Revealed: how warehouses took over southern California ‘like a slow death’

In California's Inland Empire, nearly 9,500 warehouses - many near schools - cloud the air with pollution

When Ana Carlos looks past the horse stables behind her home, over the back fence and out across the wide open field and scrub-covered hill that blooms bright orange in the springtime, she feels dread.

Soon it will be paved over, transformed into a 213-acre industrial complex with three vast warehouses. Nearly 100 of Carlos's neighbors' homes in the tiny, once rural town of Bloomington, California, will be razed to make way for the development, as will the local elementary school.

Overall, there are about 9,500 warehouses in the region with a footprint above one acre.

Each day, more than 1m truck trips out of these warehouses cloud the air with 1,450lbs of toxic diesel particulate pollution and 164,000lbs of nitrogen oxide pollution, which are linked to health problems including respiratory conditions.

The trucks also emit just under 100m lbs of carbon dioxide each day.

Across the region, about 340 school campuses are located within 1,000ft of a warehouse property line.