Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
What would it take to transform a 100 year old house sitting near oil fields into the most sustainable clean energy zero-emissions house?EcoJustice Radio spoke with architect Avideh Haghighi on her process overcoming those challenges with her personal project called Zerohouz.
The City of Los Angeles public utility admitted that its Valley Generating Station had been leaking methane gas into the community for three years. The utility knew about the leaks as part of efforts to fix two compressors, but failed to notify the community. Veronica Padilla-Campos, Executive Director of Pacoima Beautiful joins EcoJustice Radio for, “Broken Trust: LA Public Utility Methane Leak Poisons Sun Valley Community.”
Martha Arguello of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles discusses with host Jessica Aldridge neighborhood oil drilling, the call for a 2,500 ft. health and safety buffer, and how community mobilization is addressing the climate emergency and ensuring public health and environmental protection. Martha leads the coalition Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling in Los Angeles. They work in a statewide coalition dedicated to buffers as well called Voices in Solidarity Against Oil in Neighborhoods.
Southern California Gas Company was responsible for a recent chemical spill in the Rancho Park area of West Los Angeles that caused a strong gas-like odor to blanket surrounding neighborhoods. The Los Angeles City Council directed various agencies to investigate, with area residents and two councilmen voicing heavy criticism of SoCal Gas’s handling of post-spill communications.
Carletta Davis from We Matter Eight Mile in Alabama, and Richard Mathews from Save Porter Ranch, talk with Leah Garland from SoCal 350 on parallel natural gas leak disasters in both Alabama and Southern California.
The ongoing ecological disaster has been “temporarily controlled” in Porter Ranch, California, an affluent Los Angeles suburb. Yet, families continue to get sick, and SoCalGas/Sempra wants to oversee the testing inside of homes. While the Regional Air Quality regulators requested they close the leaking well down, the AQMD failed to listen to community demands for a permanent shut down of Aliso Canyon Storage Facility.
While stopping short of full endangered species protections for the Greater Sage-Grouse, the Obama-era Fish and Wildlife Service implemented land use plans to restrict energy development and grazing in the expanse of northwestern U.S. desert called the Sagebrush Sea, depicted in a 2015 documentary. The Trump Interior Department attempted to amend that plan to open up more commercial activities. We feature here an essay on Wyoming’s core plan attempts to salvage the state’s last populations in a landscape dominated by energy development.