Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN) applauds Governor Gavin Newsom and California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) Secretary Jared Blumenfeld’s leadership in setting in motion the process to cancel the registration of the pesticide Chlorpyrifos…
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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.
On Earth Day 2019, fifteen activists from the Extinction Rebellion carrying brightly colored signs and banners gathered at 12th and L Streets in in front of the State Capitol in Sacramento and then marched at 10:30 a.m. to the looming offices of the powerful Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), located at 14th & L Streets. For over an hour, they protested against the oil industry’s grip on California and U.S. politics both in front and back of the building, including blocking the back door of the offices of WSPA, the most powerful corporate lobbying group in California and the West….
The Trump administration has outlined a plan to open more than a million acres of public and private land in California to fracking. The action would end a five-year moratorium on leasing federal land in California to oil and gas developers. The 174-page Bureau of Land Management (BLM) environmental impact report satisfies a federal judge’s mandate for a new analysis of fracking and “paves the way for resuming all new oil development,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle…
At first blush, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest action on water seems fanciful and naive. But it has logic and conceivably could work. Newsom wants to reexamine practically everything the state has been working on — meaning what former Gov. Jerry Brown was doing — and piece together a grand plan for California’s future that can draw the support of longtime water warriors…
Even in a state with some of the worst air quality in the United States, Kern stands above the rest. The county landed in the top three by three different measures of poor air quality, topping the short-term particle pollution list, coming in second in year-round particle pollution after Fresno County and placing third in ozone concentration, after Los Angeles and Fresno counties. The findings, released April 24 by the American Lung Association, overwhelmingly pointed to California as having the worst air in the country…
Federal regulations won’t necessarily protect you from cancer-causing water in California. In a new Environmental Working Group study published on Tuesday, researchers determined that toxic drinking water could lead to more than 15,000 lifetime cancer cases throughout the state. The report included first-time research on how the presence of multiple carcinogens in drinking water increases cancer risks. Regulators currently assess individual hazards instead of evaluating combinations of multiple pollutants found in drinking water…
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors this week approved a 19,333-home Tejon Ranch development in the Antelope Valley, overruling environmental critics who say it will damage sensitive habitats and add to the region’s burden of commuter traffic and greenhouse gas emissions. The vote was 4-1 Tuesday with Supervisor Sheila Kuehl dissenting…
The federal government released a plan last week to reopen more than a million acres of land in the Central Valley to fracking. On April 28, the Bureau of Land Management’s Bakersfield Field Office released its Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) proposing to open up 1,011,470 acres of public land and federal mineral estate in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties to fossil fuel extraction…
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is an important tool to advance environmental justice (EJ) and protect the rights of communities disproportionately impacted by pollution and poverty in our state. While certain private interests have raised CEQA “streamlining” policies as the best way to address our state’s housing shortage, such proposals are based upon misleading narratives and misinformation…
In the next few weeks, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is slated to announce his administration’s energy policy strategy – and many environmental groups there are hoping it will include plans to end oil and gas drilling in the nation’s most populous state and phase out all fossil fuel extraction. At the very least, green groups are hoping that Newsom – who campaigned last year on a promise to end controversial extraction methods like fracking and who has been a key figure in the fight to curtail climate change – will create buffer zones for any new oil and gas wells near schools, hospitals and residential neighborhoods and also monitor for dangerous emissions from plugged or abandoned wells…