Promising to focus on environmental problems which disproportionately plague the San Joaquin Valley, the Environmental Protection Agency came to Stockton on Tuesday to announce funding and a new Valley-wide strategic plan.
The money – $5 million to pay for clean locomotives, including one that will operate between the Port of Stockton and Lodi – isn’t much in the big picture.
About $3 billion is needed over the next 10 to 15 years to meet clean air goals.
But officials said this was a good first step, and praised the EPA for its attention to an often-neglected area. The agency says it has never before prepared a Valley plan containing specific goals.
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.
U.S. EPA Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld today announced $5 million in funding that will pay for cleaner locomotives throughout the San Joaquin Valley, including a state-of-the art locomotive operating between the Port of Stockton and Lodi. EPA and its partners in the valley, the California Air Resources Board and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District made the announcement at the Central California Traction Rail Company in Stockton, CA.
In addition, approximately $16 million in grants was announced to slash diesel emissions, advance air quality and improve public health throughout the state of California. The San Joaquin Valley, one of the most productive agricultural areas in the country, also has some of the nation’s worst air quality and highest rates of asthma. Federal, local and state partners are working to alleviate these problems by channeling significant funds into new clear air technologies.
When it comes to the environment, the San Joaquin Valley boasts dubious distinctions — some of the worst air quality, highest asthma rates, and most polluted drinking water in the nation. Later today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launches a new strategic plan to address those issues.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld (pictured above) is expected to make some major announcements regarding health and the environment tomorrow morning in Stockton.
The announcements will kick off a two-day tour through the San Joaquín Valley that will take him from Stockton, to UC Merced, and eventually to Seville, where he will speak with Tulare County residents who can’t drink their water.
A top U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official will travel to the Central Valley this week to discuss reducing diesel emissions as well as a strategic plan for meeting tough federal air goals.
The visit by regional administrator Jared Blumenfeld coincides with news the valley will receive $5 million of $21 million the EPA is allocating statewide to fund cleaner locomotives, school buses, trucks, ships and agricultural irrigation pumps.
“We believe a lot of the work we’ve done is paying off in terms of the level of attention the EPA is paying to the valley,” said Sayed Sadredin, executive director of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.
The strategic plan will lay out how the district and EPA can work together to help the valley achieve federal air standards. It will also address some environmental justice issues, such low-income, mostly minority regions that shoulder a disproportionate share of the valley’s bad air burden. Discussion on this could lead to more grant funding for air improvements in areas such as Arvin, he said.
In a victory for clean air advocates and residents of California’s Central Valley, a federal appeals court on Friday January 20, rejected an inadequate ozone air pollution plan for the San Joaquin Valley. The court found the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of the plan was arbitrary and capricious.
The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District adopted its plan in 2004 to meet federal limits on the maximum levels of harmful air pollution known as ozone or smog, that Central Valley residents can be exposed to in a one-hour period. EPA approved the 2004 plan in 2010, ignoring that fact that the plan was based on outdated air pollution data that the agencies knew to be incorrect.
The Environmental Protection Agency this morning will announce that it’s sending $21 million to help clean the air in the smoggy San Joaquin Valley and elsewhere in California.
In addition, the federal agency will roll out its plan for protecting the health of Valley residents with an emphasis on air and water quality, enforcement of public health standards and environmental justice.
Better late than never, I suppose.
Scientists were predicting back in the 1980s that the Valley, with its unique topography and an inert layer of air often overhead, would become the worst air pollution basin in the country.
The smart guys were right due in part to the EPA’s reluctance to work with local and state officials on a plan strong enough to accommodate population growth and the realities of how goods and people move through the Valley. The EPA also failed to spend sufficient money aiding cleanup and research.
This $21 million, while welcome, is a drop in the bucket of what’s needed in a region notorious for high asthma rates and premature deaths linked to air pollution.
HANFORD — The San Joaquin Valley remains the most dangerous place to breathe, with Hanford, Visalia and Bakersfield topping the list of cities with the worst air quality in the country. But activists and concerned local residents won the latest round in their push to clean up the area’s ozone pollution.
Clean air advocacy groups prevailed in a lawsuit Friday in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court concluded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ignored recent air pollution data when it approved the Valley air district’s plan to meet the one-hour ozone standard.
Calling EPA’s action “arbitrary and capricious,” Circuit Judge Ronald Gould ordered the agency to revisit its 2010 approval of the 2004 compliance plan for the Valley.
A federal appeals court Friday ordered the federal government to reconsider an ozone cleanup plan that did not clear the air enough for the San Joaquin Valley to achieve a 2010 deadline.
Valley motorists are paying most of a $29 million annual penalty as a result of missing the deadline for the one-hour ozone standard.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the ozone plan back to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for further review. The court said officials had ignored changes in pollution calculations that raised estimates of one ozone-making gas by nearly 40%.
Activists and community groups said it was a wake-up call for the EPA.
“This is a real-world problem, not a legal game,” said lawyer Paul Cort of Earthjustice Legal Defense, representing the Sierra Club and Medical Advocates for Healthy Air. “These peak levels of ozone are dangerous.”
Other plaintiffs include the Committee for a Better Arvin, Comité ROSAS and the Association of Irritated Residents. They were represented by the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld is scheduled to conduct a whistle stop tour through the Central Valley next week to announce millions in funding to protect public health.
Mr. Blumenfeld is launching a strategic plan for the San Joaquin Valley that the EPA says will address serious issues including air and water quality, enforcement of public health standards and environmental justice.