A federal appeals court has shot down the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of an air pollution cleanup plan for the San Joaquin Valley.
“We should not silently rubber stamp agency action that is arbitrary and capricious in its reliance on old data without meaningful comment on the significance of more current compiled data,” says the decision Friday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. “We hold that EPA’s failure to even consider the new data and to provide an explanation for its choice rooted in the data presented was arbitrary and capricious.”
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State and local air pollution districts in the San Joaquin Valley must come up with a new plan to meet ozone emission standards after a federal appeals court ruled that the data used to determine its current plan was out of date.
San Joaquin’s plan was concocted in 2004 and was made to meet federal standards for the maximum amount of smog a place can have in one hour. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the plan in March 2010, eight months before the Clean Air Act’s November 2010 deadline.
Earthjustice, a national group that provides legal representation for environmental issues, promptly sued the EPA. They argued that the plan and emission projections didn’t match reality, and that the reality was something the EPA should have known about for years.
California’s San Joaquin Valley has some of the worst ozone pollution in the United States and today local residents won the latest round in their effort to clean up the air.
The Committee for a Better Arvin, Comité Residentes Organizados al Servicio del Ambiente Sano (“Comité ROSAS”), the Association of Irritated Residents, the Sierra Club, and Fresno-based Medical Advocates for Healthy Air prevailed in a lawsuit today in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court concluded that EPA ignored recent air pollution data when it approved the Air Board’s plan to meet the 1-hour ozone standard.
Safe drinking water may finally arrive in Kettleman City, but it will be a few years yet before people can start enjoying the water right out of the tap, according to officials close to the project.
State officials are expected to approve $8 million in funding for the project this spring after the community’s utility district submitted its application last fall.
The district was recently notified that its application is good to go, and the state should announce a formal decision within two months, said Joe McGahan, principal of Summers Engineering. The Hanford firm serves as the Kettleman City Community Services District’s engineer.
It’s not a done deal yet, but from all indications, Kettleman should get the money, McGahan said.
Where do you start if you’re a small town trying to clean up tainted drinking water? For Kettleman City, it took an order from the state.
That’s part of rural life in the San Joa- quin Valley. Dozens of farm- worker com- munities live with tap water that is considered unsafe and wait for state help.
One sure way to start the cleanup: The state issues an order to do it. That’s when the fix-it money starts flowing from the state.
Small towns must wait in line to get the state’s attention. A huge, balky state agency — the California Department of Public Health — is in control of the money and their fate.
If you haven’t been feeling well, the tiny particles that have filled the Valley’s air, and your body, may be to blame.
Kevin Hall, Director of the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition believes the region has been hit hard by microscopic pollution, known as PM 2.5.
“We’ve been through the worst winter air pollution episode for fine particulates that anyone can remember. People are talking about it not being this bad since the 1980’s and in terms of weather perhaps nothing like this in 50 years. so what this has led to is an unrelenting assault on our health. Fine particulates are perhaps the most deadly form of pollution.”
Hall notes the daily levels of particulates have been in the unhealthy and very unhealthy categories for almost every hour of the day for weeks.
The Fresno Regional Foundation board has announced the award of grants totaling $216,200 for work on such issues as environmental health, air quality and San Joaquin River restoration.
Recent headlines report that the Central Valley is experiencing the worst air quality in 12 years — this in a region known for the worst air pollution in the entire United States. To add to the health dangers, our pollution is composed of “fine particulate matter, laced with chemicals which enter the lungs and can move in to the blood stream,” according to the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. This pollution not only produces asthma rates three times higher than the national average, but also the particulates can break off plaque in the coronary artery, creating a logjam and a heart attack, according to scientists with the air district.
Yet this agency continues to focus solely on fireplace emissions in order to control air pollution. While this no doubt helps, it seems like a drop in the bucket of what we are up against as valley residents. Because weather patterns force pollution to the southern part of the valley (coupled with our geography, which borders the Valley on three sides by mountains), Bakersfield and its surrounding areas suffer the worst air in the valley. I am particularly disappointed in our local press and TV stations in their underreporting of this issue and its dangers.
Kettleman City is poised to get $8 million from the state to eliminate tainted drinking water problems that have stalled new businesses and added to a shroud of health worries there.
People in the Kings County town of 1,400 have been concerned about the water, air and soil for two decades. Some suspect the West’s largest hazardous-waste landfill — just a few miles from town — has poisoned their environment.
But state and federal agencies have not been able to link the landfill and residents’ health problems, which have included pneumonia, cancer and heart ailments. Most recently there was a series of birth defects and infant deaths.
Over the course of a year, Global Justice Ecology Project has documented the impacts of and resistance to REDD, in Cancun and Chiapas, Mexico, in Acre, Brazil, and among environmental justice communities in California. A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests puts this work into the compelling form of a short, sharp video.
This critical 28-minute documentary, introducing concerns about REDD from the perspective of the people most impacted, was co-produced by Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition, and will be released next week. Watch the trailer now: