Environmental justice coalition press for accountability
IMPERIAL — Advocates for healthy environments promoting fairness for all, assembled under the banner of California Environmental Justice Coalition for a summit at the Ricochet Rec Center here Saturday.
CEJC, founded in 2014 and comprised of grassroots organizations, struggles against environmental degradation. Its aims to carry out change in industry and government policies to uphold ecological integrity.
Among the ranks of the coalition, Greenaction, arrived here to confront environmental injustice. Bradley Angel, executive director, notified the audience that California is home to three state landfills storing toxic hazardous waste. They are located in Kettlman City, Buttonwillow and Westmorland.
“It’s no coincidence that all three are located in low-income, Spanish-speaking, farmworker communities,” said Angel. “That in itself is what we think is environmental racism.”
The state authorities are now considering renewing a license of the Westmorland plant operated by Clean Harbors Environmental. The toxic waste site has been largely dormant over the prior decade noted Angel.
But now they want to renew, they will base their application permit on a 1991 Environmental Impact Report.
“When the government considers extending a permit, it pretends it doesn’t have to consider all the facts,” said Angel. “Cancer and asthma rates, the minority community-have been overlooked. If Clean Harbors wants to operate at full capacity they need to start over with a new EIR.”
Angel also noted, site has waste from oil refineries, chemical plants and agricultural operations. “It’s time for industry to have cleaner technology, more efficient operations that wastes less poisons,” said Angel.
It was in April 2016 when Onyx Bazulto, community health worker for Comite Civico del Valle, another coalition member, told the audience, that Comite was invited to meet with Clean Harbors management.
Rather than listening to resident testimony about family members who formerly worked at Clean Harbors and died from cancer or were stricken with asthma, possibly linked to their job, management praised their latest state of the art equipment to handle waste. When residents appealed to discuss research into adverse effects of the waste facility and whether the permit should be renewed, they were informed it was not the appropriate time and would not entertain a new EIR, recalled Bazulto.
“We’d like the opportunity to access more recent data reflecting present conditions,” she said. “But Clean Harbors ignored our request. But the (CA) Department of Toxic Substances Control are participating today.”
Ana Mascarenas, assistant director of the DTSC said their mission is to protect the state’s environment. Mascarenas recalled in August 2016 they resolve Greenaction’s civil rights law suit over DTSC’s decision to approve Chemical Waste Management’s permit to expand their landfill. What they agreed to was, how DTSC should engage a community; support actions to benefit the residents of Kettlman City with, public health improvements, environmental monitoring and considerations for permit renewals.
“What’s important is that DTSC should follow both environmental and civil rights law,” said Mascarenas. “But there’s a lot of court case discussions that there’s disparate impacts based on environmental law while overlooking the civil rights of some who were denied access to justice based on race, language, gender or disability.”
Maricela Mares-Alatorre, representative with People for Clean Air and Water of Kettleman City, another coalition group, pointed out, it also constitutes racism when local government fails to truly analyze resident concerns and incorporate them into policy. “The county government themselves designated our community vulnerable,” she said. “They commit racism by dumping toxics into a community who are least likely to have the resources to deal with the repercussions.”