EPA to Investigate Waste Dumping in Poor U.S. Communities

With the news about Britain getting caught dumping toxic waste in Brazil and Ghana, the injustice of hazardous dumping in third-world countries is getting some much-deserved press and analysis. But what about poor communities right here in the U.S. that are experiencing the same thing? Industry polluters abuse low-income and minority communities across the country, something that activists like Robert Bullard and Irma Muñoz often refer to as ‘environmental racism’.

According to the L.A. Times, this practice will finally be getting some attention from the federal government. The EPA has announced its intention to look into the impact of hazardous waste recycling plants in poor communities.

From the L.A. Times:

The move hearkens back to a Clinton-era executive order that required federal agencies to consider the impact of their policies on disadvantaged communities. Although the Bush administration largely ignored the mandate, Obama-appointed EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson has promised to analyze those impacts.

Under the Bush administration, hazardous waste recycling plants had a free pass to process more than 1 million pounds of toxic material without federal oversight. In Los Angeles and other areas, such plants are disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities largely populated by non-whites, maps created by Earthjustice show.

For example, coal ash from a spill in east Tennessee last December has been relocated to areas largely populated by black people in Alabama and Georgia, noted Robert Bullard of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University.

That last bit is pretty shocking. The TVA already ruined the lives of hundreds of people in Harriman, Tennessee when the coal ash spill occurred last December and their idea of cleaning it up is to move it to poor Southern communities? It’s an outrage.

The EPA needs to tackle the problem at the source  – making life hell for the companies that carry out these injustices in the first place. A little karma would do them some good.

Link [LA Times]
Photo credit: WeAct.org

Who’s Who in Green: Irma Muñoz

Far too often, in places like Los Angeles County, California, Latina mothers have helplessly watched their children play in streets, parks and waterways contaminated with pesticides and other pollutants. They worry about the effects that these toxins could have on their sons and daughters, but it seems like nobody out there is too concerned about cleaning up poor communities, which are disproportionately home to factories and dumping sites. What could they do, when they needed to focus all their energy just on making ends meet?

That’s where Irma Muñoz came in. The community organizer, activist and advocate has dedicated herself to abolishing environmental racism and helping Latina women take action against the injustices they’re faced with on a daily basis. She is the President, Founder and CEO of Mujeres de la Tierra – ‘Women of the Earth’, the nation’s first Latina environmental organization.

“Mujeres gives groups of women a platform so they can go to the City Council, the School Board and be a force to be reckoned with,” Muñoz explained in a 2007 interview with Whole Life Times.

Mujeres de la Tierra has six chapters in the Los Angeles area, and Muñoz takes the time to interact on a personal basis with group members as often as possible. She emphasizes the need to tackle environmental problems that have a daily impact on the local community, helping Latino families achieve small victories that add up in a big way.

Asked by Newsweek what she sees as the biggest environmental issues facing Latinos in the Los Angeles area, she said,

“That’s a tough question, but I would say it’s a lack of access to passive and active recreational opportunities, to green space to play, to parks. Latinos in many urban areas are the new mainstream, but unfortunately that does not translate in the equitable distribution of resources – especially in the “green world.” A lot of power plants and factories are traditionally put in minority neighborhoods, and we suffer as a result of that. What we want are all the things that are necessary to good community health in any urban area: trees and clean air quality.”

Muñoz credits her upbringing in Los Angeles and her father’s encouragement when it comes to her strong sense of responsibility and drive to take action for the good of the community. One of seven daughters, Muñoz was brought up in a home with strong family values and a deep respect for their Mexican heritage and cultural traditions.

Muñoz was named in Hispanic Business Magazine’s 100 Influential Hispanics in October of 2008 and was featured in the November 2008 issue of O, Oprah Magazine. She has also been honored with La Opinion’s Mujeres Destacadas 2007 community award for leadership.

Irma Muñoz’s Green Score: 42,677

California to Pay Residents to Rip Out Their Water-Intensive Lawns

When you live in an artificially lush desert environment where water availability is already a problem, is it smart to use what little water you have to keep pointless lawns green? Uh, no. As many of you already know, wasting water on lawns is a major pet peeve of ours here at EarthFirst – it just doesn’t make any damn sense.

So, we’re thrilled to hear that Los Angeles officials are finally waking up to the stupidity of such wastefulness, and giving owners of single family homes an incentive to stop. They’re going to pay LA residents to rip out their useless, water-intensive lawns.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Fast on the heels of the new watering ordinances that took effect June 1, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has begun a cash-for-grass program. Single-family homes served by the DWP will be eligible to receive $1 for every square foot of turf that they replace with less thirsty alternatives.

For years Southern California water managers paid scant attention to outdoor water conservation. Then they saw stunning savings achieved in Nevada. According to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, in the last decade, Las Vegas has removed more than 125 million square feet of grass, saving 7 billion gallons of water a year. That’s almost one-tenth of Southern Nevada’s annual water supply.

The rebate program will pay Department of Water and Power customers to remove up to 2,000 square feet of lawn and replace it with water-wise landscaping. Having a plan for the successor landscape is necessary to get the rebate, so people can’t just dig up their lawns and leave a big pit of dirt in its place.

If you’re going to use water, grow food. Otherwise, drought-resistant landscaping is the way to go. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has a ‘Be Water Wise’ website where residents can get ideas of what to plant.

It’s about time. We all need to start treating water like the precious resource that it is.

Link [LA Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user Jeremy Levine Design

Eco-Logical Art ‘Second Saturday’ Events in LA

LA’s Eco-LogicalART gallery has announced yet another innovative eco-friendly way to exhibit art. The gallery, founded by Peter Schulberg, salvages toxic, non-biodegradable billboard vinyl and stretches them so that they may be used by LA-area artists for free in exchange for exposure on the exterior of the gallery.

Starting Saturday, June 13th, Eco-LogicalART will be launching a monthly exhibit of original art on the billboard directly over the gallery. The “Second Saturday at Eco-LA” events will feature a dramatic curtain drop reveal, live painting of billboards, eco vendors, green workshops, and more. Besides the monthly gallery installations, original billboard art will also go on display across the city.

From the press release:

Sponsored in part by the Vinyl Institute, the recurring “Second Saturday” events will also feature a gallery show of smaller art painted on vinyl, “live” billboard art painting, kids eco-art workshops, tree giveaways, eco vendors, bio-diesel demos, bike club sign-ups, and more. For Schulberg the varied event elements are a perfect fit.

“The billboard art is our wow factor. But we want people to experience a whole range of eco experiences. Going green is about taking a second look atthe world we live in.” For Schulberg the re-visionary moment came out of the blue–literally. Thinking back he calls it “divinyl intervention”.

This event not only makes smart use of 20,000 square feet of toxic material that would otherwise take up space in landfills, but also gets artists tons of exposure and puts art within the reach of LA citizens that might not otherwise get to see it. The work will be seen by 40,000 people per day.

The billboard will be unveiled at noon on June 13th at the Eco-LogicalART gallery, 4829 West Pico Blvd, 90019, and will be up until 4pm.

Link [Eco-LogicalART]

Who’s Who in Green: Siel Ju, Green LA Girl

If you want to know about eco-happenings in the LA area, Siel’s your girl. The Green LA Girl blogger has been writing about environmental topics online since 2005, helping Los Angelenos find the hottest green spots and events as well as providing green tips and news to the greater public.

Los Angeles isn’t exactly the greenest city in the U.S., despite its location in sunny Southern California – but that’s more due to the layout of the city, lack of great public transit and too many cars on the road than any lack of motivation among its residents. But, Siel helps LA-area greenies and the green-curious push beyond these limitations and be as eco-conscious as the can be, helping them with things like indoor apartment composting and finding the best local organic grub.

If you’re new to LA – or just new to being green in LA – be sure to check out Green LA Girl’s Guide to Los Angeles, which gives info on food & drinks, getting around, recycling, spending wisely and collaborating with other passionate green peeps.

In addition to her writing on Green LA Girl, Siel also writes at MNN.com, Lime.com and FilterforGood.com, and is a contributing editor at BlogHer.com. She previously headed up LATimes.com’s environmental blog, Emerald City, and was the editor for the L.A. section of WorldChanging. She also writes poetry and recently received her Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California.

Siel heads up the Lifestyle Channel at MNN, where she blogs about everything from fashion-forward eco-friendly accessories to phthalate-free perfumes that won’t make you smell like a hippie. A lot of us good learn a thing or two from this very green bike-riding LA girl!

Siel Ju’s Green Score: 12,155

Book Review: Smogtown – The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles

If you think the air is bad in Los Angeles right now, you probably didn’t live there for much of the past century. When the thick, view-obscuring gray haze first appeared in the city on July 26th, 1943, nobody knew quite what to think of it. Was some factory suddenly spewing tons of pollution in to the air? Was it some kind of chemical attack? Citizens of this Southern California city didn’t yet realize the cost of their own modernized lifestyle, wherein practically every single resident owned their own vehicle.

“Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles” by Chip Jacobs and William Kelly tracks the smog invasion of LA from the first moment it arrived through the many efforts to combat it.  This might not sound too exciting – especially for people who aren’t hardcore environmentalists interested in every detail of our nation’s struggle with pollution – but you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that Smogtown is thoroughly entertaining from start to finish.

It’s a dramatic story, playing out like it was written for the screen, with clear protagonists and villains – and humor peppered throughout. While Smogtown does an excellent job of providing the hard facts about how the pollution got so bad, the weakness of the government in controlling it and the difficulty of convincing Los Angelenos to sacrifice any part of their lifestyle to make it go away – it’s also a gripping tale that will keep you eagerly turning the pages. What with the terrified citizens crashing their cars in panic at the appearance of the smog and bewildered, ineffectual government officials bumbling about, it’s almost like Godzilla, but with pollution as “the beast”.

Of course, we all know how this story ends. Air pollution is still a major concern in Los Angeles, and despite knowing that the automobile is the source, LA is still crawling with cars and lacking a decent public transit system. But don’t let that stop you from giving this lively story a read. It’s got sex, plenty of Hollywood glamour, scandal, and murder – but never falters in its brilliant coverage of an incredibly important environmental issue.

Check out the Smogtown blog at lasmogtown.com for lots more info, including the latest news about efforts to fight pollution in LA.

Link [Smogtown]

Los Angeles Switching to LED Street Lights

The street lights in L.A. will get a little brighter – and greener – this summer, when the city plans to switch to LEDs. It’s being billed as the largest effort by a U.S. city to reduce pollution by retrofitting incandescent street lights to be more energy-efficient.  The city will begin the replacement process this July, and it will continue over a 5-year period.

Former President Bill Clinton was on hand as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa unveiled the plan on Monday, calling it “a great day in Los Angeles”.

From MSNBC:

The project is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 40,500 tons and save $10 million annually.

“This is the best place in the world — in the U.S. at least — to lead this,” Clinton said, citing the city’s ongoing environmental efforts. “This is like taking 6,000 cars off the road.

“If every major city followed your lead, we could eliminate 2 1/2 coal-fired power plants.”

Villaraigosa hailed the effort, saying it would help make Los Angeles the “cleanest, greenest big city in the U.S. We are building a bridge to a sustainable future.”

Of course, Los Angeles has a long way to go to be the ‘greenest big city in the U.S.’, especially considering its smog problems and lack of decent public transportation. But, this effort is definitely commendable. Imagine if more cities did this – the impact would be tremendous. Keep it up, LA!

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Flickr user jondoeforty1

One LA Guy’s Almost-Zero-Waste Year

Dave Chameides of Los Angeles set out to create as little trash as possible in 2008, but he wasn’t about to stop drinking beer or eating potato chips. Since the waste from those items would undoubtedly add up, he found ways around the problem so he could still enjoy those items without having a lot of trash piling up. Chameides saved his trash for all of 2008 and his final total was less than the average American family throws away in a week.sav

From Green LA Girl, via ENN:

“I didn’t want to change the way that I was living my life,” Dave says. “If I wanted to drink beer, I wasn’t going to say, well, I can’t find a way to drink beer without creating packaging, so therefore I’m not going to. Instead, what I’m going to do is look at the packaging in beer and pick the most ‘eco-friendly’ way to do it.”

The idea behind Dave’s project was to focus on things people could do without drastically changing their entire lifestyle. “There are definitely people out there who have done similar things where they’ve cut everything out of their life,” Dave says. “A lot of people who are really really hardcore have emailed me and said, “You know, you can just not eat potato chips.’ Well, yeah, but I wanna eat potato chips!”

So Dave opted for bigger bags of chips versus the more wasteful one-serving bags — and cut out packaging wherever he could. Buying used items on Craigslist, composting food and paper scraps in his worm bin, and shopping at the farmers’ market — where he could even take back his egg cartons to a farmer for reuse — helped downsize Dave’s trash pile.

Dave’s total non-recyclable trash accumulation was just 30.5 pounds – and he kept his recyclables for a year, too, to prove that “recycling isn’t the answer”. Dave points out that the recycling process uses energy and resources, so it’s not a great way out of our trash dilemma.

You can read all about Dave’s journey at his website, Sustainable Dave.

Link [ENN] + [Green LA Girl] + [Sustainable Dave]

Los Angeles Colleges are Going Green

It’s not just a trend – it’s the new way of life.  Colleges around the world are making their best efforts to clean up their acts, from using renewable energy sources and conserving water to composting and recycling.  The latest colleges to jump aboard include a slew of schools in the Los Angeles, California area including East LA College, Santiago Canyon College, Santa Clara University and Stanford University.

From Greenopia:

Last Spring, East Los Angeles College installed 5,952 solar panels, which will create nearly half of the college’s energy.  Placed hanging over 530 parking spaces on a campus lot, the panels are expected to last for forty years, produce 1.9 million kilowatts annually, and save the college around $270,000 a year.  The LA Times reports that “The Los Angeles Community College Districts, which includes East Los Angeles, is undergoing one of the largest green building efforts in the country’s public sector, with more than 40 buildings planned and all facilities set to employ only renewable energy.”

It’s not just the junior college sector that’s taking on a green sheen.  Back in 2004, the UC university system passed a policy determining all new or renovated building had to be environmentally friendly.  Recent reports now reveal this has saved the system nearly $5 million dollars.  Now, building green on campus has become much more mainstream.  Plus, campuses can boast a recent study showing “eco-friendly construction helps lower absenteeism, proves productivity and staves off health problems for students and teachers.”

Santiago Canyon College has vertical perforated solar fins cooling their library.  Santa Clara University boasts a building comprised of carpet tiles made of yarn and also has a student-built solar house for the biennial Solar Decathlon.  And, Stanford now has a building partially constructed from redwood salvaged from old wine vats.

We love how colleges and universities are embracing ‘green’ and making it work for them – so many people are finding that not only can they help reduce their ecological footprint, they can save money at the same time! Colleges are getting really creative about the ways that they make sustainability a part of their campus operations.  Love it!

Link [Greenopia]
Photo credit: Santa Clara Solar Decathlon

Yum, Sewage: LA Aims to Add Wastewater to Drinking Water Supply

Los Angeles is one of many cities facing water shortages, and it’s bound to only get worse over the next decade as the city’s population grows ever larger. Enter Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa’s solution: recycling ‘heavily cleansed’ sewage water into drinking water.

From The New York Times:

Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, who opposed such a plan a decade ago over safety concerns, announced the proposal on Thursday as part of a package of initiatives to put the city, the nation’s second largest, on a stricter water budget. The other plans include increasing fines for watering lawns during restricted times, tapping into and cleaning more groundwater, and encouraging businesses and residents to use more efficient sprinklers and plumbing fixtures.

The move comes as California braces for the possibility of the most severe water shortages in decades.

Snowfall in the Sierra Nevada, which supplies about a third of Los Angeles’s water, is short of expectations. At the same time, the Western drought has lowered supplies in reservoirs, while legal rulings to protect endangered species will curtail water deliveries from Northern California.

Before you wrinkle your nose and decide it’s absolutely disgusting, consider this: not only will the water be purer than tap water, it won’t be introduced directly to taps: it would be injected into the ground and gradually filter down to aquifers, making it much cleaner. The only problem is that the chemicals that are set to be used to cleanse the water haven’t been independently tested for safety, so hopefully that will happen before action is actually taken on the plan.

Props to LA for dealing with the problem now instead of waiting until they’re in the midst of a severe crisis, like our federal government likes to do.

Link [New York Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user Elsie esq.