Rural Communities Initiative Desert Protection Project - We continue to work with the desert communities to stop the Eagle Mountain Dump, that would be sited next to Riverside County's real treasure - Joshua Tree National Park. The Center was part of the lawsuit that successfully forced a new Environmental Impact Report. Kaiser / MRC appealed and won, overturning our victory. The California Supreme Court refused to hear our appeal leaving our court actions at the state level closed. But the battle is not over yet. An appeal has been filed challenging the BLM's land exchange which will give pristine public lands to MRC, a private company, upon which they'll build the dump - not in the old iron ore mine as they continue to report. In addition, there are a number of other actions in the process. If we and the desert communities have anything to say about it, Kaiser / MRC will not make Riverside County the dumping ground for the rest of the State. Why do we oppose the dump? The proposed dump would be located 500 feet from an open portion of the Colorado aqueduct, the source of water for 16 million people. The dump would be surrounded on 3 sides by the Joshua Tree National Pak with the closest point being a little more that 2,500 yards. The dump would bring 40 million pounds of garbage every day for the next 100 years from Los Angeles and other counties. There will be seven one-mile-long double-decker trains roaring across the desert every day bisecting designated critical habitat for the desert tortoise. More trash will be brought in by over 200 garbage trucks. Trains, trucks, and facility operations will pump over 5,000 tons of air pollution annually. The area is the only place in the continental US with truly "clean air" receiving Class I Airshed designation in 1977. For More information call Larry and Donna Charpied at (760) 392-4722 Safe Schools Project - Not only is education an important issue facing our schools, but the safety of our kids school is of equal concern. CCAEJ has started our Safe Schools Project which will look at issues affecting our kids at school — like the use of toxic pesticides on campuses; indoor air pollution in classrooms; the impacts of siting schools on property without regard for the property's former land use or current neighboring land uses; the impacts children from diesel buses. Our goal is to make schools as safe as possible so that our teachers can teach and our kids can learn and achieve to their highest potential. CCAEJ working with schools in converting to least toxic pest control practices and addressing problems with portable classrooms, ensuring proper ventilation and maintenance practices. CCAEJ sponsored an Educational Forum, "Safe Schools = Smart Schools" in March 2000 that brought parents, teachers, administrators and students together to work to protect our kids and make our schools safe learning environments. Nearly 100 people attended. Working with CCAEJ, two school districts signed up to be pilot schools on Indoor Air Quality; one school has adopted an aggressive 1PM program and one school District has adopted a strong Indoor Air Quality Policy. Indoor Air Quality Pesticide Organizing Lead Poisoning School Siting Diesel Buses Community Awareness and Monitoring Project (CAMP) - focuses on development trends in the Inland Empire and their impacts on air pollution, safety, traffic, water resources and the vision for the future of our area. One of our major endeavors will be to conduct an analysis of the impacts upon the Inland Empire from the extension of the Alameda Corridor and the formation of a new committee called People for Positive Growth to address issues of development in our counties. Manufacturing companies and industries send heavy truck and rail traffic along the Corridor as a major conduit for goods marked for transport both domestically and overseas. Local officials have designated the Inland area for an extension of the Alameda Corridor resulting in proposals such as Kaiser Steel Facility becoming an "inland port". Goods from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach would be railed to the Kaiser property where diesel trucks would converge to distribute the goods nationwide. The current increases in truck traffic, mega-warehouses and manufacturing facilities is no accident, but the result of a well-planned effort to provide a tax base for the rest of the county at our expense. Unfortunately, those of us living in the areas designated for such impacts have been left out of the discussions. The Alameda Corridor has produced heavy exposures to toxins in South East Los Angeles (SELA) through the mixing of zoning uses, creating areas where homes are next to polluting industrial facilities. It has driven out people who could afford to move and left the poor to the pollution. Proposals in our areas such as Trico Drums, AutoNation, Old Dominion, Isomedix, etc. would have followed the same pattern. Because of cheaper land, many schools end up located within or adjacent to these same industrial zones. In SELA, 16 schools with a total of several thousand students are located within or adjacent to industrial zones. Looking at the location of Jurupa Valley High School and the planned zoning surrounding it, and with the industrial sewer line nearby, one has to wonder if we have learned anything from the past mistakes. The SELA history with the Alameda Corridor provides a good look at the future of our area if we continue on the current path of industrial development in residential communities. Air Pollution, Diesel Exhaust and Development - The Center researched the impacts of air pollution on our communities finding such startling facts as: The World Health Organization estimates that the Riverside-San Bernardino area has one of the worst small particulate air pollution problems in the world, after cities such as Jakarta, Indonesia; Calcutta, India; and Bangkok, Thailand. People in Southern California (especially the Inland Empire_ breathe the most polluted air in the country. According to the Coalition for Clean Air, "you would have to combine the air pollution from more than 40 metropolitan areas including Phildelphia, New York, Chicago, Houston, and Denver to equal the unhealthful exposure in the South Coast Air Basin". The Center is working to stop this trend. We joined with Mira Loma, Glen Avon, and Pedley residents to stop the AutoNation car reconditioning facility from polluting the Jurupa area with 52 tons of additional air pollution. Auto Nation stubbornly refused to use available pollution control devices, as required by law. EPA issued a Notice of Violation of the Clean Air Act and started investigations into their facilities - nationwide. Instead of obeying the law, like all the other businesses must do, representatives of AutoNation turned in their permits and walked away. After Complaints from local residents about the drastic increase in truck traffic on residential streets and the accompanying diesel emissions, the Center began researching diesel emissions. Our research found diesel exhaust to be highly toxic: Diesel exhaust contains over 450 different compounds, many known to cause cancer, respiratory ailments, and reproductive problems. The State considers 40 chemicals in diesel exhaust as toxic air contaminents. Diesel exhaust, itself, was recently added to the list. Diesel exhaust has been listed as a known cancer-causing agent under Proposition 65 since 1990. AQMD reported that diesel exhaust is so potent in our area that the risk of developing cancer is 1500 times higher than the target health goal of one additional case per million established by the 1990 Federal Clean Air Act. The increased truck traffic is the result of the unbridled development of mega-warehouses, manufacturing facilities and truck terminals, making our area a "diesel hot spot". Declaring "enough is enough", The Center helped residents of Glen Avon stop the U.S. Express trucking from moving in next to a High School and the Old Dominion truck terminal from locating next to the Glen Avon Library and YMCA child care center. That battle led to the county enacting stronger provisions over the siting of truck terminals in the Jurupa area. We are now tackling the mega-warehouses that draw the trucks to the area. We currently have 5 lawsuits challenging the lack of environmental studies of the impacts of the facilities upon our area. The county insists on granting permits without considering the air, traffic, and habitat impacts upon our communities. Glen Avon Revitalization Project and Stringfellow Acid Toxic Dump - The Glen Avon Revitalization Project is a long term, comprehensive program to achieve that goal for the Glen Avon Community. The committee overseeing the project is made up of residents, property owners and businesses from within Glen Avon. The program focuses on assisting current businesses to prosper, draw new businesses to the area, improve property values for residents; improve the appearance of the community by ensuring county ordinances are enforced; identify funding to enhance services to the community; enhance the development of local assets. The Glen Avon Community has been negatively impacted from having the Stringfellow Acid Pits in its midst for decades. Not only have we been directly exposed to the chemicals from the 'Acid Pits', but we've also suffered the stigma of having one of the worst toxic dumps in the nation. Over the last twenty years, the community has worked to repair the damage; we stopped the exposures; got water filters at the elementary school; got residents hooked into the JCSD water system and off private wells in the immediate area. We also won compensation for damages in an historic lawsuit. None of this, of course, makes up for the damage done to children that will never reach their full potential - for the loss of loved ones - or the day-to-day struggles of those whose health has been irreparably harmed. All we can do is work to ensure a safer, healthier future. It is now time for us to try to move on. We can begin to rebuild our lives. We can work to restore our community. While we continue our efforts to ensure a safe cleanup at Stringfellow, we can also begin to revitalize Glen Avon. CCAEJ along with Concerned Neighbors in Action are leading this noteworthy effort. The goal of the Glen Avon Revitalization Project is to bring the community back to its small town, family friendly place it has always been. Project Goals: Increase property values by improving the appearance of the community by enforcing County codes and neighbor-to-neighbor projects to repair and beautify our homes and businesses. Develop a Community Park and community center. Land has been acquired, landscape design services have been donated and ground breaking is near. Research and document the rich history of the community, including the development of a Stringfellow Archive; and restore community pride by renewing community celebrations like the Glen Avon Days Parade and Harvest Festival. Monitor the ongoing cleanup efforts at the Stringfellow Acid Pits. Encourage compatible development and business enterprises. Communities At Risk Network. The CAR project is a network of groups at contaminated sites that provides assistance, support and information. The Center coordinates communication and activities for the network, including sponsoring roundtables and compiling position papers on public policy issues, and providing direct assistance to communities in crisis. Money and Politics. In keeping with our efforts to bring diverse people together to find common ground, we have started an ongoing project on Money In Politics to explore the ever increasing influence of money and corporations on public policy and elections. The Center in partnership with the Center for Responsive Politics and the Environmental Research Foundation held a three-day retreat for 63 community activists from around California on this issue. The Center devoted one issue of our newsletter - Synergy - to this topic. It continues to be a reference guide for communities on this subject. Chemicals and Community Health. This project provides current information linking exposure to chemicals to health impacts in our communities. It looks at Breast Cancer and Chemical exposure, endocrine-disrupting chemicals and how that process works; low sperm counts and chemicals in our environment Communities at Risk | Rural Communities | $$ and Politics | Chemicals and Community Health About the Center | Publications | Support the Center | Links | Guestbook | Home Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ) PO Box 33124 * Riverside, CA 92519 Phone (951) 360-8451 * Fax (951) 360-5950 Website: http://www.ccaej.org E-Mail: admin@ccaej.org