In 2008, two Kettleman City community groups (El Pueblo Para El Aire y Agua Limpio/People for Clean Air and Water and Kids Protecting Our Planet) along with Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice conducted a community health survey of residents. This survey, conducted confidentially in peoples’ homes, discovered that this small town was suffering from a plague of birth defects and infant deaths. What was initially thought to be a cluster of five babies born with similar birth defects expanded into the discovery of at least eleven babies born with birth defects between late 2007 and early 2010. At least three of the infants died.
News
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A newcomer arriving into California’s San Joaquin Valley – the most lucrative and industrialized agricultural region in the United States – might think that the entire place is burning. On the horizon in all directions the brown hue of the air suggests a distant fire. As the traveler advances along, say, Highway 99, the fire appears to peel away, a deep stain floating off in the distance, as if forever clinging to the edges of the sky. Upon moving farther in, one slowly realizes that the blaze does not recede. The traveler does not move toward the fire, but within it.
The arid San Joaquin Valley has some of the worst air pollution in the country, a daily cloud of smog and soot that rises from interstate automobile traffic, the belching of a few million cows packed into mega-dairies, the incineration of toxic waste, and the constant fueling of irrigation pumps and food processing plants – all weaving a faded yellow curtain that hangs in the air.
In a region where so much is burning, nothing is more valuable than water.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday levied a $300,000 fine against a toxic waste dump near a Central California farming community plagued by birth defects for failing to properly manage carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.
Waste Management Inc., which owns the facility about 3½ miles southwest of Kettleman City, in July was given 60 days to clean up PCB in soil adjacent to a building where extremely hazardous wastes are treated for disposal.
EPA tests showed PCB concentrations of up to 440 parts per million at the landfill, the largest hazardous waste facility in the Western United States and the only one in the state federally regulated to handle PCBs. Spills of PCBs at concentrations of 50 parts per million on concrete or soil constitute a violation of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
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Kettleman City residents, their community groups and environmental justice allies cheered the news that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today fined Chemical Waste Management, Inc. $302,100 for failure to properly manage PCBs at its Kettleman Hills Hazardous Waste Landfill.
In order to protect human health and the environment, EPA regulations and facility permit requirements require that PCBs are properly tracked, stored and disposed – and Chem Waste was found to have seriously violated regulations and permit requirements.
“This huge fine by US EPA validates our concerns that Chem Waste is not the safe company they claim to be,” said Maricela Mares-Alatorre, Kettleman City resident and spokesperson for the community group El Pueblo Para El Aire y Agua Limpio/People for Clean Air and Water. “We don’t know what is causing the birth defects, but we do know that this toxic polluter needs to be shut down for good so our community is protected.”
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Sewage Sludge is trucked into Kern County from large urban areas in Southern California. It is spread out on the ground and sometimes mixed with wood chips. It spreads flies and dust and stink all around the area and contaminates surrounding land and the shallow ground water table in the area with heavy metals. It creates plenty of air pollution in what is already the most air polluted region in the United States.
The Central Valley Air Quality Coalition hosts a radio show on KFCF 88.1 FM, which airs on the 4th Friday of every month from 3:00-3:30pm. On the show you will hear interviews with individuals at the forefront of air quality issues, policy and research. KFCF can be heard from Merced to Delano and live at www.kfcf.org. KFCF broadcasts Pacifica’s KPFA station to the Central Valley as well.
Clean Cars Campaign
Host- Dolores Weller
Guest(s): Mike Wells, Fresno Metro Ministry; Patricia Monahan, Union of Concerned Scientists
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On Monday, the state Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Public Health released a draft report of their investigation into the birth defects in Kettleman City between 2007 and March 2010.
Their conclusion: There is no common cause for the birth defects found in 11 babies from this impoverished farmworker community of about 1,500 people. (Read the full story here.)
That news didn’t sit well with Maricela Mares-Alatorre, a community activist with the local organization El Pueblo Para el Aire y Agua Limpio/People for Clean Air and Water.
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Investigation into an unusual spike in birth defects in Kettleman City has failed to provide conclusive answers as to why so many babies in this tiny impoverished community near a toxic waste facility have been born with deformities.In a long-awaited draft report released Monday, state health agencies said the probe – undertaken in January by order of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – found no common underlying cause for the birth defects, opening a whole new debate about the legitimacy of the study.
While the operator of the nearby landfill facility said the report confirms the company’s safety record, activists called the report “incomplete and biased.”
After an investigation, California officials said Monday that they could not determine a cause for nearly a dozen sometimes deadly birth defects in the small Central Valley town of Kettleman City, echoing preliminary findings the state announced earlier this year.
Under order from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state has been investigating 11 cases of children born with “major structural birth defects” from 2007 to March 2010. At least three of those children died, and residents have long suspected an environmental cause, in part because Kettleman City is adjacent to the largest hazardous waste treatment site in the West.
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On November 13, in Wasco, California, Central Valley environmental activists met to support each other and make demands of EPA. Over 125 people attended the event.