By Tom Frantz The biggest stationary sources of air pollution in the southern half of the Central Valley are directly related to oil production. Diesel trucks do not damage our lungs as much as this [...] Continue Reading
Environment
Bill McKibben to Speak in Fresno
By Angela Price Bill McKibben is certainly not a person you’d expect to find handcuffed and behind bars, but that’s where he found himself in the summer of 2011 after leading the largest civil [...] Continue Reading
Hot Water for City Council
By Lloyd G. Carter In what promises to be a contentious event, the Fresno City Council has scheduled an Aug. 15 public hearing (in the City Council Chamber at 5 p.m.) on a proposal to double [...] Continue Reading
Defend Rural America Surfaces
By Chip Ashley As citizens interested in the Carmelita Mine Project cleared the Fresno County Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting chamber on July 9, they were replaced by another, somewhat more [...] Continue Reading
Update on the Carmelita Mine Proposal
By Chip Ashley If Gerawan Farming gets its way, the Carmelita Mine will extract river rock—10–50 pound chunks of round loaf-shaped rocks to be crushed into aggregate—from the alluvium along the east [...] Continue Reading
Clearing the Air – August 2013: Goods Movement in the San Joaquin Valley
By Tom Frantz Members of the San Joaquin Valley Air Board are often heard blaming our pollution problems on the diesel trucks traveling Valley highways nonstop between Los Angeles and the Bay Area. [...] Continue Reading
Kettleman Hills Toxic Waste Landfill Permitted to Expand
By Vic Bedoian In a decision that’s sure to be controversial, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) issued a draft permit to the Chemical Waste Management Company to expand [...] Continue Reading
The Fungus Among Us
By Maria Telesco At the time of this writing, a serious medical crisis is looming in two California prisons. Valley fever, which is caused by the sometimes-lethal aspergillus fungus, may be [...] Continue Reading
Strictest Rules in the Nation? – Clearing the Air – July 2013
By Tom Frantz The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District Board likes to brag about having the toughest air pollution controls in the nation. Unfortunately, given that we have the worst air [...] Continue Reading
Fresnans Against Fracking Is Organized
By Gary Lasky Fifteen Fresno activists met on June 10 to share concerns about the impending “fracking” boom in the San Joaquin Valley and launched a new group, Fresnans Against Fracking. The group [...] Continue Reading
Fracking California Legislative Update
By Gary Lasky The oil and gas industry in California is essentially without adult supervision. Existing regulations are either drafted by, or approved in advance by, the oil industry. This status quo [...] Continue Reading
Expanding Natural Gas Exports Would Encourage Natural Gas Fracking in California
By Tom Cotter Increasing America’s natural gas exports to other nations may sound like benign economic policy, but it is anything but. In reality, oil and gas giants and others with a track record [...] Continue Reading