After spending the morning of Saturday, June 1, at the Grand Canyon, we drove to Los Angeles where we were hosted by Communities for a Better Environment's Youth for Environmental Justice. On Sunday, June 2, we began the day with a joint breakfast between the youth from the two groups before departing on a tour of Los Angeles.
We began the tour in Wilmington crossing over bridges to get a view of the massive port between Long Beach and Wilmington. CBE acts as a watchdog on the port expansion as well the the pollution from the oil refineries. They are also involved in the expansion of the Alameda Corridor linking the port to downtown Los Angeles increasing the traffic on the already truck-heavy route.
The town of Wilmington is surrounded by oil refineries operated by Shell, Tosco, and Valero. Valero is one of the last refineries to use hydrogen fluoride gas -- a severe risk to the community residents and workers in the event of an accident.
One of the many oil refineries surrounding the town of Wilmington.
Pollution trading credits allow one facility that reduces their emissions to sell those credits to dirtier facilities resulting in a concentration of pollutants in a handful of poor and people of color communities.
The Wilmington Middle School with the Shell refinery in the background.
Yuki Kidokoro, organizer at CBE, describes the campaign against the recycling of this mountain of concrete and earthquake rubble right across from the residents of Huntington Park in Southeast Los Angeles. This fight in 1994 began one of the early environmental justice fights waged by CBE in Los Angeles. They successfully stopped S&R Recycling from creating any further hazards to the community by recycling this mountain.
Jorge Duenes, CBE Youth for EJ member, explains the numbering and color coding outside of industrial facilities to help firefighters determine how best to deal with an accident.
The Pabco Paper plant in Vernon located right across from theVernon Elementary School.
Yuki in front of Suva Elementary in Bell Gardens where there have been 25 cancer deaths from 1985 to 1999 as a result of chrome poisoning from the neighboring Chrome Crankshaft plant. Many teachers miscarriages and on one day there were two miscarriages.
The Chrome Crankshaft plant was shut down in 1999 after a strong community campaign. The company was responsible for pollution from hexavalent chrome.
To contrast the immense wealth discrepancies in Los Angeles, the group was taken from this EJ tour to Skidrow in downtown where the streets are lined with homeless people who occupy the streets with tents and any other available materials. From there we drove to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and walked into some stores to experience the exhorbitant lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Caroline Ntoapane introduces herself at the afternoon Youth Round table where six L.A. youth groups were represented.
The Youth Roundtable at CBE offices where youth talked about their communities and shared strategies for organizing.
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