SAN DIEGO — For weeks families have been urging New Leaf Biofuel Company to stop the bad odor that has been causing senior residents to get sick.
The company told CBS 8 the odor has finally been reduced by installing a new system.
“We received the last piece of equipment, which was a fan that pulls the air through the building and through the carbon filter,” said Chris White, who works for the company.
New Leaf Biofuel says the odor was coming from the used cooking oil they get from restaurants that is converted into diesel fuel.
CBS 8 visited the neighborhood 2-months-ago and even got a whiff of the bad odor.
This week CBS 8 noticed it had reduced significantly, but many still worry that the odor could come back as it has in the past.
“Every business wants to make money right so if it is very expensive to keep the others down, probably it’s going to be for only a few days and return back to what it was before," said Allen Ruvalcaba, a financial advisor who frequents the area and has clients who live at Barrio Senior Villa.
CBS 8 asked New Leaf if it is willing to do anything else to help mitigate any other issues.
“We are going to be looking at any other potential sources of odor trying to do something advance rather than letting it become an issue,” said White.
Locals and activists argue the company is adding to the poor air quality in the area and should not be located across from an apartment complex where vulnerable community members live.
“We have diesel trucks driving through our community that are making people sick and exposing them to particulates that are latching on to their lungs that are giving them asthma and other forms of lung disease,” said Nicholas Paul, who is with the Environmental Health Coalition.
EHC also said that industrial companies that continue to open business in low income communities only prove the environmental racism southeastern San Diego continues to deal with.
As of now the property manager with the help of the Environmental Health Coalition will be monitoring the odor and will inform the air pollution control district if anything changes.
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WATCH RELATED: Biofuel company in Barrio Logan ordered to install odor reduction system (Oct. 2022).