Earlier this year eight Kern County families were forced out of their homes because of a gas leak. Now, seven months later families are still asking questions about their health and when they can return to their neighborhood…
News
This page features excerpts from news about environmental justice advocacy in the San Joaquin Valley and links to their original sources. Use the features on the right to sort by topic, news source, date, key word or author. You may also subscribe to receive the news by e-mail or through an rss reader. Please note that links to original sources may expire over time.
California is digging deep to get the drinking water it needs after one of the state’s worst droughts on record.
The problem is that the groundwater it is using is unsafe for nearly 800,000 residents, according to the state’s water resources control board, because of longtime contamination from nitrates and arsenic…
State authorities have fined two oil companies a total of $476,784 for illegally sending salty fluids and drilling wastes into unlined pits, including fluids from controversial hydraulic fracturing.
Half the penalty — $238,392 — will go to the Community Water Center of Visalia to help provide clean drinking water for disadvantaged communities in the San Joaquin Valley…
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is endangering public health by failing to declare the Los Angeles-South Coast Air Basin and San Joaquin Valley in violation of particulate matter air pollution standards, the Sierra Club claims in court.
The two areas are the “most polluted areas in the country” for fine particulates, the Sierra Club says.
Joined by the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians, Medical Advocates for Healthy Air, and Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, the Sierra Club sued the EPA, its Administrator Gina McCarthy, and Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld, on Oct. 15 in Federal Court.
Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency alleging that the agency has not done enough to limit fine particulate matter in the L.A. Basin and the San Joaquin Valley…
At a recent California Air Resources Board meeting as officials from all over the state poor-mouthed their districts to gain a share of cap-and-trade funds set aside for “disadvantaged communities.”…
The state on Monday rejected activists’ appeals of the hazardous waste landfill expansion at Kettleman Hills. Expect a lawsuit soon.
The legal action would be the next stage of an activist fight dating back to 2008, though many of the same activists have been battling against the landfill since the 1990s. The West’s largest landfill, owned by Chemical Waste Management, Inc., has nearly run out of room for waste…
Kern County illegally approved expansion of a local refinery that will let it transport and process 70,000 barrels of crude oil a day, environmentalists claim in court.
The Association of Irritated Residents, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club sued the Kern County Board of Supervisors and the Kern County Planning and Community Development Department, on Oct. 9 in Superior Court…
Concerned citizens, environmental groups, and health and safety advocates filed a lawsuit against the Kern County Board of Supervisors today challenging its approval of a massive oil refinery and rail project that will further harm air quality in the San Joaquin Valley and subject residents in several states to the catastrophic risks of a derailment involving scores of tanker cars filled with explosive Bakken crude oil…
With the backdrop of a parched landscape near the San Joaquin River, a top U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official on Thursday pledged $183 million to invest in drought-scarred California’s water needs.
Cities in California will compete for the funding to build water-quality projects aimed at reducing pollution as well as improving municipal drinking water and wastewater facilities. Fresno and many smaller San Joaquin Valley cities have used such funding to install water meters, replace antiquated pipes and drill wells…