You may remember from a previous post that the California Air Resources Board relocated an air monitor which had been collecting data for the last 20 years. Results showed that Arvin had the worst smog in the United States. The station is now set up at a location...
Former Senator Moynahan said once: “You are entitled to your own opinion…but you are not entitled to your own facts.” Political scientists at the research-renowned University of Michigan are pointing out that facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our...
In short, an air monitoring site showing the highest rates of ozone pollution in the Valley–in Arvin–was moved so that the readings make the job the state agency is doing look better. The air monitor at the Bear Mountain site has collected data since 1989,...
Claims that EPA environmental restrictions have caused more fallow land and the loss of jobs in the San Joaquin Valley have been watered down by a new study. The most recent drought hit California through 2007 to 2009, and was a mild one. The Pacific Institute based...
Pour yourself a glass of water from the tap in Kettleman city and you’ll find it’s often yellow and smells of rotten eggs. That would be off-putting enough, but arsenic and benzene levels also make that glass of water unsafe to drink. But last week...
First of all this was entirely my fault. Entirely. I left half a package of dog treats in the glove compartment of my old Subaru. I live in a village at the base of the mountains that surround the San Joaquin Valley, California’s Central Valley where agriculture...
Chemical Waste Management will probably get a three-year extension of the permit to operate its bioreactor disposal unit, which runs water through the mountains of trash it processes every day at its 30-acre facility outside Kettleman City. Bioreactors, which are...
Every time I drive down to Bakersfield from the mountains surrounding the Central Valley, I take a big breath at the top of the Grapevine on I-5, and try not to breathe the air on the flatlands below. Forbes magazine declared Bakersfield “the dirtiest city in...
Most writers aren’t extroverts, and find picking up the phone to promote themselves second in dread only to a spinal tap, a baby shower, and an IRS audit–all on the same day. Only a few bestselling authors get book tours nowadays. Publishers expect you to...
A former Tejon Ranch hunting guide, Bron Sanders, has turned whistleblower. He is suing Tejon Ranch for wrongful dismissal in a suit worth $500,000. His claim is that illegal killing of mountain lions is happening at the company’s direction. “We learned of Mr....
