Environmental justice advocates continue their campaign to halt a key portion of California’s proposed climate regulations. According to Greenwire, they have recently filed a complain with U.S. EPA claiming that the proposed cap-and-trade regulation is discriminatory.
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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.
“Not in my cuppa”, say the British, when asked if they would drink factory milk from cows living in crowded stalls 24 hrs per day.
In the UK, they are using examples from the San Joaquin Valley to show the negatives of this type of farming.
Meanwhile, Fresno, Tulare, Kings, and Kern counties suffer from the dirtiest air in the nation. The bad air is from smog during the warmer months and fine particulates in the winter. Industrial dairies contribute significantly to both types of pollution.
The Association of Irritated Residents and other environmental organizations on Friday launched a new challenge against California’s cap-and-trade program, claiming it discriminates against minorities who live near refineries, cement companies and power plants.
Jessica Sanchez sits on the edge of her seat in her mother’s kitchen, hands resting on her bulging belly. Eight months pregnant, she’s excited about the imminent birth of her son. But she’s scared too.
A few feet away, her mother, Bertha Dias, scrubs potatoes with water she bought from a vending machine. She won’t use the tap water because it’s contaminated with nitrates.
Every day, Dias, 43, heads to the fields to pick lemons or oranges, lugging a ladder so she can reach the treetops. She often skips lunch to save money for the $17.50 she needs each week to fill jugs with vending-machine water.
Four years ago, the family learned that it had nitrates in its drinking water, which Sanchez drank as a little girl. She started speaking out about her town’s toxic water when she discovered that nitrates can cause “blue baby syndrome,” a potentially fatal blood disorder that cuts off an infant’s oxygen supply.
“Now it really hits me,” she said, “because now it’s my baby.”
Host: Dolores Weller, CVAQ Associate Director
Guest/Topic: Mary Curry, Concerned Citizens of West Fresno (CCWF) President, joins the show to talk about West Fresno’s 60 year struggle against the rendering plant, Darling International. We’ll hear how this business has impacted the community and what are CCWF’s asks and latest efforts.
What was supposed to be a fun, educational field trip for elementary students has been criticized by parents and activists for putting the kids’ health at risk.
A mix of 83 students in fifth through eighth grades from Kettleman City Elementary School had a rare glimpse into where their everyday garbage, recyclables and hazardous trash go, as they toured Waste Management’s massive Kettleman Hills Facility Thursday.
The field trip, held at the request of teachers, was meant to be an opportunity to teach these kids environmental responsibility, according to company officials.
But residents are crying foul.
When Jim Sullins, director of Cooperative Extension for Tulare and Kings counties, asked for a show of hands of how many wanted the recent nitrogen workshop to continue after the appointed closing hour, the response was underwhelming.
Fewer than 10 raised their hands. It was obvious the packed meeting room had heard enough from the University of California experts reporting on their recent nitrate-in-groundwater findings.
What drew a crowd of about 200 to the UC Kearney Ag Center in Parlier, Calif., was a recently released UC study of nitrates in drinking water in the central San Joaquin Valley Tulare Lake Basin and the Salinas Valley in Monterey County.
Tom Frantz has lived his whole life in California’s Central Valley, where the small farms of his boyhood have given way to modern day mega-farms. The pollution from the farms combines with the area’s other industries – oil, waste disposal, and trucking – to form some of the worst air pollution in America. It should come as no surprise that the area also has some of America’s worst fine particle pollution as well.
Kathy Omachi was eating at McDonald’s in Reedley recently, and she counted 51 gravel trucks pass by — all in the time she finished a hamburger and fruit smoothie.
The lifelong resident of this farming town, which is southeast of Fresno and within a few miles of three rock quarries, fears that even more trucks, with their dirty exhaust, will be on the road if nearby mining is expanded.
And that is exactly what is in the pipeline.