Home » Featured work » Owning Our Air » WOCAP Steering Committee

Comprised of neighborhood residents, city and county officials, and local businesses, the West Oakland Community Action Plan (WOCAP) Steering Committee oversees and advises on implementation of the Owning Our Air community action plan.

Next meeting

Wed, Nov 6 • 6-8 pm • De Fremery Recreation Center

WOCAP end of year celebration

Join us to celebrate all our hard work this year, and launch our 5-year WOCAP progress report.

View 2024 schedule

September Recap

At this meeting, staff from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) shared new data and reports on how the agency has implemented dozens of WOCAP strategies over the first five years of WOCAP.

Incentives: $51 million in emissions reduction grants

BAAQMD grants have funded 114 individual projects to reduce emissions in West Oakland. 84% of this funding went to Port-related initiatives, focusing on electrification and other diesel alternatives. The remaining funding to the community has focused on smaller-scale initiatives like scrapping old cars and providing EV chargers. BAAQMD calculates that cumulatively, these projects have prevented 1,076 tons of emissions.

Enforcement: Bridging the gap between community complaints and agency enforcement

The Air District inspected 189 permitted facilities and 370 sources of emissions from 2019 to 2024. The agency continues its ongoing identification of unpermitted sources, and relies heavily on the community to be its “eyes, nose and ears” in this process. There still appears to be a disconnect here, however, with community members struggling to understand the complaint and enforcement process.

Emissions inventory and exposure analysis: The bottom line looks promising

BAAQMD’s emissions inventory measures three core types of air pollution: diesel particulate matter (DPM), cancer risk-weighted emissions, and PM2.5. The inventory breaks down the proportion of emissions coming from different sources for each West Oakland impact zone. The big news here is that for DPM and cancer risk-weighted emissions, we appear to be meeting the WOCAP 2025 target (ensuring emission levels for all impact zones are equivalent to the average West Oakland neighborhood). In some of the impact zones, we’ve even met the 2030 target (bringing emissions down to the cleanest West Oakland neighborhood levels based on 2017 baselines).

See the meeting recording, slides, and agenda

2024 Schedule

Public Steering Committee meetings

  • Wed, Nov. 6  • 4-7 pm • DeFremery Recreation Center • RSVP on Eventbrite
    End-of-year celebration

Members-only working sessions

  • Wed, Oct 2 • 12:00-1:30 PM • Willie Keyes Recreation Center

The Steering Committee is open to anyone who lives or works in West Oakland. Want to join? Reach out to Nicole at owninourair@woeip.org

About the committee

The WOCAP Steering Committee is comprised of neighborhood residents, independent technical advisors, city and county officials, and local business representatives. The committee has quarterly meetings open to the public.

Community

Rev. Ambrose Carroll
Resident/Green the Church

Alvirdia Owens
Resident

Robert Phillips
West Oakland Health Center

Leila Yasmin Saddat
West Oakland Health Center

Nonprofit and
technical Advisors

Richard Grow
Resident (US EPA, retired)

Brent Bucknam
Hyphae Labs/Urban Biofilter

David Wooley
UC Berkeley

Local business

Bill Aboudi
AB Trucking

Government

Laura Arreola
Alt: Amy Tharpe
Port of Oakland

Khalilha Haynes
City of Oakland

Matt Hoeft
EBMUD

Soni Johnson
Alameda County

Kevin Krewson
Caltrans

Tram Nguyen
Alt: Adriana Alvarado
Alameda County Public Health

Cathy DeLuca
Alt: Colin Piethe and Celina Chan
Oakland Dept. of Transportation

Lily Wu
CalEPA


Get involved!

Anyone can attend the monthly Steering Committee meeting! If you’d like to get more involved, joining the Steering Committee as a voting member is a wonderful opportunity for West Oakland residents and advocates to learn more and influence the fight for environmental justice in West Oakland. Email us to learn more.


Meetings & documents

Outreach Documents

Steering Committee members are encouraged to use the following documents when engaging with the public about WOCAP.

2024

October 2, 2024

At this steering committee members-only working session, we heard from partners at Hyphae Design Lab about our Prescott Greening project. We have a plan to add trees and greenery to the “immediately plantable” areas of Frontage Road (where we wouldn’t have to make major changes to add plants). We also got updates on the Civil Protection of the People of Oakland Ordinance (OMC Ch. 1.10) from the City Attorney’s Office.

Meeting documents:

September 4, 2024

Meeting documents:

August 7, 2024

At this steering committee members-only working session, we revisited WOCAP’s original description of the West Oakland community. We looked at new health data and considered what changes this description needs 5 years later.

Meeting documents:

July 25, 2024

At this steering committee members-only working session, we continued to refine WOCAP strategies that have yet to make significant progress, so they’re more actionable. 

June 5, 2024

Meeting documents:

May 1, 2024

At this steering committee members-only working session, we did a deep dive on the West Oakland Air Quality (WOAQ) monitoring network. We explored the types of monitors the network uses, went over preliminary data results, and explored potential new sites we could include in the network.

Meeting documents:

April 3, 2024

At this steering committee members-only working session, we brainstormed how we can encourage people to report potential violations so more West Oakland residents can take action against illegal polluting. We also discussed our plan for our five-year progress report.

Meeting documents:

March 6, 2024

At this steering committee members-only working session, we went over how to use the WOCAP tracker to see how our strategies are making progress. We also got updates from some of our partners, including BAAQMD (Bay Area Air Quality Management District), the Port of Oakland, and the City of Oakland.

Meeting documents:

February 7, 2024

Meeting documents:

Resources shared during the meeting:

2023

There was no meeting in Jan, Feb, July, and Nov of 2023.

December 7, 2023

Driving rain and early sunsets couldn’t keep people away from our first in-person WOCAP gathering since the pandemic. Nearly 150 people showed up to participate in our end-of-year celebration of the West Oakland Community Action Plan. We were deeply inspired by keynote speaker Christina Garcia, co-author of the AB617 legislation that sparked the West Oakland Community Action Plan, and her fight to set a new bar for community self-determination in air policy development.

We heard over and over again from attendees how much people enjoyed interacting with the many partner organizations and agency staff who we’ve collaborated with over the past several years of WOCAP work. It was a joy to share the work—and each others’ company.

October 4, 2023

Documents (PDF)

September 6, 2023

Documents and resources

August 2, 2023
Some portions of this video have been removed due to disruptive activity.

Documents and resources

June 7, 2023

Documents and resources

May 3, 2023

Documents and resources

Action items for Steering Committee members

April 5, 2023
March 1, 2023

2022

There was no meeting in August 2022

Dec. 7, 2022
Nov 2, 2022

Due to technical difficulties, this meeting’s recording is not available.

Documents

Oct. 5, 2022

Documents

Sept. 7, 2022

Documents

Jun. 1, 2022
May 4, 2022
Apr. 6, 2022
Mar. 2, 2022
Feb 2, 2022