text: New America Media - Environment tag:newamericamedia.org,2009-04-06://19 2014-11-19T20:00:49Z New America Media is a nationwide association of over 3000 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Founded in 1996 by Pacific News Service, New America Media promotes ethnic media by strengthening the editorial and economic viability of this increasingly influential segment of America's communications industry. A Renter Weighs the Pros and Cons of Earthquake Coverage tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13655 2014-11-20T09:00:00Z 2014-11-19T20:00:49Z photo: The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, centered in the Santa Cruz Mountains, caused widespread damage in the San Francisco Bay Area. (courtesy of Wikipedia).Living in California, one never knows when the next big shaker could hit. Although I live in... Summer Chiang ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 photo: The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, centered in the Santa Cruz Mountains, caused widespread damage in the San Francisco Bay Area. (courtesy of Wikipedia).Living in California, one never knows when the next big shaker could hit. Although I live in a place where earthquakes are the norm, I rarely think about preparing for the next big one.While homeowners might hear about earthquake insurance as a part of the home-buying process, especially if they live in a high-risk area, renters like me seldom get the chance to learn how they can protect themselves and their belongings in the event of an earthquake.After attending a public education event last month by the Earthquake Authority held by KGO TV, I learned that I could buy earthquake insurance as an add-on to a typical renters insurance policy. In the process, I found renters insurance offers some surprising benefits. According to the Earthquake Authority, California has two-thirds of the nation's earthquake risk. Some 2,000 known faults crisscross the state, producing more than 37,000 quakes each year. If a renter or homeowner is not covered by an earthquake insurance policy, he or she is responsible for the entire cost of damages.Farmers Insurance agent Emilia Liu told me most of her customers who buy earthquake insurance are homeowners, and renters are usually reluctant to purchase it. Liu says renters should consider buying a policy, though, because they wouldn't be protected under the landlord's home and earthquake insurance policies, which typically covers the building structure, but excludes a tenant's personal belongings. "Some renters live in an earthquake [danger] zone, but they don't even know about [this]," Liu said.Liu says that according to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), some locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, including San Francisco, Hayward and San Leandro, could experience intense shaking if an earthquake occurs. If a resident wants to get a detailed report of his or her building site's hazard level, they can contact the California Earthquake Authority.Renters who find out they live in a high-risk earthquake zone can consider adding earthquake coverage, when purchasing renters insurance. The policy comes with added benefits.For example, renters Insurance:Protects belongings anywhere in the world.Renters insurance covers a person's belongings anywhere in the world, whether your belongings are stolen from a car in Asia or a hostel in Europe, according to Bay Area-based insurance agent Carol Lee.Offers replacement cost coverage or actual cash value.The average renter owns about $20,000 in personal property, Lee says. Renters insurance allows a tenant to opt for replacement cost coverage (RCC) instead of actual cash value (ACV). Replacement cost value coverage allows a tenant to replace lost or damaged possessions with similar items at current market value. For example, if you had a laptop you owned for two years before you file a claim for it, your insurance company would offer you the current market replacement value for a new laptop of similar specifications.Offers personal liability.If someone was hurt in your dwelling, or you accidentally injured someone, renters insurance can provide liability coverage for legal costs as well as medical payment to a policy limit, however, the insurance generally doesn't cover injuries to a tenant or other household members.Covers additional living expenses.If an accident happens and you can't stay at your place because of that, renters insurance can help you pay for a place to stay. I got an instant quote from an insurance company's online tool. Generally, I have to pay $205 annually for a basic renters insurance plan, with $50,000 liability coverage, $10,000 personal property, and $250 deductible. If I add earthquake insurance, then that's another $2 each month. With housing costs already so high in the Bay Area, I'll have to carefully weigh whether or not to buy renters insurance that includes earthquake coverage, but it's helpful to know my options. ]]> Rosebud Sioux Tribe Calls House Keystone XL Passage an 'Act of War' tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13649 2014-11-18T18:00:00Z 2014-11-18T18:19:40Z Staff ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 photo: Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council President Cyril Scott, in aqua shirt, at the People's Climate March on September 21 in New York City. credit: Steven Fontas. (courtesy of Indian Country Today).Calling the U.S. House of Representatives' November 14 vote for the Keystone XL pipeline an "act of war," the Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) has vowed to block the project from crossing its lands."The House has now signed our death warrants and the death warrants of our children and grandchildren. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe will not allow this pipeline through our lands," said Rosebud Sioux President Cyril Scott in a statement. "We are outraged at the lack of intergovernmental cooperation. We are a sovereign nation, and we are not being treated as such. We will close our reservation borders to Keystone XL. Authorizing Keystone XL is an act of war against our people."The House voted 252-161 on Friday November 14 to pass legislation that would force the $8 billion TransCanada pipeline project to move forward. The Senate is scheduled to take up the debate and vote on Tuesday November 18.RELATED: Environmental Advocates Deride House Passage of Keystone XL LegislationPresident Barack Obama has vowed to veto the measure even if it passes the full Congress, especially given that the matter is still under review by the U.S. Department of State and the Department of the Interior.The Rosebud Sioux and other Great Sioux Nation member tribes have had resolutions against Keystone XL in place since last February of this year, according to the Rosebud Sioux statement. The tribe also noted that the 1,700-mile-long pipeline's proposed route traverses lands covered by the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties, as well as crossing the borders of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation and Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation."Act of war means that we're going to have to take legal maneuvers now," Scott told the New York Daily News. "We're going to protect our land and our way of life."It is a matter of guarding the future, said Scott, who was in New York City for the People's Climate March in September.RELATED: As It Happened: Indigenous Peoples Leading off the People's Climate March, in Photos"We feel it is imperative that we provide safe and responsible alternative energy resources not only to tribal members but to non-tribal members as well," Scott said in the Rosebud Sioux statement, which was posted on the Bold Nebraska website. "We need to stop focusing and investing in risky fossil fuel projects like TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline. We need to start remembering that the earth is our mother and stop polluting her and start taking steps to preserve the land, water, and our grandchildren's future."He also reaffirmed and explained tribal sovereignty.People forget that we're a sovereign nation," Scott told the Daily News. "Everybody else ... they're just guests here."]]> U.S. and China Announce New Climate Goals tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13630 2014-11-14T09:00:00Z 2014-11-13T19:46:32Z The United States and China announced new goals for reducing their global warming pollution in the coming decades, with the U.S. ramping up its rate of decarbonization in five to 10 years and China promising that its carbon emissions will... John H. Cushman, Jr. ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 The announcements, which came at a multinational summit in Beijing Tuesday, made clear for the first time the commitments that the two biggest sources of greenhouse gases will make as part of the urgent United Nations negotiations. The talks aim to reach a comprehensive climate change treaty that could be signed in Paris at the end of 2015.The U.S. and China produce about a third of the total annual emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas. Both have set out plans to reduce emissions, especially by using less coal in the production of electricity. Their new pledges would deepen those commitments."President Obama announced a new target to cut net greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025," the White House said. "At the same time, President Xi Jinping of China announced targets to peak CO2 emissions around 2030, with the intention to try to peak early, and to increase the non-fossil fuel share of all energy to around 20 percent by 2030."Obama, by making a concrete pledge aimed at the year 2025, was advancing the negotiating stance taken by the U.S. in the Paris treaty talks, which resume in Lima next month. The U.S. thinks it would be best for countries to set targets for the year 2025, not for later years.China, though, knows it will take time to turn around its energy economy, so it chose a 2030 target. Even so, its commitment to reach peak emissions as soon as that year is significant. Until now, China has not committed to absolute limits on its pollution, but has instead spoken of reducing its emissions intensity—the amount of pollution it emits per unit of economic activity.Obama's target year won't arrive until after his successor's first term in office. So, in effect, he's trying to lock in a pathway of declining carbon emissions.From 2020 to 2025, during what might be the second term of Obama's successor, U.S. emissions would decline about 2.5 percent a year, twice as fast as in the past decade.That is the kind of reduction required if the world is to achieve the complete decarbonization of energy systems, which mainstream scientists and international institutions say is needed to avoid the most severe risks of climate change.The recent U.S. elections have thrown targets like these into doubt, as Republican lawmakers allied with fossil fuel industries have tightened their grip on Congressional power."These targets will require major undertakings by both countries," said Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a Washington think tank. "In the case of the United States, the new target is pushing the limits of what can be done under existing law. We can get there if Congress doesn't stand in the way...But to go much further, we'll ultimately need Congress to act."]]> 811: The Number to Call Before You Dig tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13628 2014-11-13T09:00:00Z 2014-11-20T23:26:38Z Ngoc Nguyen ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=70 Traducción al español中文翻譯SAN FRANCISCO -- Wolfgang Gordillo recalls the day when a fellow worker, digging on a construction site in Seattle, accidentally struck and ruptured a gas pipeline with a pickaxe."The fire department showed up, evacuated the area [and] closed off the gas line," says Gordillo, who works as a contractor in construction and home remodeling in the San Francisco Bay Area.The accident didn't cause an explosion or fire – a possible risk when gas from a leak comes into contact with air and a spark, but it disrupted service to the area and prompted an evacuation. According to federal data, accidents like the one Gordillo described are the leading cause of damage to gas distribution pipelines nationally. It's also the leading cause of deaths and injuries to people in these pipeline accidents, according to statistics on significant pipeline incidents kept by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation. Nationwide, from 1994 to 2013, damage caused by digging by a third party – someone other than the utility or a contractor hired by the utility -- totaled nearly $378 million, and caused 139 deaths and 445 injuries. Significant pipeline incidents are the most expensive accidents – where property damage exceeds $50,000 – and the most life threatening, resulting in deaths and injuries. The trend was so alarming that the Transportation Dept., about 15 years ago, issued best practices to reduce these incidents, working with utilities, professional excavators, and other stakeholders. In 2007, a national call center and number – 811 – was established to help professional excavators and contractors be aware of underground infrastructure. Despite a nationwide campaign urging people to "call before you dig," many residential contractors, including immigrant and minority workers, are still in the dark about the hazards of digging on the job. Commercial contractors are more likely to know about the 811 law, says Miguel Galarza, president of Yerba Buena Engineering and Construction, Inc., a company in San Francisco with 25 employees."If you're doing residential work, you really don't pay much attention to the requirements of 811, and it's a shame because it doesn't cost anything," Galarza points out.Richard Taylor, a dig-in investigator with PG&E, says anyone can call 811. Dig-ins are a term used by industry to describe accidental pipeline strikes.You don't have to be a licensed contractor to call, and all that's required is to give the location of where you plan to dig, he says. The call center will alert utilities that have underground infrastructure in the area, including gas pipelines, electrical lines, water and sewer lines, and telecommunications cables. The utilities have 48 hours to send out a locator to mark the location of the underground lines with paint, for example, or other visual cues. Taylor spends his days driving around the East Bay, looking out for anyone doing digging work. Taylor checks to see if the workers called 811, and informs them about the law if they're unaware of it. He says accidentally striking a pipeline is serious business. "If you hit a water line, you get water everywhere. It runs downhill, you might flood someone's house out," said Taylor. "If you hit a gas line and it leaks, if you get a mixture of gas and air and [a] spark, you could blow something up."Between 1994 and 2013, California had 91 significant pipeline incidents, according to federal data, that caused nine deaths and 19 injuries, and more than $22 million in property damage. In California, homeowners are exempt from the 811 requirement. However, a homeowner who plans to do work that requires a city permit still needs to call 811, Taylor says. Galarza, the commercial construction company owner, says it's important for anyone doing any digging work, including homeowners, to call 811, because they may be unaware of underground utilities running through or near their property. On a Tuesday morning, at about 9 a.m., the San Francisco Day Labor Center in the city's Mission District is bustling with dozens of largely immigrant Latino men, seeking to connect with homeowners who need help moving, doing yard work, or home remodeling. Francisco Galindo describes himself as a "utility man." "I do everything," he says.Galindo says he once worked on a foundation of a house that was adjacent to a hill, and had drainage problems. "811 – nobody tell me about that."Galindo says he's never hit a gas pipeline on the job, but he has struck a plastic irrigation pipe. He says it would be safer to be aware of what's in the ground before digging, but admits he's hesitant to call."I'm not so sure the homeowners will want me to call 811," he says. "Sometimes they don't want problems with the city."Zhou Hua Liu has worked as an independent contractor on remodeling, plumbing and electrical jobs for homes and businesses throughout the Bay Area. Liu says although he's worked on projects that involved digging such as "planting a garden and building a fence," he's never heard of 811."I have never gotten any injuries from work in the past," he said. " I know how to do my job and I am confident about it. Is it required to call [811] before digging? It sounds like extra work."In the past, contractors who damage pipelines without calling 811 may have walked away without penalties, but that could change.Last year, lawmakers addressed the issue of damage caused by pipeline strikes and the effectiveness of 811 in a Senate subcommittee hearing, chaired by state Senator Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo).Hill says the committee found enforcement gaps that he is looking to address with pending legislation, which he plans to introduce next year.Statewide, PG&E and Sempra Energy are working with the Contractors State License Board to put pressure on licensed contractors who hit their pipelines, because they failed to call 811."What we want to do is change the behaviors," explains Aaron Rezendez, 811 Public Awareness Supervisor in PG&E's Damage Prevention Dept. The utility is also beefing up public education around the issue and has held 30 workshops in its service territory, reaching 2000 professional excavators. "We're seeing an increase in awareness," Rezendez says.Summer Chiang contributed reporting. ]]> Latina Environmentalist Takes Fracking Fight to 'Epicenter' of California Oil Industry tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13623 2014-11-12T18:23:45Z 2014-11-12T22:29:27Z Tara Lohan ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Español Rosanna Esparza parks her Prius in a sea of pickups. Across the street a makeshift flagpole has been erected in a truck bed to hoist Old Glory above the palm trees. We're in Taft, California; a town built on one of the largest oil fields in the country. It's a fitting place for the local petroleum industry to hold an "appreciation rally" for itself. At the front door of an auditorium inside the walled compound of the Taft Fort a few police officers question us. "We're here to show our appreciation," Rosanna says. They wave us through. The truth is though, we're impostors. We are not here to applaud. As a community organizer for Clean Water Action, Rosanna is the lone staff member outposted here in Kern County, which ranks first in the state for oil production and second for agriculture. To be any kind of an environmental organizer in this territory is brave. As an environmental journalist I meet a lot of environmental organizers – it's par for the course. But Rosanna is not like any I've come across before. She's Latina, 59, from the Los Angeles area, and new to environmental organizing. In fact, she first came to Kern County to do ethnographic research for a PhD in gerontology. She decided to stay because she saw a community in deep need of healing and she thought her expertise could help make a difference. She joined a church, started taking her dog, Mr. Luna, along with her to read to elementary school kids, and spends the bulk of her day challenging one of the most powerful industries in the world. She's not the type to wield a bullhorn at the front of a protest, though. She's more interested in making connections in the community than disrupting it. She won't be unfurling any banners at this industry rally. "There is a real misconception about what we do and what we are after," says Rosanna. "I'm not looking to put people out of a job, I'm asking that you do what you do safer. You've got the money to do it, you've the technology, and the experts." I tracked Rosanna down because I want to understand what's happening in Kern County — the epicenter of the oil industry in California. Kern County produces nearly 75 percent of California's oil, but production peaked in 1985 — it's been a slide ever since. The industry has one big, blank check they are still trying to cash, though. It's from the Monterey Shale, a rock formation that encompasses 1,750 square miles of south-central California, and reaches a depth of 18,000 feet in some places. A 2011 report published by the U.S. Energy Information Agency said the Monterey held the largest shale oil deposit in the U.S. — a whopping 15.4 billion barrels. Industry has been trying to hit it big in the Monterey for years, and they're trying every trick they know, including fracking. After years of writing about what fracking-induced oil and gas rushes look like in places like North Dakota, Colorado, Texas, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, I've turned my attention to my home state of California. By now most people have heard about fracking — short for hydraulic fracturing. Industry has been applauded for using fracking, often in combination with horizontal drilling, to tap "unconventional" oil and gas reserves in shale — boosting domestic production. And industry has also come under attack because fracking is dirty and dangerous. You've likely seen the videos of people lighting their tap water on fire. What I've mostly seen in my cross-country travels are communities dealing with snowballing impacts from fracking: air pollution, water pollution, spills, accidents, truck traffic, surges of transient workers, skyrocketing prices for affordable housing. The list goes on. This is the "resource curse," where boom is followed by bust. I've spent enough time in West Virginia mining towns to know how this plays out decades later. Is California headed for the same fate? With Rosanna's help, I want to understand what's at stake. Kern County sits atop a potential gold mine and if it's fully plundered the consequences could have a huge ripple across not just the state — but also the whole country. Finding Lost Hills When Rosanna wants to take stock of what she's up against all she has to do is stand on the bluff at the aptly named Panoramic Park, near her home in Bakersfield. Stretched for miles below is the Kern River Oilfield. The first slurps of Pleistocene hydrocarbons were drawn here in 1899 and today it's an apocalyptic 10,000 acres of pumpjacks, pipes, and boilers — the third largest oilfield in the state — now under the dominion of Chevron. A jogging and biking trail inexplicably snakes the oilfield's border and suburban streets dead end at its lip. It's a jarring juxtaposition but also an important reminder: The oil industry and the community in Kern County are closely intertwined. Rosanna has learned this the hard way. "A lot of the old west mentality still exists here," says Rosanna. "So much of their verbiage is shoot 'em up. 'Drill here, drill now,'" she says, echoing the rallying cry we heard at the pro-industry rally in Taft. When the '49ers switched their sights from gold to oil in the late 19th century they discovered what Native Americans had known for thousands of years — you could find oil (or oil-like substances) that bubbled to the surface in tar pits or seeps. Here nature flaunted its riches. Wells were sunk to mine the fortunes below and Kern County became one of the largest oil producers in the country. It is also one of the biggest farming counties, too and part of the San Joaquin Valley where agriculture is a $40 billion a year empire. But in many ways life here is somewhat feudal. Big Oil and Big Ag are part of a wealth gap that feels like the Grand Canyon — an incomprehensible divide. Billion dollar companies operate in the county, while some communities have more than 40 percent of their population living below the poverty line — twice the state average. For all the riches extracted from the land and beneath its soil, this still remains one of the poorest parts of the state. This reality is what drives Esparza's work. Her time is often spent bouncing between the small agricultural communities in the valley – Shafter, Wasco, Lost Hills. Most of the folks that live in those towns are Hispanic or Latino, most are farmworkers. She is worried that these communities are already being crushed under the weight of environmental health burdens: Kern County ranked as having the most dangerous air pollution in 2009 and has drinking water contamination in many places. Rosanna talks to a fellow researcher at dusk in a housing complex for farmworkers in Lost Hills. (Sarah Craig) Take Lost Hills, for example. This spring and summer Rosanna spent five months driving 102 miles round trip twice a week from her home in Bakersfield to the tiny community of Lost Hills on the far west side of the valley. The town is little more than a collection of low-income housing for workers employed by the agribusiness giant Paramount Farms (owned by the $3 billion company Roll Global). Lost Hills also sits adjacent to the Lost Hills Oilfield – and is just off Route 33, also known as the Petroleum Highway, a stretch of road that contains half a dozen major oilfields. I'd driven the Petroleum Highway before I met Rosanna and dismissed the area as a dusty wasteland on the outskirts of the valley. I didn't know there was anything out there that wasn't part of the industry's machinations. It turns out there are a couple thousand people and they're not in good health. Rosanna's visits to Lost Hills were to collect health surveys of residents and their kids — the project is a collaboration between Clean Water Action where she works, and Earthworks. "We're asking individuals what the impacts [of living near an oil field] have been," she explains. "How do they feel? How is it affecting their everyday lives? Do they have existing chronic conditions that are exacerbated because of living in the community?" It turns out that at least 244 wells have been fracked in the Lost Hills field, most of them in the last two years. Some of the chemicals commonly used in fracking are known or suspected human carcinogens, and the health risks of many others are totally unknown. The practice also produces millions of gallons of toxic wastewater, which can contaminate surface water, groundwater, food sources, and release harmful chemicals into the air. "We know that communities that are within five miles of unconventional drilling are more apt to experience headaches, nausea, vomiting, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and kidney diseases," says Rosanna. Big oil says they are not endangering the community, Rosanna adds. "We are learning that that is absolutely not true." She's found oil fields that buttress up against an elementary school playground and wastewater pits that sit a mere three feet from a public road. "These pits were the kind where when you walked up to them, all you had to do was count to 25 and you have a blazing headache," from the fumes, says Rosanna. Half the school-aged kids she's interviewed suffer from headaches and nosebleeds. Some are missing school 40 percent of the time. And nearly half of adults have inhalers. The conditions in Lost Hills can be brutal – for the people who live there, and those like Rosanna, who are crazy enough to visit. In the summer, temperatures top 115 degrees and sandstorms blow so hard you can't drive. The wind blows with it, not just sand but chemicals from agricultural fields and neighboring oilfields. At this point, it's impossible to know if the people in Lost Hills are sickened by chemicals from agriculture or oil production – or some combination. "I fear for them — for their safety, for their health, and their children," she says. But Rosanna's collaborator, Jhon Arbelaez of Earthworks, is also taking air samples, trying to see if they can find the chemical fingerprint in the air that may help lead them to the source of people's health woes. "We could use some more people working out here," Rosanna tells me, sounding exhausted from five months of blazing sun, blowing sand, and taking the pulse of sick town. She's discouraged they cannot pinpoint where residents' health problems are coming from. But it's a nearly impossible endeavor and it's made more difficult by the fact that oil drilling companies who frack were only mandated at the beginning of 2014 to disclose the chemicals they use and they are exempt from major federal laws intended to protect public health. It won't be until July 2015 that California will even have regulations in place for fracking. I'm continually amazed that more studies are not done by health agencies and that such studies are in fact not mandated before drilling is allowed. For the all the hundreds of thousands of wells that have been drilled and fracked across the country, for all the thousands of communities that have been impacted, not a single comprehensive health assessment has been done. Ever. What are we afraid will be found? When Rosanna tells me about her findings in Lost Hills, I think of a couple I know right now in West Virginia who are selling off their goats, finding homes for their cats, and packing up the contents of the house they built with their own hands. Ever since fracking began near them, the water they drink from their well gives them lumps in their necks. They have no way of knowing if fracking is to blame. They can only suspect. Enough neighbors in their tiny community of a few dozen have died suddenly from cancer to make them afraid to stay. They are leaving with the heaviest of hearts, but still alive. Many of the people who live in Lost Hills don't have a lot of other options — they have limited income and job mobility. I feel for them and I'm amazed at Rosanna – she could be anywhere but she's chosen to be there. To witness. To help. Roses to Rigs When Rosanna first moved to Kern County, the smell was welcoming, familiar. She came from Pasadena, home of the Rose Bowl, to tiny Wasco, where half of the country's roses are grown. Or they were, she tells me. In just six years she's seen many of Wasco's rose fields disappear. Rosanna takes me out looking for roses but mostly we see almond and pistachio orchards bulldozed to make room for drilling rigs. Wasco is farmland cut into squares by wide, flat, gridded streets. It is similar to Shafter, just eight miles south. Both are farm towns in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley – the agricultural heart of the county. For a century, oil has been drilled on the east and west sides of this valley, but in the last few decades as the hunt for oil has intensified, drillers have moved into towns in the middle – next to homes, farms, and schools. A man eats a tomato from his garden plot at the Shafter Community Garden, which sits on top of the North Shafter Oil Field. (Sarah Craig) The Rose Oil Field under Wasco and the North Shafter Oil Field under Shafter were discovered in the 1980s, about a century later than most of California's oilfields. Drillers seem to be making up for lost time here. And that keeps Rosanna busy. She tries to keep track of rigs in the fields and whether they are fracking. Sometimes she takes air samples and logs complaints from residents. Wastewater has been illegally dumped into unlined pits here and flares burn toxic gases day and night. At least 30 wells have been fracked recently in Wasco, and more than 31 wells have been fracked in the North Shafter Field in the last two years, some right next to Sequoia Elementary School. Lumbering horseheads of white and red oil pumps nod above the crops in the surrounding fields — more than 60 active wells ring a two-mile perimeter of the school. "My daughter started with the headaches, when they started the work [on oil wells] over there" Rodrigo Romo, an area resident told me, pointing to a now producing well that sits just outside the school grounds. "The teacher didn't want to have the recess outside. Outside it smelled like oil, it's not good." Defending the Fort Rosanna and I decide to visit the pro industry rally in Taft out of curiosity. A few months before she had organized a community viewing of the film Gasland 2 – a documentary critical of the fracking boom. Industry got wind of it and decided to fill the seats with their members to disrupt the showing. What was meant to be a public education event became a turf war. Angered, Rosanna told industry workers to get their own event. Apparently they did. Neither Rosanna nor I have ever been to a petroleum industry rally before and I have to admit, it was a little disappointing. There were more dress shoes than work boots. More state politicians who sent video taped platitudes from Sacramento than workers from the oilfields who stood up to speak. Mostly people sipped from bottled water, filled their plates with fruit slices and cheese cubes, and clapped politely. There was some fist pumping and some jokes made at the expense of Prius owners. Rosanna tried not to look sheepish. And anyone who questioned the safety of fracking was dismissed as stupid. Rosanna took it all in from the back of the room. Clapped a few times to not look too conspicuous and then we bolted as soon as it ended. "Let's get out of here before they see my car," she joked. There was one thing that we both couldn't help but notice during the rally. Industry seemed defensive, against the ropes. It's possible they were reeling from news that came out a few months beforehand. In March the EIA amended its initial rosy predictions about the fortunes below Kern County. The amount of oil deemed recoverable in the Monterey Shale was slashed by an astounding 96 percent — from 15.4 billion barrels to a mere 600 million barrels. A drilling rig bakes under the mid-day sun in the North Belridge Oil Field where 255 wells have been fracked. (Sarah Craig) If the Monterey or another formation doesn't yield a big bounty soon, oil production here will continue to slide and that likely scares the pants off industry. And so does pressure from organizers like Rosanna who demand accountability. They are quick to silence anyone who raises questions, who voices concerns. This is the opposite of how Rosanna was raised, and it grates on her. She believes everyone should get a say – and all voices should be heard. Her dad was raised by two Quaker sisters. "You don't find too many Chicano Quakers," she laughed. "It's just not what we do." But Rosanna and her siblings grew up going to Quaker meetings in Pasadena. "We learned a lot about how things are done in a group, with consensus, with guiding principle," she explained. "Even as a little kid you have a say. It's probably the beginnings of how I became the person I am today. Everyone should have their say." This is the best antidote I've seen to the culture of silence and the lack of transparency that industry brings to their operations. The oil industry has shown their muscle in Sacramento — state senators who voted against a recent fracking moratorium were found to have received 14 times more money from the oil and gas industry and those who were in favor of the moratorium. Rosanna's fight to make a difference here is not about who is louder, but how many voices join the conversation. The oil industry has the upper hand – the money and the friends in high places – but in the end it may not be the mighty but the many who win out in Kern County. This story originally appeard on Faces of Fracking, a multimedia project telling the stories of people on the front lines of fracking in California. To read more stories and to learn about the project, visit the Faces of Fracking website.]]> GOP Election Rout Delivers Blow to U.S. Leadership Role on Climate Change tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13604 2014-11-07T08:05:00Z 2014-11-06T19:32:51Z John H. Cushman Jr. ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Midterm election results 2014: The ascendant Republican leadership, from Kentucky's Mitch McConnell on down, are opposed to President Obama's climate policies. Photo Credit: Mitch McConnell campaign Additional reporting for this story was done by ICN reporters Katherine Bagley, Elizabeth Douglass, David Hasemyer and Zahra Hirji. Graphic by Paul Horn. The role of the United States in confronting the global climate crisis has been cast into serious doubt after an election that stacked the deck in Congress in favor of fossil fuel industries. Republicans seized firm control, and added several new senators who deny that climate change is a problem. A solid majority of voters who spoke to exit pollsters said they regarded climate change as a significant matter, but most were on the Democratic side. By a huge margin, Republican voters said the opposite. And in state after hotly contested state, they elected their own to the Senate. In that chamber, the ascendant Republican leadership, from Kentucky's Mitch McConnell on down, are opposed to President Obama's climate policies—starting with the EPA's clampdown on carbon emissions from coal plants, and extending to his hopes that the U.S. will join Europe in leading the rest of the world to a new climate treaty. In an election that hinged on broad opposition to Obama and left him to limp through his two lame-duck years, environmentalists did win a few battles—even as they lost the war. The League of Conservation Voters, which along with other environmental campaigners spent heavily on the contest, noted that it had unseated several members of its "dirty dozen" target list. In Nebraska, a bastion of opposition to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the project's best friend in Congress, Rep. Lee Terry, was defeated. Half of the local anti-fracking measures on the ballots of towns and counties in California, Ohio and Texas passed. In the heavily fracked North Texas town of Denton, residents voted by nearly 60 percent to ban new drilling within the town's boundaries. In Ohio, four towns voted on whether to adopt a community bill of rights that included restrictions on drilling. Only one, Athens, approved the anti-fracking measure, by a margin of 78 percent. California's San Benito and Mendocino counties both passed measures banning fracking and other forms of drilling; Santa Barbara County did not pass its ban. Over all, climate campaigners failed to carry to the ballot box the momentum that saw hundreds of thousands of them marching through Manhattan just a few weeks ago. They will have a hard time moving their agenda through Congress, until they can move from walking the walk to voting the vote. The landscape is now strikingly different from when Obama first took office in 2009, his party controlling both chambers of Congress. Then, he achieved two of the top three items on his agenda: an economic stimulus package and an overhaul of health care. The third—controlling greenhouse gases with a cap-and-trade bill—passed the House in 2009, but died the next year in the Senate. Now his entire climate change agenda is in danger of being buried there as well. Most of the new Republicans in the Senate deny the scientific consensus on man-made climate change, and are determined not to allow strong action against its main cause: the burning of fossil fuels. The Senate's leadership and the gavel-holders of its key committees will comprise defenders of carbon, in every one of its combustible forms. Many are men and women from coal country and oil patch states who built their platforms on promises to encourage the use of fossil fuels. This, at the very moment that climate treaty negotiators are urgently searching for a way to phase them out. One of the rising power brokers, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, ridiculed the latest consensus report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was published on Sunday. "The idea that our advanced industrialized economy would ever have zero carbon emissions is beyond extreme and further proof that the IPCC is nothing more than a front for the environmental left," he declared. Currently the ranking Republican on the Senate environment committee, he is likely to become its chairman. 'I Don't Know the Science' Just as strikingly, the newest Republican backbenchers will bolster the chorus of climate denial. Republican Tom Cotton, who ousted Sen. David Pryor in Arkansas, has said he would "unleash" the fossil fuel industries and continue to oppose policies like cap and trade and the EPA power rule. Corey Gardner, who beat Mark Udall in Colorado, has said he does not believe people are causing climate change "to the extent that's been in the news." Joni Ernst, the new senator from Iowa, shrugs that "I don't know the science." Thom Tillis, who won a nail-biter in North Carolina, says liberals are using the issue "as a Trojan horse for their energy policy." In the House, too, the existing Republican majority is settling in, more muscular than at any time since the days of Calvin Coolidge. They have already made plain their own energy and climate agenda. Approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Reject the EPA's clean power rule. Open up the spigot for the export of crude oil and liquefied natural gas. And never mind the extension of tax credits for wind and solar power. The incumbent architects of this package fared well. Republican Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.-06), for example, won his 15th term in office, defeating Democratic challenger Paul Clements handily, 55 percent to 41 percent, despite a recent poll that showed Clements closing the gap in the last month of the race. The race featured rampant last-minute campaign spending by both parties. Environmental groups desperately tried to take advantage of the first real opportunity in decades to unseat the chair of the House energy committee, while conservative donors and the fossil fuel industry were determined to keep him in place. Governor's Races Meanwhile, not all incumbent governors survived. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, lost his reelection bid to Democrat businessman Tom Wolf. Corbett's loss marks the first time a sitting governor has lost reelection since the state began allowing second terms in the 1960s. Wolf campaigned on a platform of instituting a 5 percent extraction tax on oil and gas drilling in Pennsylvania, arguing that the money raised—an estimated $1 billion annually—would help boost state education funding. But Wolf's strategy could falter. The state legislature stayed Republican, and the party has balked at the idea of further taxing the natural gas industry. In the days leading up to the election, forecasts for who would win the Florida gubernatorial race bounced between Democrat Charlie Crist and Republican incumbent Gov. Rick Scott. The race remained close through the end of the night, with Scott squeaking out a win 48-47 percent. Voting hiccups in Broward County, a Democrat-leaning and heavily populated climate-conscious area, may have negatively affected Crist's election. The Crist campaign asked for voting hours to be extended in the southeastern county, but was denied the request by the circuit court and the Broward County Supervisor of Elections. Scott's reelection has significant implications for climate action in Florida. Rising sea levels are already eating away at the low-lying state's coastline and threatening cities and drinking water. Scott spent his first four years in office dismantling the climate change initiatives that his predecessor, Crist, put in place. These included a statewide climate adaptation plan, mandates for renewable energy and programs to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Republican Asa Hutchinson won the governor's race in Arkansas, giving Republicans a statehouse it hasn't held since 2006, and securing another ally in the fight against new federal climate regulations. Hutchinson won 55 percent of the vote to beat Democrat Mike Ross. In January, he will replace current Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat who was ineligible to run for reelection because of term limits. Hutchinson has said Arkansas would join a lawsuit filed by other states in opposition to the U.S. EPA's power plant rules. During four years in Congress, Hutchinson cast pro-environment votes on just 13 percent of key issues, as calculated by the League of Conservation Voters. In Colorado, a fight for new political leadership saw incumbent Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper clinging to a slim lead ahead of Republican opponent Bob Beauprez, while Sen. Mark Udall lost to his Republican challenger, Gardner. The governor's race remains so close it's uncertain whether a winner will be declared or whether the race will head to a recount. Colorado was one of few races with such a stark divide between candidates on climate issues. Incumbents Hickenlooper and Udall stressed clean energy and climate action. Gardner and Beauprez marginalized climate change in favor of championing the oil and gas industry. Beauprez, a former two-term congressman who lost the race for governor in 2006, wrote a 2009 book in which he said that climate change was "at best a grossly overhyped issue and at worst a complete hoax foisted on most of the world." Surprises, a Runoff and More Among the Senate races, one of the biggest surprises of the night was Georgia's. Democrats viewed the state as one of their last hopes of keeping a GOP majority at bay. But Republican businessman David Perdue won the race with nearly 56 percent of the vote, beating Democrat Michelle Nunn, the CEO of a nonprofit. Nunn was a supporter of the Keystone XL pipeline, but she also acknowledged that climate change is happening, that fossil fuel consumption needs to be curtailed, and renewable energy increased. Perdue, on the other hand, criticized Nunn's pro-climate action policies and said on his website that, "we must unleash our nation's energy potential...Georgians can't afford Barack Obama and Michelle Nunn's failed energy policies." One of the later Senate races to be called was North Carolina's. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan lost her reelection bid to Tillis, speaker of the state's House of Representatives. The defeat was quite a blow to environmentalists who spent at least $2.4 million trying to get her reelected. Tillis' climate and environmental views are in line with some of the GOP's most conservative policymakers. He was head of North Carolina's state legislature when it voted to forbid state agencies from planning for rising sea levels. He also helped repeal renewable electricity standards, voted to allow oil and gas companies to keep their fracking mixtures secret from the public, and supported coal ash being stored in open-air pits. On the other coast, voters in California authorized $7.5 billion in bonds for badly needed water projects with the passage of Proposition 1 by more than a 2 to 1 margin. Support for the initiative was driven by the current drought and by fears that unpredictable weather patterns fostered by climate change will continue to strain the state's water system. The funds will help finance two critical new dams and reservoirs for water storage. It will pay for groundwater cleanup and management, watershed restoration, water recycling projects, and water treatment and seawater desalination projects. As expected, the fate of Louisiana's hotly contested Senate seat will be decided by a Dec. 6 runoff between Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy. In the state's most expensive Senate race, three-term incumbent Landrieu faced two Republican challengers, and none of them won more than 50 percent of votes as required under state law. Landrieu, chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and a staunch supporter of the oil industry, lacked support from environmental groups and other organizations known to support Democratic candidates. Cassidy got 42 percent of the vote, and Landrieu garnered 41 percent, according to CNN. Since Republicans have already won control of the Senate, the state's runoff election will have less significance. Either way, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski will probably lead the energy committee next year. Obama's Problem What this all means for Obama's stance in defense of his climate agenda remains a mystery. Take the Keystone XL, for example. The new Senate majority, with presumed Democratic votes added in, has the 60 votes it needs to cut off a filibuster and pass a bill to force the president's hand on the issue. Would he veto it? Would he veto a larger bill, or one he really wanted to pass, if it included a Keystone XL rider? Obama's problem is that if he caves on one relatively narrow issue, he risks giving an inch and granting a mile. Keystone XL aside, it's not entirely clear that a president must bow before the energy and climate agenda of an opposition party that controls both houses of Congress. Bill Clinton faced a similar situation in the 1990s, when Newt Gingrich took over the House of Representatives with his "contract with America" and Bob Dole was the Senate majority leader. Clinton wasn't able to get consent to the ill-starred Kyoto climate treaty from the Senate, where opposition was so broad that he never tried. But he stood his ground on other issues. Republicans tried to open up the Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, attaching a rider to a "must-pass" budget bill. Clinton vetoed it, and 20 years later there is no drilling there. They tried to pass a sweeping regulatory reform bill, which got through the House and was sponsored by Dole as S.1—his first priority. It died at the hands of a Democratic filibuster. The House passed amendments, drafted by industry, to the landmark Clean Water Act— ridiculed by opponents as the Dirty Water Act—and that was so unpalatable to Senate Republicans that it went nowhere. But in those days, the Senate's environment committee was run by a moderate, Rhode Island's John Chafee. There are few birds of that feather in today's new Senate. ]]> Fresno Youth Experience San Joaquin River for the First Time tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13572 2014-11-02T08:00:00Z 2014-10-31T18:05:55Z The Know staff ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Editor's Note: The San Joaquin River is just minutes away from Riverpark, one of the most prominent shopping areas in Fresno, and yet many Fresnans have never experienced the river. There is a renewed interest and discussion in public access to the river, which is opposed by homeowners in the exclusive residential area that borders the river. About 15 young Fresnans visited the river recently to learn about it and help in clean up efforts. The Know is a youth-led community news media outlet of New America Media.]]> 108816840 California's Prop 1 Gives East Valley Families Hope for Clean Water tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13547 2014-10-23T16:57:01Z 2014-10-23T17:11:53Z Above: (R to L) Cirilo Ortega Dominguez, 33, Daniel Jimenez Ortega, 18, and Pedro Ortega Dominguez, 28, work in fields near their homes in Thermal, Calif. All three men, along with their families, live in the Valenzuela Mobile Home Park.... Amber Amaya ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Above: (R to L) Cirilo Ortega Dominguez, 33, Daniel Jimenez Ortega, 18, and Pedro Ortega Dominguez, 28, work in fields near their homes in Thermal, Calif. All three men, along with their families, live in the Valenzuela Mobile Home Park. Before Pueblo Unido CDC installed filtration systems in their mobile homes, the families would to travel to a nearby store to buy water for cooking and bathing because their tap water was contaminated with arsenic. THERMAL, Calif. -- Standing in front of a trailer that serves as the local community center for residents of St. Anthony's mobile home park, Sergio Carranza fielded questions from a crowd of forty mobile home owners who call this small agricultural community in the eastern Coachella Valley home. Carranza, executive director of Pueblo Unido Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit based in La Quinta that advocates on behalf of rural east valley residents, talked to the mobile home owners about Proposition 1, a state bond measure that would generate billions in revenue for water infrastructure projects and improvements."It is something very important, something that is going to affect the future of our community," Carranza said to the group in Spanish. It wasn't difficult for Carranza to explain why. For years, lack of access to clean and reliable drinking water -- high levels of arsenic have been measured in the groundwater here -- has been a critical issue for families living in the east valley's mobile home parks, including those located in the towns of Thermal, Oasis and Mecca, known collectively as Polanco Parks. If California voters pass Proposition 1, also known as the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014, $7.5 billion in general obligation bonds would be made available for infrastructure projects that would protect existing water supplies and improve drought preparedness, water storage, water recycling, groundwater sustainability and flood management. Perhaps more importantly for Polanco Park residents, Prop. 1 would also set aside $520 million to improve water quality for "beneficial use" -- including decontamination and water pollution prevention -- in "disadvantaged communities" such as theirs. Martha Mora, who was at the meeting, is the owner of La Cienega Mobile Home Park and an eastern Coachella Valley resident for 20 years. She said she is in favor of the water bond. "We need that help to bring water over here to the eastern Coachella Valley," Mora said in Spanish. "We are always fighting to get help, because on this end [of the Coachella Valley] we are always abandoned. We are abandoned without any help." If the measure passes, the eastern Coachella Valley would be eligible to compete for a portion of the $520 million, to be used on local water projects. Carranza estimates that 35,000 people in the eastern Coachella Valley alone, including those living in the mobile home parks in Thermal, Oasis and Mecca, would directly benefit from the proposed water bond. Carranza said the water bond legislation provides incentives for alternative solutions to bringing clean drinking water to rural areas, something Pueblo Unido has been pioneering in the east valley. St. Anthony's mobile home park, for example, is one of the more developed mobile home parks in the eastern Coachella Valley. Pueblo Unido was able to install a centralized water filtration system there, and each mobile home has been equipped with an individual filter under the sink, to safeguard against arsenic-tainted tap water.But these types of filters, said Carranza, are only short-term solutions to decrease the risk of poisoning from contaminated water, and not all mobile home parks in the eastern Coachella Valley are as fortunate. Some parks have only one central filtration system, so residents must fill up large jugs at the central filter in order to get water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Funds from Prop. 1 would allow for the building of more permanent infrastructure and more effective, longer lasting filtration solutions. If the proposition passes, funds from the water bond would also help meet the state's obligation toward water settlements, including restoration of the Salton Sea. "The state, up until now, hasn't had any money to fulfill that obligation," Robert Hargraves, general council to the Salton Sea Authority, said. "We don't know how much could come to the Salton Sea, but we'll have the opportunity, once the bond is approved, to make an application for funding from that amount." Hargraves said a committee of elected officials representing the region communicated with legislators in Sacramento to offer input on the draft of the 2014 water bond. The committee was made up of representatives from Riverside and Imperial county agencies, including the Coachella Valley Water District, Assemblymember Manuel Perez's office, and Senator Ben Hueso's office. Though the water bond has been removed from the ballot twice, once in 2010 and once again in 2012, it is on the November 4 ballot as a legislatively-referred bond act because Governor Jerry Brown and the state legislature voted to put the measure before California voters. The bond was almost unanimously placed on the November ballot — only two out of 77 representatives voted not to pass the measure in August, 2014. However, opponents of the water bond say the measure promotes a few important causes, like aiding disadvantaged communities, to distract from what they say is a fiscally irresponsible plan. Coachella Mayor Eduardo Garcia said opponents of the water bond are concerned about borrowing more money from the state. But Garcia said not passing the measure would threaten the health of Coachella Valley residents. "[I've heard stories] of people getting ill, people having skin issues because of the content of the water," Garcia said. "We've had those discussions directly with people in our office.... Doing nothing will have a major impact on the health and well being of people." According to recent polls, Proposition 1 has a good chance of passing. In a PPIC statewide survey published in September 2014, 58 percent of voters said they would vote "yes" on the water bond. And in the Inland Empire, 62 percent of voters said they would vote "yes" on the measure. In the eastern Coachella Valley, the water bond has the support of Polanco Park owners like Jesus and Berta Campos, owners of the Campos Mobile Home Park and eastern Coachella Valley residents for 43 years. "Of course we want everyone to go out and vote, because we need a lot of help to get our water," Berta Campos said in Spanish. "We are in favor of the measure because we need a lot of help with infrastructure in the Polanco Parks." Carranza, who has been following the water bond issue for seven years, said the 2014 water bond is the first time he's seen such an emphasis placed on funds for new filtration technology for underserved communities. He said if voters pass the ballot measure on November 4, it would be a step in the right direction towards improving the quality of life in the eastern Coachella Valley. "The legislation is already approved by both the assembly, the senate and also approved by the governor to go onto the ballot. But there is always room for negotiation. And we will continue working until we believe that there is fair equity and opportunity for families in rural communities." ]]> Amid Nationwide Propane Shortage, Natural Gas Flared in Bakken Oil Fields tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13501 2014-10-11T08:00:00Z 2014-10-10T21:59:16Z Winona LaDuke ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 "Every single day more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared away," Ft. Berthold tribal member and anti-fracking activist Kandi Mossett explains. "That's enough to heat half a million homes. That's as much carbon dioxide emitted as 300,000 cars. That's crazy."There is twice as much flaring on the reservation as off the reservation. That is, the lack of infrastructure has been surpassed by the speed of extraction. Natural gas burned in flaring is a byproduct of crude oil. Without enough pipelines to transport the gas, at a state level, a third of what is released each day, worth copy.4 million, goes up in flame. Tribal members say as much as 70 percent of gas from wells on the reservation is flared.Ironically, this past winter as Debbie Dogskin in nearby Standing Rock reservation froze to death in the polar vortex amid a nationwide propane shortage (in part caused by the oil industry's restructuring for tar sands oil), the Bakken flared gas rich in propane."On a percentage basis, more gas was flared in the state than in any other domestic oil field and at a level equal to that of Russia and twice that in Nigeria," Bloomberg news reported in April. "In Texas, less than one percent of natural gas is burned off, [and] in North Dakota, flaring is allowed for six months."Tribal officials are very concerned about the flaring, but the companies have been reluctant to invest in the infrastructure necessary to capture the gases, so flaring continues. This brings you to what we don't see."These are called VOCs, or volatile organic compounds," Mossett explains. "They, the companies, have generously put up signs for us, to tell us that the toxins are present in the air. What do we do? Just stop breathing when we go by?"A Colorado School of Public Health study by Lisa McKenzie, M.D., found airborne hydrocarbons near oil and gas facilities. Those include carcinogenic chemicals and endocrine-disrupting chemicals being released a half-mile away from the oil and gas facilities, at levels that could increase human cancer rates exponentially. Dr. Theo Colburn completed an air chemistry study that similarly found high levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) being released by the fracking industry. Those make you sterile, among other effects. They are not to be trifled with.Industry has suggested that toxic emissions don't occur, but studies indicate that between two and l00 tons per year per well pad are discharged into the air. That includes benzene, toluene, napthene, xylene and many more. Those are largely invisible to the eye. But they are not invisible to your body, nor to an infrared camera. Davis began using military infrared cameras to document the escaping gases. Those are pretty extensive, and can be viewed online at Fractivist.org."A huge portion of the chemicals used in the fracking industry are protected as trademark secrets," Davis continues. "This becomes important because an active oil and gas well pad or has an onsite issue, such as a blow out, or spraying chemicals in communities, or elsewhere, where there are animals or humans, the victims would not know the nature of the chemical contamination, and thus puts the patient and the doctor in jeopardy. If there is an issue with a well pad, the emergency response people do not know the chemical they are responding to, and consequently will not have the appropriate equipment for this response. Every operator has a different cocktail which they are using in that fluid, there are trade secrets they are using. A huge concern is that the burden of expense has been shifted to the general public to pay for the emergency response, and so the oil and gas industry does not have to really get involved."Stating the obvious, rural and tribal health facilities are not prepared. ]]> Northwest Tribes Celebrate Highest Fall Fish Returns to Columbia River Basin in 75 Years: CRITFC tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13497 2014-10-10T18:41:48Z 2014-10-10T18:44:10Z Indian Country ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 The fall Chinook salmon return is still on track to blast through previous records, with this year surpassing even last year's, the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) announced in September."For the second consecutive year, fall Chinook salmon returning to the Columbia River Basin are shattering modern-day records," the CRITFC said in a statement last month. "The Northwest's iconic fish are returning in numbers not seen since 1938—more than 75 years ago—when counting began after construction of the Bonneville Dam." In total, a record 2.3 million salmon and steelhead returned, exceeding the 2.1 million record set in 2011, the commission said, quoting figures from the Fish Passage Center. A single-day record was set on September 8, when 67,521 adult fall Chinook passed the Bonneville Dam, the CRITFC said. Read more here.]]> Measure Q Would Preserve Open Space in Silicon Valley tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13446 2014-10-03T17:05:00Z 2014-10-03T18:45:39Z Jenny Manrique Cortés ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Traducción al españolIf you are a resident of Santa Clara County and the words "open space" mean more to you than just that available conference room in your office building, then you may have an interest in Measure Q.Scenic hillsides, wildlife, redwood forests, agricultural lands, and urban open spaces in the Santa Clara Valley, more famously known as Silicon Valley, will be protected and preserved for the next 15 years if two-thirds of Santa Clara voters vote in favor of Measure Q on the November 2014 ballot."We want to preserve 16,000 acres of land to help connect people to nature. The proposed measure has 30 high priority projects to protect water resources, parks and trails alongside the Valley. We want the community involved," said Andrea Mackenzie, general manager of Santa Clara County Open Space Authority (OSA), the organization leading the initiative.Speaking to a group of ethnic media reporters last week in San Jose, Mackenzie explained that Measure Q is a $24 per parcel tax, expected to raise $120 million over 15 years. "Twenty-five percent of the funds would be allocated to cities, schools and nonprofits so we also would be able to implement outdoor education projects such as floodplain restoration and community gardens," she added in a press briefing organized by New America Media.Connecting communitiesPotential projects that would be funded by Measure Q around the cities of San Jose, Milpitas, Santa Clara, Campbell and Morgan Hill were not designed solely with nature lovers, who love to hike or bike outside city limits, in mind.As Sergio Jimenez, San Jose Parks and Recreation Commissioner, pointed out, "Some cities like San Jose struggle for money when it has to do with funding trails -- during this administration we wanted to fund 100 miles of trails, but we are just at 50. [Measure Q] will help to develop additional trails connecting communities to public transit stations, and improving the mobility of youth and families."Jimenez, who was born in Mexico, emphasized the lack of open space that immigrant communities in the county usually have, given the fact that low-income families are forced to live in smaller spaces. "Places like the Alum Rock Park or the Guadalupe River have rapidly turned into spaces where Hispanic families gather. We want them to [have] a public space where future generations can be safe and breath fresh air."Climate change and droughtHalf of all of the drinking water consumed in the Santa Clara Valley comes from groundwater. Supporters say Measure Q is vital to protecting lands around creeks, streams and rivers to prevent the spread of toxins and pollution, but also to "have open spaces with more access to water, as we can't predict where more droughts are going to happen," said Marc Landgraf, external affairs director of Peninsula Open Space Trust, another partner in the initiative. "Furthermore, as we can't predict weather in a valley that is growing so fast, we need to preserve the wildlife corridors, so the animals will be able to move from cooler to colder places as needed," he added.SupportersAmong the speakers were supporters of Measure Q like Gloria Chun Hoo, president of the League of Women Voters of Santa Clara County and Hg Nguyen, founder of the Vietnamese-American Chamber of Commerce of Santa Clara Valley. Measure Q has received support from a number of U.S. congress members, California state officials, county supervisors, local education officials, local organizations and business. According to Landgraf, "We are working with Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Joint Venture Silicon Valley, chambers of commerce, realtor associations, [and other business interest] groups. They understand the importance… to the economy. In terms of open space, they recognize the importance of maintaining a vital workforce here, with places for recreation," he said. Measure Q includes an independent citizen oversight committee to ensure the funds will be spent as promised. ]]> Activists Cheer as Vinod Khosla Mandated to Reopen Beach tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13429 2014-09-27T06:35:00Z 2014-09-26T19:11:08Z Sunita Sohrabji ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 After an 18-month showdown with billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, environmental activist Mark Massara finally surfed again Sept. 25 on his beloved Martins Beach in Northern California."Surfers have been calling me from around the state," Massara jubilantly told India-West, shortly after a court ruling was handed down Sept. 24 mandating that Khosla reopen the popular beach. He noted that the Indian American VC was likely to appeal the decision, but added: "Regardless of what happens, the beach has to open tomorrow. We are thrilled that the judge agreed with us."Massara is the lead counsel for the Surfrider Foundation, which filed a lawsuit against Khosla in March 2013, saying the legendary entrepreneur had failed to obtain a "Coastal Development Permit" with the California Coastal Commission and San Mateo County to change "intensity of use" at the beach or access. All beaches in California must be accessible to the public up to the mean tide line, according to the California Coastal Commission.In her ruling, San Mateo, Calif., Superior Court Judge Barbara Mallach mandated Khosla to reopen access to Martins Beach, which has been home to fishermen, picnicking families and surfers for several decades; the former owners – the Deeney family – had allowed access to the beach with a fee for parking.Khosla bought the property above Martins Beach in 2008 for $32.5 million, and two years later, locked the gate to a small road which provided the only access to the beach. Signs came up warning trespassers and security guards roamed the beach, prohibiting wanderers.Mallach found that Khosla had not obtained the required permits, despite multiple notices from the Coastal Commission and San Mateo County. In court last May, Khosla testified that his property manager would have handled such matters. Steven Baugher, property manager for MartinsBeach, admitted in court that he had in fact locked the gate and put up trespassing signs without obtaining a CDP.Khosla had earlier argued he did not need a permit since he was not developing the land.But Mallach ruled that "changing the intensity of use" – even though there was no use – and prohibiting access to the water did constitute development, which required a permit from the Coastal Commission.In the lawsuit, the Surfrider Foundation asked that Khosla be subjected to fines of $15,000 per day for not obtaining the required permit. Such fines would have amounted to more than $20 million. But Mallach did not impose the fine. Massara told India-West the Foundation is now determining whether to appeal that portion of the ruling.Khosla's attorneys – Jeffrey Essner and Dori Yob – said in a press statement: "We are disappointed with the court's decision and will consider our options for appealing the ruling.""We will continue to seek protection of the constitutional rights of private property owners that are guaranteed by the U.S. and California Constitutions and that have long been upheld by the United States and California Supreme Courts," said Essner and Yob in the statement.Attorney Joe Cotchett, whose firm represents the Surfrider Foundation, said in a statement issued after the ruling: "Today's decision is a huge victory for all of the people of California. It affirms that great wealth cannot be used to circumvent and ignore the law. Everyone can again visit Martins Beach."In a related matter, Governor Jerry Brown must sign off or veto legislation by Sept. 30 that would require the State Lands Commission to purchase from Khosla the private road leading down to the beach. If the governor fails to sign or veto the bill by the end of the month, the legislation would die.California state Senator Jerry Hill, who authored the bill, had first called for the state to seize the small road via eminent domain, but the legislation was watered down as it passed through the Senate and Assembly. Critics of the bill say purchasing the land would cost the state millions of dollars.Hill's bill, SB 968, has generated an immense amount of lobbying from Khosla and environmental activists.]]> What UN World Leaders Can Learn from California's Climate Law tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13409 2014-09-20T08:00:00Z 2014-09-22T16:20:01Z The UN Climate Summit will convene government leaders, business, and other stakeholders to discuss ways to mitigate climate change. As UN leaders and climate activists gear up to advance climate change solutions, the discussion must go beyond polar bears, climate... Mari Rose Taruc ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 The UN Climate Summit will convene government leaders, business, and other stakeholders to discuss ways to mitigate climate change. As UN leaders and climate activists gear up to advance climate change solutions, the discussion must go beyond polar bears, climate treaties, or climate science. While everyone is ready and eager for bold action to address our current climate crisis, the most important voices in this discussion, those of indigenous, low-income, and people of color at the frontlines of climate pollution, must be the loudest. Here in California, we passed the state's landmark climate law, AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. It was a step in the right direction to avoid climate change, but environmental justice advocates ensured that frontline communities were not left behind in the movement toward a more sustainable California. SB 535 (Kevin de Leon), the Climate and Community Investment Act, ensures that the communities who suffer most from climate pollution can benefit directly from investments in clean energy and green jobs. This year, over $200 million will go towards programs that reduce pollution, while benefitting the most polluted neighborhoods. This is one lesson that UN leaders must learn from California. Otherwise, they risk widening the disparities that exist between frontline communities and the rest of the world. They risk creating two separate states: a state for those that have Teslas and solar panels and a state where those living at the frontline of pollution and extraction have little to no access to healthcare and opportunity. In moving towards a Just Transition, one where we can all participate in the solution to the climate crisis, UN leaders need to take into account all of the impacts of their decisions. If we start with the communities that have been most impacted by the extractive economy that is devastating our planet, we can begin to uplift equity, economic opportunity, and ecological balance. If UN leaders really care for our climate, their climate action must take us towards a Just Transition that keeps fossil fuels in the ground, creates millions of meaningful jobs, and puts our communities back to work building the infrastructure we really need to address the climate crisis. That is why I am marching in the People's Climate March on Sunday. I am marching to represent the 1,000 members of our organization, who are Asian immigrants and refugees living beside the Chevron refinery and the convergence of three major highways in their backyards. I am marching so that they and frontline communities all over the country can breathe cleaner air, enjoy local clean energy, and build an economy that makes us climate resilient. I am marching because our climate is too fragile and precious for the UN to gamble on trial-and-error solutions. The UN needs to borrow from California's tried and true climate policy that is good for both people and planet: invest in community-led climate solutions.Mari Rose Taruc is a mother who has 20 years of organizing experience in environmental justice campaigns. As the state organizing director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, she brings statewide coalitions together on community-based climate policy. ]]> Silicon Valley Region Leads in Groundwater Sustainability tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13408 2014-09-19T17:46:13Z 2014-09-19T20:24:05Z photo: A percolation pond inside the Santa Clara Valley Water District. (James Wang/World Journal)SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- As new laws to regulate groundwater for the first time in California are set to take effect next year, Santa Clara County could... James Wang ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 photo: A percolation pond inside the Santa Clara Valley Water District. (James Wang/World Journal)SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- As new laws to regulate groundwater for the first time in California are set to take effect next year, Santa Clara County could serve as a model. The region – home to Silicon Valley – is already at the forefront of groundwater sustainability.Gov. Jerry Brown signed a package of bills Tuesday that would tamp down on a groundwater-drilling bonanza in the state. The historic step would shore up the water supply in California, which is now in the third year of a catastrophic drought. The bills require hard-hit groundwater basins to put in place sustainability plans in the next six years. California doesn't just rely on reservoirs for its water. As much as 40 percent of its water comes from groundwater in normal years, and up to 60 percent in drought years, according to the California Water Foundation."If groundwater is not managed carefully, everyone can pump as much as they want," said Public Policy Institute of California's Ellen Hanak, adding that the practice can lead to problems such as diminished supply, land subsidence and salt water encroachment in coastal areas. Hanak says several urban areas in the state that experienced these problems took steps in the 20th century to manage their basins more sustainably, including regulating groundwater pumping and actively bringing in other supplies to recharge basins. "Santa Clara is one of places that did it," she said, noting that "[It] is one of the models people will look to, to see what can we apply from Santa Clara to places that don't have this management yet."Three decades ago, aquifers in Santa Clara County were severely overdrawn, prompting the county to adopt landmark groundwater conservation measures. Those efforts have shored up the region's water supply and even buffered it from cycles of drought.According to the most recent estimate, the total groundwater storage in the Santa Clara Valley Water District by the end of this year is projected to be 208,000 acre-feet, which, according to the District's board member, Nai Hsueh, "should help to keep the water supply in the South Bay in a proper condition at least for this year."Groundwater is a key focus of water conservation in Santa Clara County. The area is blessed with huge groundwater basins, which have about double the storage capacity of all of the 10 surface reservoirs combined. Moreover, the area's century-long land subsidence problem can only be contained by sufficient storage of groundwater.In fact, when the water district was formed in 1926, it was named the Santa Clara Valley Water Conservation Association (SCVWCA), and its chief objective was to conserve the valley's surface and groundwater supplies. Both surface water and groundwater conservation are interrelated. Ever since 1926, the water district has established 10 reservoirs to collect rainwater, and more than 20 percolation ponds, where fresh water trickles through cracks and pores in the rocks and soils into the groundwater basin. The district's engineers also built a number of aqueducts, or canals, to carry water from the reservoirs to the percolation ponds to manage the groundwater storage.When the SCVWCA was established in 1926, the institution started to develop methods to recharge the groundwater basin. Then, from the end of World War II to early 1970s, the local population increased from about 200,000 to over 1 million, mainly due to suburban development. The water demand was huge. The groundwater storage in the valley decreased rapidly, which caused some land in the valley to sink. According to the water district, from 1915 to 1970, the land in the San Jose area subsided about 13 feet. "Subsidence is a serious problem, because once it happened, the land cannot be brought back to its original elevation," Nai Hsueh, adding that "the subsiding area would become more vulnerable to natural disasters such as flooding or seawater encroachment." Fortunately, imported water from state dams started to arrive in the early 1970s, which gradually brought the groundwater storage back to its normal standard, protecting the land from further subsidence. In 1976, Santa Clara County's sustainable groundwater management was hailed by the San Francisco section of the American Society of Civil Engineering as "the first and only instance of a major water supply being developed in a single groundwater basin," according to the water district. But, pressures on the region's water supply returned in the mid-1970s, when Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak introduced the first personal computer and put Silicon Valley on the map. The region's growth spiraled upward, reaching 2 million in just two decades. The huge influx of people put pressure on the water supply in Santa Clara County, and the region was only able to offset its water shortage through imported water from federal dams. According to Hsueh, more than half of the area's water supply came from state and federal reservoirs and dams. Once the imported water arrived, it was channeled to local reservoirs or percolation ponds, and later on stored in the groundwater basin. But ever since Gov. Brown declared a drought emergency in California in January, it has been very difficult for the water district to get imported water from state or federal dams. With less imported water to meet the valley's demands, the water district and city officials are now turning to consumers to conserve water.Gov. Brown has mandated that water districts reduce consumer water use by one fifth. Since then, as the drought in the Bay Area has become more severe, the San Jose City Council unanimously declared a citywide water shortage in August, and asked city residents to reduce their water use by 20 percent.According to the city's drought declaration, residents are not allowed to use potable water to irrigate their lawns or landscapes from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. through April 2015. They are not allowed to use a hose without a shut-off nozzle to clean their vehicles either."Watering in the evening or early morning hours ... means less water evaporates," said Jennie Loft, a spokesperson for the San Jose Environmental Services Department. "Less water can be used and the landscape will absorb more of it."Recognizing that the state's future could include more frequent and prolonged droughts, San Jose elected officials are exploring other ways to enhance groundwater supplies. San Jose Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen, together with three other council members, asked the city to work with the water district to accelerate plans for constructing a facility that would replenish the groundwater basin with recycled wastewater. The water district recently opened a state-of-the-art water plant in San Jose that purifies wastewater and recycles it for use in irrigation and industrial purposes, such as watering golf courses or use in cooling towers. The plant produces up to 8 million gallons of purified water daily. City officials say the advanced water treatment plant is increasing public awareness of future uses of recycled wastewater that could one day bolster the region's groundwater reserves and serve as a model for other cities.Ngoc Nguyen contributed to this story.]]> Pushing for Cities to Take Lead on Climate Change tag:newamericamedia.org,2014://19.13407 2014-09-19T08:00:00Z 2014-09-19T06:15:40Z A. D. McKenzie ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Yet, despite arriving by car, Bloomberg, the United Nations Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, spoke persuasively about how efficient environmental policies at local level can lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.A key step is to make populations more aware of the issues by sending the right message, so that voters can make informed decisions, Bloomberg said during an open "discussion" with OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría.For example, if people saw an image of a baby on television with "two or three cigarettes dangling out of his or her mouth" and understood that as a symbol of the polluted air that they were breathing in their city, or the air that their children would breathe, the message would hit home, said Bloomberg, the founder and principal owner of the international media company that bears his name.If people saw an image of a baby on television with 'two or three cigarettes dangling out of his or her mouth' and understood that as a symbol of the polluted air that they were breathing in their city, or the air that their children would breathe, the message would hit home – Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York"People will understand the issue, they will understand how it affects them … and what they can do about it," he said, adding that such understanding will affect their political choices.At the meeting, Bloomberg and Gurría "reaffirmed their commitment to support international cities' efforts to lead in the global fight against climate change" and urged governments to adopt policies to achieve this.Their pledge ties in with the former mayor's current role: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Bloomberg as a special envoy in January to assist him in "consultations with mayors and related key stakeholders in order to raise political will and mobilise action among cities as part of his long-term strategy to advance efforts on climate change".This assistance includes "bringing concrete solutions" to the 2014 Climate Summit that the UN Secretary-General will host in New York on Sep. 23.However, many non-governmental organisations regard this Summit as a gathering where world leaders will once again be "fiddling with flimsy pledges instead of committing to binding carbon reductions", according to environmental group Friends of the Earth."A parade of leaders trying to make themselves look good does not bring us any closer to the real action we need to address the climate crisis. This one-day Summit will not deliver any substantial action in the fight against climate change," said Dipti Bhatnagar, climate justice and energy coordinator for Friends of the Earth International (FoEI)."World leaders are falling far short of delivering what we need to truly tackle climate change in a just way. Their flimsy non-binding pledges in New York will do little to improve their track record. What we urgently need are equitable and binding carbon reductions, not flimsy voluntary ones," she said in a statement.Friends of the Earth will join with thousands of protesters on Sep. 21 to march in New York, Paris, London and several other cities around the world to "demand climate justice, standing with climate and dirty energy-affected communities worldwide", the group said.Some of the cities where the demonstrations will occur have already taken steps to reduce emissions and improve the quality of life for residents, as Bloomberg pointed out in Paris. But political awareness needs to be heightened so that special interest groups are not the ones imposing directions, the former mayor said.Over three consecutive terms as mayor of New York, where he reportedly spent 268 million dollars of his own money on election campaigns, Bloomberg set up schemes to make New York "greener", including recycling food waste and aiming at converting organic waste to biogas.For Bloomberg and Gurría, cities are a" crucial part of efforts to slow climate change" because urban areas produce more than two-thirds of the world's carbon emissions. The share of the global population living in cities is also set to increase to 70 percent, or 6.4 billion people, by 2050 from the current roughly 50 percent, says the OECD."Cities have the potential to make a great difference in the global effort to confront climate change: they account for more than 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and two-thirds of the world's energy use today," according to Bloomberg and Gurría.Both men called on world leaders gathering at the UN Climate Summit to "look for ways to help their cities accelerate their progress and empower them to do even more.""We are all aware of the immense scale of the global challenge presented by climate change," Gurría said. "It is no longer simply an environmental issue. It is an economic and a social issue. It is vital to our quality of life and to the life of our fragile earth. Action is becoming ever-more urgent."The OECD and Bloomberg Philanthropies also issued a "Policy Perspectives" document Wednesday that recommends measures for enabling cities to fight global warming. The recommendations include actively involving the private sector because "green" policies cannot be separated from economic growth, according to Gurría.He said that various sectors needed to work together to "enable real progress in reaching international climate goals and a meaningful, global agreement next year in Paris," where the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference will take place.Friends of the Earth and many other NGOs remain unconvinced, however, of the commitment by wealthy nations such as those that are members of the OECD. The group said that the positions of developed countries' leaders "are increasingly driven by the narrow economic and financial interests of wealthy elites, the fossil fuel industry and multinational corporations."]]>


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Burnham: NHS Direct was "something precious"
Duration: 02:19
A major provider of the NHS 111 helpline, in England, is pulling out of its remaining contracts. Downing Street is defending the service.
Available since: Mon 29 Jul 2013
This clip is from
Shelagh Fogarty 29/07/2013
Provider of 25 per cent of NHS 111 services in England wants to pull out of the contracts.
First broadcast: 29 Jul 2013
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