Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger directed state public health and environmental officials Friday to visit
Kettleman City to conduct “a thorough investigation” into the causes of an abnormal percentage of birth
defects in the small San Joaquin Valley farming community.Schwarzenegger’s intercession comes more than a year after activists unsuccessfully petitioned state agencies to investigate whether a large toxic dump near the community might be causing cleft palates and other defects among the mostly low-income Latino residents. The dump, operated by Houston-based Waste Management, is the largest hazardous waste facility west of the Mississippi.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched an internal investigation into its permitting and oversight in a San Joaquin Valley farming community dominated by a hazardous-waste facility, agricultural pesticide spraying and truck exhaust that may be contributing to health problems including severe birth defects.
EPA regional administrator Jared Blumenfeld said the internal investigation would run concurrently with a broader inquiry in which state and local agencies will examine health and environmental issues facing Kettleman City, a town of 1,500 mostly poor, Spanish-speaking farmworkers.
The new head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Pacific Southwest region will tour the controversial Kettleman Hills hazardous waste landfill next week, an agency spokeswoman said Wednesday.
EPA regional administrator Jared Blumenfeld also will visit residents in the Kings County community of Kettleman City, who blame cleft-palate birth defects or other disabilities affecting five children on exposure to toxic waste at the site owned and operated by Waste Management Inc.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is directing two state agencies to investigate a spike of birth defects in Kettleman City.
The governor’s order on Friday comes more than a year after first reports of facial defects and miscarriages in the impoverished town, where Chemical Waste Management Inc., owner of the town’s hazardous waste facility, is seeking to expand.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to investigate a recent spike in birth defect cases as well as other health concerns in Kettleman City.
The EPA released a public statement confirming its commitment to working with other agencies to assess all environmental stressors affecting the impoverished Kings County migrant farm worker community, where residents are especially fearing impacts from the nearby toxic waste facility.
“These families are looking for answers, and collectively as public agencies it is our responsibility to help come up with those answers,” Jared Blumenfeld, recently appointed administrator for the EPA’s Pacific Southwest region, said in a statement. “We’re engaging with those agencies and community members in order to understand and address public health and environmental issues in Kettleman City.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday that it plans to investigate a cluster of facial birth defects and other health issues among migrant farm workers in the impoverished California enclave of Kettleman City as part of the Obama administration’s pledge to shift the agency’s attention toward issues of environmental justice.
The Kettleman City community group El Pueblo Para El Aire y Agua Limpio/People for Clean Air and Water, and Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice today filed a lawsuit against Kings County, asking the Kings County Superior Court to invalidate the permit approved by the County Board of Supervisors on December 22, 2009 for the proposed expansion of one of the nation’s largest hazardous waste dumps, the giant Chemical Waste Management Kettleman Hills hazardous waste landfill.
Facing threat of a lawsuit by environmental activists, Waste Management announced Wednesday that it will not accept radioactive waste from the Santa Susana Field Lab at the Kettleman Hills landfills.
As an official statement, the company released a letter sent Tuesday to Linda Adams, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, by Waste Management Senior District Manager Robert Henry.
“Waste Management is extremely sensitive to the community concerns surrounding the potential receipt of these wastes,” Henry wrote. “Therefore, I am writing to inform you that Waste Management’s Kettleman Hills Facility has voluntarily decided not to accept solid or hazardous waste from any portion of the Santa Susana Field Lab because of the uncertainty and community concerns about the levels of radioactive constituents in these materials.”
Waste Management’s action comes less than a week after a group of Kettleman City residents and environmental justice groups announced its intent to sue if the company takes the materials in question.
While opposition groups claimed victory over Waste Management, company officials said the lawsuit threat had little to do with their decision.
In a major victory for the residents of the embattled Latino farmworker community of Kettleman City and their environmental justice allies, corporate giant Waste Management, parent company of Chemical Waste Management, today announced they dropped their controversial attempt to dump radioactive wastes from the Santa Susana Field Laboratory at the Kettleman Hills hazardous waste landfill.
Emotions spilled over at the Kings County Planning Commission public hearing Monday night, when protesters came face-to-face with the decision-makers who were asked to approve a controversial plan for hazardous waste landfill expansion near Kettleman City…