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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.

California toxic waste case settled

Article by Louis Sahagun. Published August 24, 2011 in Los Angeles Times.

A toxic waste dump near a San Joaquin Valley community plagued by birth defects will pay $400,000 in fines and spend $600,000 on laboratory upgrades needed to properly manage hazardous materials at the facility, federal authorities announced Wednesday.

The settlement capped an 18-month joint investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control into the Chemical Waste Management landfill about 3 1⁄2 miles southwest of Kettleman City, a community of 1,500 mostly low-income Latino farmworkers.

An analysis of company records revealed at least 18 instances over the past six years in which toxic waste had to be excavated from the landfill after it was learned that the laboratory, prior to disposal, had mistakenly concluded the material met treatment standards, EPA officials said.

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California praised for approving climate law plan to cut pollution

Press release by Environmental Defense Fund. Published August 24, 2011 in edf.org.

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) praised California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) for approving a blueprint today for reducing climate change pollution that complements new state and federal actions designed to improve air quality. California’s plan will work alongside other public health rules, including more stringent ozone and air toxics standards.

CARB originally approved its Climate Change Scoping Plan [PDF] in December 2008 as a key part of the implementation of the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32), which EDF cosponsored. The plan includes a cap-and-trade rule as one of 70 measures to reduce pollution and grow California’s burgeoning clean energy economy. The initial outcome of a lawsuit filed in 2009, however, required CARB to set aside the approval and complete a more thorough review of the plan’s alternatives to cap-and-trade. Today’s vote approved the scoping plan based on new analysis required by the court.

“Today’s vote reinforces California’s world-renowned environmental leadership by cutting serious air pollution in the state and protecting public health. The plan’s cap-and-trade rule puts a firm limit on pollution from the largest sources in the state and doesn’t let any polluter off the hook,” said Tim O’Connor, director of EDF’s California Climate and Energy Initiative, who testified at the public meeting before the CARB vote. “However, it still has to be managed in real-time to track and respond to any unforeseen impacts.”

Activists to Air Board: Keep the Cap, Lose the Trade

Article by KQED News. Published August 24, 2011.

Regulators vote to keep cap-and-trade plan on track

Members of the “environmental justice” movement lost a major round to air officials on Wednesday, when the latter voted to keep California’s nascent cap-and-trade plan on track.

Statewide Mobilization “Day of Action” in Sacramento Urges Policymakers to Consider Cap and Trade Alternatives

Blog post by Global Justice Ecology Project. Published August 24, 2011 in climate-connections.org.

Hundreds of California residents arrived in Sacramento by the busload and vanload to pack the California Air Resources Board (CARB) at 8:30am, Wednesday, August 24 in a “Day of Action” as the Air Resources Board considered its direction in implementing California’s landmark global warming legislation.

The campaign behind the mobilization, Communities Rising for Real Solutions (CoRReSol), opposes CARB’s cap and trade framework to curb California’s greenhouse gas emissions and supports alternative measures that are more effective and would address local pollution sources, along with carbon emissions.

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Environmental, Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights Groups Reject International Offsets in California’s Global Warming Solutions Act

Blog post by Global Justice Ecology Project. Published August 23, 2011 in climate-connections.org.

The California Air Resources Board meets tomorrow in Sacramento, CA to announce the findings of its evaluation of alternatives to Cap and Trade in AB32, the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act. Environmental, indigenous peoples’ and human rights groups warn that outsourcing the state’s emissions reductions through carbon offsets will shift the responsibility for the climate crisis from industry to under-resourced communities, both in California and abroad.

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Time running short

Article by Eiji Yamashita. Published August 19, 2011 in Hanford Sentinel.

A regional air regulator says the proposed Avenal Power Plant, if built according to newly submitted plans, would be the cleanest natural gas power plant in the whole San Joaquin Valley.

But activists are not impressed. The cleanest power plant is still the one not built, they say.

Avenal Power Center LLC – a subsidiary of an Australian-owned investment bank, Macquarie Group Limited – is seeking a new permit from the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to voluntarily lower the bar of emissions from its proposed power plant in a remote part of Kings County.

Specifically, the company is proposing to limit the annual facility-wide nitrogen oxide emissions from 288,618 pounds a year to 198,840 pounds a year, and the carbon monoxide emissions from 1.2 million pounds a year to 197,928 pounds a year.

Intercambiando Contaminación

Radio by Radio Bilingüe. Published August 17, 2011.

California ha firmado un acuerdo con el estado de Chiapas, México, para comprar créditos por contaminación, a cambio de protección para la Selva Lacandona. Organizaciones comunitarias están preocupadas de que este acuerdo permitirá más contaminación en las comunidades de bajos recursos en California, al mismo tiempo que expulsa a más pueblos indígenas en Chiapas fuera de su tierra. Grupos de justicia ambiental han demandado a California en un intento por detener el “cap-and-trade”, un sistema incluido en la histórica ley para poner fin a la contaminación por gases de invernadero, que permite que las compañías continúen contaminando, siempre y cuando compren créditos de otras agencias que reducen la contaminación.

Invitados: Alegría de la Cruz, Directora jurídica, Centro de Raza, Pobreza, y el Medio Ambiente, San Francisco, CA, www.crpe-ej.org ; Jeff Conant, Escritor y Director de comunicaciones, Global Justice Ecology Project, Oakland, CA, globaljusticeecology.org/

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Valley bad-air alerts coming to Facebook, Twitter

Article by Mark Grossi. Published August 16, 2011 in The Fresno Bee.

A blitz of bad-air alerts will fill Twitter, Facebook and maybe even flashing freeway signs on a half-dozen summer days when ozone peaks dangerously in the San Joaquin Valley.

The local air board on Thursday is expected to approve the alerts, which amount to a plea for you to drive less and shave down those ozone peaks.

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Latinos in agricultural areas exposed more to groundwater contamination

Radio published August 15, 2011.

This is Science Today. New research has revealed that Latino communities in California’s San Joaquin Valley are exposed to disproportionately high levels of the agricultural chemical nitrate through their drinking water. Researcher Carolina Balazs of the University of California, Berkeley’s Energy Resources Group, explains.

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California’s San Joaquin Valley Produces Agriculture and Air Pollution

Article by Gina-Marie Cheeseman. Published August 12, 2011 in care2 make a difference.

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) launched a web tool last week that lets users see how their state is being impacted by climate change. NRDC’s tool shows that climate change will only worsen the air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

As the agricultural center of the world, it is rather scary to think that a polluted region is supplying the nation with produce, meat, dairy and cotton. If you doubt that the San Joaquin Valley supplies a good deal of the nation’s food, go to your local grocery store. Head to the produce section, and look at the boxes that hold the fruits and vegetables. Much of it will have California stamped somewhere on the box, and the chances are great it came from the Valley.

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