Public Health and Environmental Groups Sue EPA over Renewed Clean Air Determination for the San Joaquin Valley
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 26, 2008
1:12 PM
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CONTACT: Earthjustice
Erin Tobin, Earthjustice (510) 550-6725
Kevin Hall, Sierra Club (559) 244-1842
Kevin Hamilton, Medical Advocates for Healthy Air (559) 288-5244
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Public Health and Environmental Groups Sue EPA over Renewed Clean Air Determination for the San Joaquin Valley
EPA Brushed Aside Inconvenient Data to Declare Region's Air Clean of
Particulates While Residents Continue to Suffer
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WASHINGTON, DC - March 26 - On Friday, March 7, at 4:59 pm, EPA Region IX quietly
released a highly contested decision that the particulate matter
pollution (i.e., the dust, soot, and smoke that frequently turn the
skies brown in the fall and winter) in the San Joaquin Valley of
California is no longer a concern for residents or lawmakers.
On Tuesday, a coalition of conservation and public health organizations
filed suit in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging this
decision. The problem, say advocates, is that dangerous levels of this
pollution are still being recorded by air quality monitors and EPA's
dismissal of this inconvenient data violates the public health standards
of the federal Clean Air Act.
"EPA would like Valley residents to disregard dozens of violation days,"
said Earthjustice attorney Erin Tobin. "This is not about the air being
clean. The problem is still there, EPA has just invented a new way to
ignore it -- by blaming every dirty air day on 'high winds' even though
we know the real cause is poorly regulated industrialized activities."
EPA's newly-invented "affirmation" finding depends on the Agency's
assertion that it can ignore violations of the health standard if they
are caused by exceptionally high winds. However, since the winds EPA is
trying to claim as exceptional were nothing more than a "light breeze,"
they were simply not capable of causing the widespread violations that
continue to plague the Valley every fall and winter.
Despite EPA's claims, the Valley's air remains a danger to public
health. One in five children in Fresno County has been diagnosed with
asthma, and the Valley suffers from some of the worst air pollution and
childhood asthma rates in country.
"It's not just a violation of the law, it is complete and total
disregard for our health," said Kevin Hall, long-time Fresno resident
and Air Quality Chair of the Sierra Club's Tehipite Chapter. "The cause
of this pollution hasn't changed; it's only our government's willingness
to keep fighting for clean air that has changed. Once again, this EPA is
ignoring our suffering to protect polluters."
"When I stop seeing Valley residents in the emergency room gasping for
breath, then I'll believe that the Valley has clean air," says
respiratory therapist and Fresno resident Kevin Hamilton. "Until then,
we'll see EPA in court."
Earthjustice is representing three San Joaquin Valley chapters of the
Sierra Club and the Fresno-based Medical Advocates for Healthy Air in
this legal action.
Read the filing with the court here:
http://www.earthjustice.org/library/legal_docs/pm10-petition-for-review.
pdf
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