Tireless defender of port communities

When Jesse Marquez walked into the Los Angeles harbor commission hearing room in 2013, he didn’t bring a consultant or a slideshow. He brought death certificates.

- By GavIN J. QUINTON

Each sheet of paper, he told the commissioners, bore the name of a Wilmington resident killed by respiratory illness. Wedged between two of the country’s busiest ports, the neighborhood is dotted with oil refineries, chemical plants, rail yards and freeways. It’s one of several portside communities known by some as a “diesel death zone,” where residents are more likely to die from cancer than just about anywhere else in the L.A. Basin. For decades, Marquez refused to let anyone forget it.

He knocked on doors, installed air monitors, counted oil wells, built coalitions, staged demonstrations, fought legal battles and affected policy. He dove deep into impenetrable environmental impact documents.

“Before Jesse, there was no playbook.” Earthjustice attorney Adrian Martinez said in an interview. “What was remarkable from the beginning is that Jesse wasn’t afraid to write stuff down, to demand things, to spend lots of time scouring for evidence.”

Marquez, founder of the Coalition for a Safe Environment, or CFASE, died surrounded by family in his Orange County home Nov. 3. His death was due to complications after he was struck by a vehicle while in a crosswalk in January. He was 74.

“He was one of a kind,” Martinez said. “He had a fierce independence and really believed in speaking up for himself and his community. He played an instrumental role in centering Wilmington in the fight for environmental justice.”

In 2001, when the port planned to ramp up operations and expand a major terminal operated by Trapac Inc. further north into Wilmington, Marquez and neighborhood organizers pushed back, winning a $200-million green-space buffer between residences and port operations.

When oil refineries evaded pollution caps through what organizers called a “gaping loophole” in Environmental Protection Agency policy, Marquez and others sued, overturning the policy and successfully curtailing pollution spikes at California plants.