UPDATE: ‘EPA commits to help clean area air’ and ‘EPA commits to help improve drinking water’ ran in the Feb. 1 edition of Vida.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld (pictured above) is expected to make some major announcements regarding health and the environment tomorrow morning in Stockton.
The announcements will kick off a two-day tour through the San Joaquín Valley that will take him from Stockton, to UC Merced, and eventually to Seville, where he will speak with Tulare County residents who can’t drink their water.
The way I see it, it’s good news anytime a public official with clout comes to the Valley and speaks with residents about air and water quality, protection of public health, and environmental justice.
These visits give residents a voice, when they often feel their concerns are ignored. And for public officials, these visits can help put a human face on the Valley’s very serious health and environmental justice concerns.
That was the case when Blumenfeld visited the mothers of Kettleman City in 2010.
“I feel calmer,” Magdalena Romero, whose daughter was born with birth defects and died, said after meeting with Blumenfeld in her home. “I feel like a weight within me has been lifted. I feel relieved, because we are going to have answers soon.”
And that was the case when Catarina de Albuquerque, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, visited Seville in 2011.
“The power that I have is to draw attention to issues, and to point my finger at problems that I see in the countries that I visit,” said de Albuquerque, pictured below.
I will be tweeting updates from the road over the next two days, and posting photos on the Harvesting Health Facebook page. Follow these updates, or check out next week’s edition of Vida en el Valle.
More from Harvesting Health on environmental justice:
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