On 11 February, we published an article about current litigationunderway in the USA courts against Shell Oil Company and Dow Chemicals relating to the extremely hazardous chemical pesticide, dibromochloropropane (“DBCP”).
We have carried out some research into the background history of Shell’s association with DBCP, which stretches back almost 60 years.
News
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.
Around the world, breathing a variety of air pollutants – in some cases for a single day – increases the chance that people will suffer heart attacks, according to a new analysis published Tuesday.
For the first time, scientists analyzed previous studies from five continents to verify and quantify the links between air pollution and heart health. They found that short-term exposure – less than seven days – to all major air pollutants except ozone was associated with an increase in heart attacks.
If Republicans in Congress have their way with H.R. 7, oil companies would be offered access to over two million acres of our public lands as well as bargain basement royalty rates for oil shale speculation. In fact, this bill goes so far as to mandate the leasing of 125,000 acres of federal public land for oil shale speculation by 2016 – an unprecedented giveaway of our great outdoors.
Unfortunately, oil shale speculation is a process that creates massive air pollution and has a significant negative global climate impact. I know well the negative impact of air pollution – as do many Californians. Children in the Central Valley – the area where I live and work – suffer incredibly high rates of asthma due to poor air quality. That’s not a situation we should replicate around the country.
Did I get your attention Saturday with the story about the cancer-causing chemical found in Clovis drinking water wells and others around the San Joaquin Valley? I got phone calls and email.
People are telling me the California Department of Public Health needs to move faster and regulate this chemical — 1,2,3-trichloropropane. Call it TCP when you call your local lawmakers.
There’s no denying this is a scary chemical. TCP was in a farm fumigant that has not been applied in 30 years. Yet the chemical is still quite dangerous.
Five parts per trillion gets the attention of the public health department. That’s like five drops of water in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
But this story gets much scarier.
The 5 parts per trillion is seven times higher than the state’s public health goal. It’s .7 parts per trillion. The state set that goal in 2009 after scientists performed tests on laboratory animals and caused cancer in the animals.
Nature lovers mostly have been losers in the Central Valley in the 144 years since John Muir said his mortal eyes had never seen a more beautiful place.
For more than a century, this was the profiteers’ garden. Dirt was moved. Rivers tamed. Plumbing installed. The big desert blossomed — as it was being choked.
Then about 20 years ago, the powers dealing from a stacked deck collided with a changing public attitude.
Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was calling the Valley a crucial battleground in the effort to save the planet. Hanford and Fresno residents shot down plans for coal-burning energy plants. Greenpeace teamed with people in Kettleman City to knock out a proposed hazardous waste incinerator.
In retrospect, these were easy calls. No one of right mind would welcome coal in a valley hemmed in on three sides by mountains and blanketed with air pollution. The corporation wanting to burn toxic waste faced opposition from the Environmental Protection Agency and years of wrangling for permits.
Now there is another fight at center stage. It’s over mining Jesse Morrow Mountain, which rises to 2,083 feet along Highway 180 east of Fresno and is held sacred by some Choinumni Indians.
An innovative community-university partnership to empower San Joaquin Valley residents to analyze and communicate their most pressing challenges launches in Fresno this month.
The Participatory Action Research Resource Center (PARRC) will strengthen residents’ skills in using research to improve their lives. It will also promote research collaborations between the University of California and other higher education institutions and communities.
UC Merced Professor Robin DeLugan, UC Davis Professor Jonathan London and Rey León, director of the San Joaquin Valley Latino Environmental Advancement Project (Valley LEAP), are collaborating to establish and grow the center.
The Center on Race, Poverty and The Environment recently reported that California’s San Joaquin Valley is experiencing the worst air quality in decades. Despite the many reports of exceptionally bad air quality in the Valley this winter, the response has been a muted ho-hum: What’s new? What are we going to do about it?
This is serious. Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Regional Administrator, acknowledged the gravity of the situation as he swung through the Valley last week announcing a Valley Plan and new funding: “Four times more people die in the San Joaquin Valley from air pollution than they do from traffic fatalities.” Additional funding for some new air pollution controls is nice, but is there a real commitment? And what is the local San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District doing about it? Not a lot.
John X Mataka made his foray into nonviolent protest as a 17-year-old in the late 1960s — during the same period when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated — by staging a walkout at Modesto High School after the school announced plans to stop serving free lunches.
He has dedicated his life to activism ever since. He has spoken out about the former Westley tire incinerator and issues surrounding the Fink Road Landfill, and he has worked to create a park and community center in his hometown of Grayson.
On Jan. 21, Modesto Junior College honored his efforts with a Legacy Award at the college’s annual commemoration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr., a celebration that drew nearly 700 people and featured comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory as the keynote speaker.
Host: Dolores Weller, Associate Director, CVAQ
Guest(s): Gustavo Aguirre, Director of Organizing for the Center on Race Poverty & the Environment and Sal Partida, President of Community for a Better Arvin, will update listeners on the work of the air monitoring task force in Arvin, in collaboration with Global Community Monitoring.