The air turned scary corrosive for two hours in northwest Fresno on Thursday, and it was nearly as bad in many other places. In the Valley where breathing ozone is a way of life, this was special.
The episode triggered a now-familiar debate. Maybe readers can help sort it out.
News
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Imagine an invisible cloud of a cancer-causing weedkiller drifting slowly across your state. Well, one just blew 100 miles across California, from Merced County, nestled at the northern tip of the Central Valley, as far south as Kern County (one county stop before Los Angeles) according to farm press.
State Senator Michael Rubio (D-Shafter) visited two homes in Cutler and East Orosi on Tuesday to discuss the water situation plaguing both communities.
A group of over 30 California-based organizations yesterday sent a letter to Governor Brown urging him to reject the use of international forest carbon offsets credits in the state’s cap and trade system.
For Bob Lewis, the recent announcement of an $8 million grant to fund a water treatment plant in Kettleman City is reason to celebrate. Lewis, president of the Kettleman City Chamber of Commerce, has toiled long and hard to clean up the small town’s water supply, which is tainted with arsenic and benzene.
“That was the money we were waiting on,” Lewis said. “That water plant means everything to Kettleman.”
The Center on Race, Poverty and The Environment is backing the community over water hikes.
The Delano City Council approved the hikes back in 2009 and since then, there has been a hike every December.
“It was going to have a huge impact on people who are on fixed income. Those folks who are working out in the field who make $10,000 or $11,000 a year and we know they are the ones who are going to have the greatest impact,” said Martinez, the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment.
The California First Appellate District Court of Appeal affirmed a trial court ruling that the “Climate Change Scoping Plan” adopted by the California Air Resources Board (“ARB”) in 2009 complied with the requirements of the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (“AB 32”). (Association of Irritated Residents v. California Air Resources Board (2012) 206 Cal.App.4th 1487).
The Association of Irritated Residents, several other nonprofit organizations and individuals (collectively, “AIR”) challenged the Scoping Plan claiming, among other things, that the Scoping Plan failed to achieve the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and also failed to require emissions reduction measures for significant sources of emissions.
Kettleman City is one step closer to having clean drinking water.
The California Department of Public Health announced the agency will commit more than eight million dollars in funding to provide a safe source of water.
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) today announced that it has committed over $8 million in funding to provide safe drinking water for the Kettleman City Community Services District.
Because the Kettleman City drinking water supply exceeds both the Federal and State standard for arsenic, the CDPH Drinking Water Program has been working with Kings County and the Kettleman City Community Services District to find a drinking water solution. The community has decided to pursue a surface water option, with a surface water supply from the California Aqueduct and required surface water treatment.
After years of worry about birth defects and the neighboring hazardous-waste landfill, Kettleman City residents face a three-year wait to get healthy drinking water.
The state has put up $8 million to replace the town’s water supply, which is laced with cancer-causing arsenic and benzene. But the project won’t be finished until at least 2015.
Meantime, the 1,400 residents in this Kings County farmworker town must provide their own bottled or filtered water.