Five Head Start Centers and four schools in the south Kern County communities of Arvin and Lamont are getting relief from arsenic contamination in public schools. Community Action Partnership of Kern (CAPK), the Arvin Union School District, and Community Water Center worked with local community group,Committee for A Better Arvin (CBA), and a broad set of funding and in-kind donation partners to deliver safe drinking water to local school sites by installing water filters at playground and classroom drinking fountains sites and kitchen cooking areas. This effort is seen as a pilot model for securing immediate access to safe drinking water while long-term solutions are being pursued…
News
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Access to clean water is a major concern in central California, where more than 100 communities in the valley don’t have it.
But, an initiative led by community groups in Kern County is helping schools in Arvin and Lamont keep their drinking water safe from arsenic…
A coalition addressed water contamination in some south Kern County schools.
Water filters were installed at cooking areas and drinking fountains on playgrounds and in classrooms at five Head Start centers and four schools in Arvin and Lamont…
Readers were surprised to learn from my Sunday story that oil companies are allowed to send their drilling muds and boring waste into unlined pits.
My story was not about the muds or boring waste. It was about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The practice includes the use of chemicals to help free up oil trapped in shale formations.
Fracking fluids — not drilling muds and boring waste — were illegally discharged into two unlined pits, called sumps. Regional water authorities found chemicals in concentrations above safe thresholds…
Hydrogen Energy California’s alternative energy generation project near Buttonwillow is important for Kern County’s future. When completed, HECA, as it’s known, will provide electricity for approximately 160,000 homes, increase local oil production, produce a local supply of fertilizer products, provide many local environmental benefits and create jobs. The project is clearly a win-win for Kern County…
As fracking threatens to expand drilling in California, a coalition of environmental justice and community health groups sent a letter yesterday challenging the legality of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Board’s plan to keep letting oil companies dump toxic drilling-mud waste throughout the valley with minimal safeguards.
Citing state environmental laws, the letter urges the water board not to move forward next month with a proposal to exempt drilling mud waste discharge from regulations. Drilling muds—used to facilitate drilling of oil and gas wells—contain scores of chemicals that can pose severe risks to human health…
As fracking threatens to expand drilling in California, a coalition of environmental justice and community health groups sent a letter today challenging the legality of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Board’s plan to keep letting oil companies dump toxic drilling-mud waste throughout the valley with minimal safeguards.
Citing state environmental laws, the letter urges the water board not to move forward next month with a proposal to exempt drilling mud waste discharge from regulations. Drilling muds — used to facilitate drilling of oil and gas wells — contain scores of chemicals that can pose severe risks to human health…
Near almond orchards and the city of Shafter, state water authorities tested suspicious fluid in an oilfield sump — at a well named for the 1930s cartoon character Betty Boop.
They found the fluid laced with boron, salts and a cocktail of notorious chemicals related to gasoline and diesel. It came from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil…
With new state regulations in the works on a controversial oil and gas extraction technique, a group of legislators, industry representatives and environmentalists gathered Friday at UC Merced to debate the risks and benefits associated with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves breaking up underground rock formations with a mixture of chemicals and water…
Differing views on the future of water in Easton is a key issue for candidates running for the Easton Community Service District’s board of directors.
Over the years, proposals to install a water system have been fought by proponents of private wells in the unincorporated community, located about four miles south of Fresno…