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.

Calif poised to finalize ‘cap-and-trade’ plan

Article by Jason Dearen. Published October 20, 2011 in Boston.com.

SAN FRANCISCO—California is poised to formally adopt the nation’s most comprehensive so-called “cap-and-trade” system, designed to provide a financial incentive for polluters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

State officials hope other states and Washington D.C. will follow suit with similar plans.

“When Washington considers how to address climate change, as I think it will, California’s climate plan will serve as a role model for the national program,” said Stanley Young, the air board’s spokesman.

The California Air Resources Board on Thursday is expected to approve the final draft of its plan, a key part of the state’s landmark 2006 global warming law, AB 32, which seeks to reduce the emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

California Air Resources Board Approves Cap and Trade

Article, Radio by Jenny O'Mara. Published October 20, 2011 in Capital Public Radio.

Saying they would look back on this as an important date, California Air Resources Board members Thursday approved a plan for a “cap and trade” system— a key part of the state’s effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Special report: Chlorine accidents rupture life for workers, townspeople

Article by Jane Kay. Published October 20, 2011 in Environmental Health News.

Beverly Martinez was sitting at her desk in the office of a California scrap metal recycling plant when she felt the blast rattle her window.

One of her co-workers, Leonardo Morales Zavala, rushed through her door, struggling to breathe. “Run!” he yelled. He had just cut into a one-ton tank to recycle it in the yard – a football field away – and out poured a noxious substance. He didn’t know what it was.

The workers ran as fast as they could toward the street. But they couldn’t escape the giant, greenish-yellow cloud. A couple dozen people – workers and customers – dropped to the ground, gasping for air. Martinez fell, too.

“I couldn’t get up. I felt like I was being strangled. I thought, ‘I’m going to die. I’ll never see my granddaughter grow up,’ ” Martinez said.

Officials propose higher cleanup priority on some pollution

Blog post by Mark Grossi. Published October 20, 2011 in Fresno Bee.

A health study from Fresno State shows Valley asthmatics show up at emergency rooms and hospitals when soot, chemicals and other tiny debris spikes in the winter air.

So, local air officials are now asking which chemicals in the particles are causing the problems. And they’re talking about launching pollution controls aimed at the offending chemicals.

Another study already is under way to figure out what is in the particle pollution when ER and hospital visits are on the rise. The results are expected by next May.

With those results, officials at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District will push the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to make the most dangerous chemicals a cleanup priority.

Goh asks Cal-OSHA for update on safety at Lamont composting facility

Article by John Cox. Published October 20, 2011 in Bakersfield Californian.

County Supervisor Karen Goh pressed Cal-OSHA Thursday to send a representative to Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting to provide information about “any immediate threats to worker safety” at the Lamont composting facility where two brothers were killed last week.

A Cal-OSHA spokeswoman for the agency responded that the agency would have a representative at the meeting, but that the person’s comments would be limited.

“It’s important to note that because we have (an) ongoing investigation, the information that that representative can share will be limited in scope,” Erika Monterroza said. “We can’t compromise an ongoing investigation.”

Goh’s request came a day after state Sen. Michael Rubio called on the board to shut down the business, Community Recycling & Resource Recovery Inc., and for the county prosecutor’s office to join a potential criminal investigation of the operation. Goh and other county supervisors have said they need more information before deciding what to do about the accident.

Valley study links ER visits with bad air days

Article by Kellie Schmitt. Published October 19, 2011 in The Bakersfield Californian.

Children’s asthma-related emergency room visits rise in the San Joaquin Valley at a similar rate as fine particulate levels do — even on days where air quality is considered in the moderate range.

That’s a key finding of a yearlong study by the Central Valley Health Policy Institute at Fresno State, which examined the short-term impacts of air quality changes in Bakersfield, Fresno and Modesto.

Although nationwide studies have found similar connections between heightened pollution and hospital visits, the report is the first of its kind using valley-specific data.

CSUF study documents health consequences of Valley air pollution

Article published October 19, 2011 in The Hanford Sentinel.

FRESNO — An air pollution study by a California State University, Fresno institute indicates that as ozone and fine particulates in central San Joaquin Valley air increase, so do rates of children’s asthma emergency-room visits and hospitalizations.

The study by the Central Valley Health Policy Institute at Fresno State provides new regional evidence for the public health consequences of air pollution.

It offers the first local evidence of short-term population-level health effects associated with elevations in fine particulates and ozone for the Valley. Data are presented on air pollution impacts on emergency room and hospital use for respiratory and cardio-vascular conditions in the region’s most populous urban centers: Fresno/Clovis, Bakersfield and Modesto.

State Air Resources Board to Vote on Cap and Trade

Article, Radio by Jenny O'Mara. Published October 19, 2011 in Capital Public Radio.

California’s cap and trade program has been years in the making.  It survived challenges in court and now faces a vote by the state Air Resources Board.  Cap and trade would set a declining limit or “cap” on industries’ greenhouse gas emissions. Companies could buy permits in a marketplace to exceed their allowed limits. Companies with lower emissions can sell or trade their allowances.  Dan Kalb with the Union of Concerned Scientists says the program is certain to change as it develops but this is a good start.

Toxic treadmill testimony

Blog post by Teresa DeAnda. Published October 19, 2011 in GroundTruth.

PAN is collecting messages for the Big 6 pesticide/biotech corporations that keep the global food system on a toxic treadmill. Here’s one from an ally in California’s central valley:

I have lived in Earlimart my whole life. I guess my family and neighbors are the poster children of what can go wrong when you grow up around pesticide applications.

Before they were table grapes, now they are almond trees. Both these crops use very many applications ofbad actor pesticides that can cause cancer, reproductive and nervous system damaging illnesses.

Always we just would accept the spray.The headaches and the nausea would come and go. We did not know we could report the drift. We did not know who to call when it would leave droplets on us.

Through the years my neighbors began talking about the various cancers they had come out with. One neighbor learned of her brain cancer and died a month later. Another neighbor had a double mastectomy. A couple of children got leukemia and have since then died at the age of 19.

Sen. Rubio calls for recycling facility closure after deaths

Article, Video published October 19, 2011 in KBAK - KBFX - Eyewitness News.

ARVIN, Calif. — State and federal agencies have launched probes into the deaths of two young brothers at a recycling facility in the Arvin/Lamont area.

Now, a state lawmaker and former Kern County supervisor is calling for the facility to be shut down.

Sen. Michael Rubio, D-Shafter, asked the Kern County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday to immediately halt operations at theCommunity Recycling and Resource Co. pending the outcome of multiple investigations.

The brothers, 16-year-old Armando Ramirez and 22-year-old Eladio Ramirez, were cleaning an underground drainage tunnel last week at the facility when they reportedly became overwhelmed by toxic hydrogen sulfide fumes. The teenager was the first to die.

A third worker was overcome by the fumes, but he had stayed on the ground at the facility on North Wheeler Ridge Road. He was treated and released at a hospital.

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