State water regulators approved landmark groundwater rules Thursday for 850,000 acres of farmland across Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern counties. About 7,200 growers will be regulated in the program, which is part of a larger effort called the Irrigated Lands Regulatory Monitoring Program…
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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.
State water regulators approved landmark groundwater rules Thursday for 850,000 acres of farmland across Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern counties…
Emotions were high yesterday as the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) held a public hearing in the Kettleman City Elementary School in regards to the proposed expansion of the Kettleman Hills Facility. This hearing is in the midst of the public comment period that ends on October 11th of this year. So last night many traveled to Kettleman City and other residents arrived to speak directly to DTSC about their opinions or feelings of the proposed expansion. Members of the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment spent a few days leading up to the hearing in Kettleman City asking people to attend the hearing and asking them to sign a petition in opposition to the proposed expansion…
Worries of toxic pollution sparked strong arguments in the South Valley Wednesday night.
The facility has treated waste for decades. It wants to expand to treat more toxic materials brought in from all over the state. Part of that new plan includes large financial donations to the communities in Kings County. But many say this operation is extremely dangerous.
The toxic waste treatment facility is at capacity, according to the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control.
The DTSC is in the final stages of approving an expansion years in the making…
On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 the California Energy Commission (CEC) hosted the first out of three days of workshops and public hearings in regards to the Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) plant proposed for an area outside of Tupman and Buttonwillow. The HECA project is a test project pushed by the CEC and the Department of Energy (DOE) as a way to promote “cleaner” carbon technology that arguably will produce “low carbon electricity and manufacture fertilizer”…
Local residents took their opposition to the proposed ‘Hydrogen Energy California’ (HECA) plant to the public hearings held today by the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The much-anticipated hearings are a follow up to the recent preliminary assessment on the coal plant that the CEC and the DOE jointly released. The 2,154 page assessment (PDF) delivered a major blow to the project, highlighting “significant unresolved issues” ranging from concerns about water supply, waste, environmental justice impacts, and the proposed but unproven carbon capture and sequestration technology…
With the start of 2013 a group of Modesto community organizers (including a few RHHReporters) came together under the name Valley Improvement Projects, or V.I.P., with the mission of improving the quality of life of underrepresented and marginalized residents of California’s Central Valley by promoting social and environmental issues through youth outreach, education, technology, and art.
Recently V.I.P. opened their Community Center for Social & Environmental Justice in downtown Modesto to give people a place to meet, learn, and take united actions against the power structures that keep most of the wealth, resources, and opportunities in the hands of only a few at the top…
People living in poverty in California’s rural San Joaquin Valley pay more than 2 percent of their income for tap water — above the threshold of affordability set in a state law, according to a new study.
The study, produced by the Community Water Center, Fresno State and the nonprofit Pacific Institute, shows two of every five households — nearly 4,000 customers — pay more than they can afford for tap water…
New research shows that a swath of San Joaquin Valley people living in rural poverty pay more than they can afford for their often-tainted tap water.
Two of every five households — nearly 4,000 customers — pay too much for tap water in a sampling of 51 small water systems across Fresno, Tulare and Kings counties, according to the study called “Assessing water affordability.”
And bills climb even higher for those who also buy bottled water to protect their families from the Valley’s underground water contamination.
“We confirmed what we had been hearing for a long time in communities,” said Carolina Balazs, a University of California at Davis researcher and consultant for the nonprofit Community Water Center in Visalia…
In the fine print of “environmental justice” legislation, AB 1330 (Speaker John Perez) is a huge to gift to polluters that allows the state’s toxics regulator to make a plan for “reducing the disposal of hazardous waste that may post a significant threat to human health or the environment to the maximum extent practicable”…