The EcoCenter at Herons Head Park is the first environmental education center in San Francisco to concentrate on providing a hands on example of green building systems with an emphasis on environmental justice. It represents a critical effort by a San Francisco community-based organization, Literacy for Environmental Justice, to provide a hands-on design alternative to the active presence of dirty polluting industries in the Southern San Francisco Community of Bayview-Hunterspoint, a community that has experienced great environmental distress to launch a solution to the poor environmental legacy left by the Navy, by dozens of polluting industries, by an unresponsive power company, and by decades of irresponsible land use planning.
The Ecocenter features an array of green solutions to responsible planning within the context of promoting solutions to environmental injustice to advance concepts of equity.
The center's systems are demonstration based and are used to educate the general public about renewable energy, pollution and greenhouse gas reduction, wastewater treatment, “green” building materials, and the green economy.
Technologies included are:
Founded in 1998, Literacy for Environmental Justice is a youth empowerment organization created specifically to address the ecological and health concerns of Bayview Hunters Point and the surrounding communities of southeast San Francisco.