Edeniq has brought Silicon Valley innovation to America’s breadbasket. The ethanol production company is plunked in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley, surrounded by farms and orchards growing some of America’s most valuable crops. A short hop away from the company’s plant in Visalia are wide swaths of land bursting with almonds, pomegranates, cotton citrus and stone fruit – not to mention corn, most of which Tulare County farmers grow to provide animal feed for cattle and poultry.
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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.
Earlier this fall, the New York Times’ lead food writer Mark Bittmanvisited the San Joaquín Valley. In a recent piece for the Times’ magazine, ‘Everyone Eats There,’ Bittman said he came here to explore big farming, small farming, food politics and sustainability – as well as the industry’s impact on natural resources, people, and animals.
This year was the year of Cesar Chavez. Decades ago Senator Robert F. Kennedy called him “one of the heroic figures of our time.” In 2012, the Obama Administration honored his memory and legacy with a day of national observance to be celebrated on every 31st of March from here on forward. And last week, his family home in Keene, California was designated as a National Monument by the President. Yet Chavez was not only a humanitarian, labor organizer or civil rights leader. He was also an environmental leader. He bequeathed upon generations of Latinos, especially in California, a legacy of empowerment and leadership in the struggle for environmental justice.
Federal and state officials are ramping up pressure on the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District to allow the return of an air quality monitoring station that the agency had removed from its property more than a year ago.
Representatives of the California Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent letters to the district last week asking for a speedy resolution of the three-year-old dispute.
Both agencies warned that, until the matter is settled, the federal government cannot declare the Central Valley to be in compliance with air standards — meaning $38 million in fines will continue to be levied against area residents regardless of any improvement in air quality.
The small Kern County community of Arvin has some of the worst air in the nation. Surrounded on two sides by mountains at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, the city’s 16,000 residents breathe air polluted by cars, trucks and industrial operations from nearby, and from across the valley. But now some members of the community are taking matters into their own hands, with a “bucket brigade” that aims to clean up the air. But their efforts are not without controversy.
As local governments continue to debate how best to enact climate change policy – let alone policy that affects the most vulnerable of communities – community organizations are forging ahead with small staffs on tight budgets. From Sacramento, to Tulare, to San Diego, these groups are identifying problems and creating solutions to narrow the “climate gap.”
On September 30, 2012, California Governor Brown signed the “Climate and Community Revitalization” bills – AB 1532 and SB535. The first of these sets up a process to allocate revenues from auctioning allowances (that is, emissions permits) under the new market-based system that is part of the implementation of the Golden State’s 2006 landmark legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). More significantly, SB 535 requires that a minimum of 25 percent of cap and trade revenue be invested in projects that provide benefits to environmentally burdened and socially disadvantaged communities – and it requires that 10 percent be directly invested in projects in those communities.
Water is of vital importance to every person, community, state, and nation. California’s so-called “Human Right to Water package” is a group of bills that would expand efforts to improve water quality in California. The majority of attention has been paid to AB 685, by Assembly Member Mike Eng, which declares that “every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes.” That bill was signed by Governor Brown on September 25.
According to California Watch, water companies comprised most of the opposition to the bills at two committee hearings. Also opposed was the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA).
The Industry Influence tool at FollowTheMoney.org, website of the National Institute on Money in State Politics, provides a detailed look at contributions given to lawmakers. Water utility companies contributed $199,265 to candidates for state office in California during the 2010 elections. The list of donations by company reveals that the California Water Association’s $53,500 makes it the top water utility contributor to candidates in California in 2010. Click “See Records” next to the table to itemize these contributions and learn that in 2009 the California Water Association gave the most, $5,000, to Anna Caballero, a Democrat who lost in the general election.
Friday will mark one year since two men died at the Community Recycling Center near Lamont. A new study by a local group shows the poisonous gas that killed the men, still lingers at dangerous levels around the facility.
According to officials, hydrogen sulfide gas killed the men on October 12th, 2011.
The Committee for a Better Arvin has been taking air samples near the facility since the deaths, hoping to prove Community Recycling is polluting the air.
Flowers and white crosses still sit outside the facility’s entrance as reminders of the two men who died because of a hazardous gas at this facility.
“It’s polluting our air, and it’s polluting it in a degree that’s not tolerable,” said Sal Partida, President of the Committee for a Better Arvin, about Community Recycling.
Arvin community activists renewed their calls for government action against Community Recycling and Resource Recovery, claiming that harmful levels of air pollutants are being emitted from the Lamont facility.