, all of that nonchalant ignorance about outdoor air quality went directly out the window just as toxic tar fumes were literally coming in my windows…and through the cracks in my door, and in through the ventilation system in my home from a massive roof tarring project that I moved into in the summer of 2008.

My family and I were one of the first to be hit hard by the economy after my husband’s lay off from his job in the mortgage industry in 2007. So, moving into The Arbors at Antelope rental home community was a real chance to start over and we were so optimistic, even giddy with excitement about this move.

What’s known as The Arbors in Antelope, California used to be the old Capehart base housing for McClellan Air Force base in North Highlands, California. After the base closed all 534 homes on this 150 acre property were purchased by a corporate real estate company called The Carmel Partners. It was turned into an opportunity for families to step up from apartment living, or has been a second chance for many who lost their homes during the housing crisis. For many lower-middle to middle class working families in the area, this is home; with its sprawling green grass, mature shade trees and plenty of space for kids to run around and play it is a comfortable alternative.

It wasn’t long before I started to develop strange symptoms like a burning throat, sores in my nose, a persistent cough, and twitching lungs. At first, I was in denial about my strange symptoms and the possible link to the noxious roofing tar odors that were present in the community. Later, I was diagnosed with intermittent asthma after a few of the homes nearest to mine were being re-roofed with hot asphalt roofing tar. The only way to keep the fumes out was to apply tape over the gaps around my front door and over the ventilation system fed by outdoor air. I was in a panic, and no one seemed to be able to help me and so on a few occasions when the fumes were particularly bad, I had to put a mask over my then three year old daughter’s nose and mouth and drive her out of the area for fresh air.

I realized that sitting around feeling like a powerless victim was not an option anymore when my daughter started to develop similar symptoms to mine. After all, it is my job as her mother to protect her from all kinds of dangers, and this was no different.

After I spoke to the property manager and found out that all of the homes were being re-roofed using hot tar over a three year period, I began what would end up being a year-long campaign to stop the roofing tar project and became an advocate for a switch to an alternative flat roofing method that would be safer for not only myself and my daughter, but for the whole community.