July, 26 2011, 01:45pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Nan Wishner, California Environmental Health Initiative – 530-467-3069, nan@cal-ehi.org
Debbie Friedman, MOMS Advocating Sustainability - 415-608-8317, debbie@greenwavestrategies.com
Caroline Cox, Center for Environmental Health - 510.655.3900 x308, caroline@ceh.org
Erin Tobin, Earthjustice, 510-550-6700, etobin@earthjustice.org
Coalition of Health and Environmental Groups Challenges California's Pesticide Plan
Groups point out health and safety threats from pesticide use, need for public involvement
WASHINGTON
A coalition of groups, including moms, water protection advocates, teens, cities, and health and environmental organizations today challenged the State of California's current planning process to control and eradicate pests. The state's programs often include spraying harmful pesticides, some of which drift onto homes and people.
The group's letter, prepared by the public interest law firm Earthjustice, was sent to the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) today. It points to flaws in the agency's proposal to prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) for its pest programs throughout California. The PEIR covers "an undisclosed number of plant pest prevention and management programs and activities implemented by CDFA throughout California."
The groups contend that the state's current "one size fits all" approach to fighting agricultural and other pests does not prioritize least toxic methods that avoid use of harmful pesticides, nor does it account the heightened risks these chemical pose to vulnerable populations, such as children. The groups argue that the state must evaluate the risks posed by pests based on sound science and consider the actual environmental impacts of pest management activities, which are likely to be highly dependent on site-specific environmental variables, such as geography and climatic conditions.
In addition, the letter raises concern that the agency's proposal would restrict the public from having a voice in pest control and eradication programs carried out in communities far into the future.
"It is puzzling that the state is proceeding with a multi-million-dollar EIR for a pest management approach that is outdated, costly, and ineffective. If they modernize their program first, it would likely have far fewer environmental impacts, so the scope of environmental review could be much less sweeping and costly - and the process would be much less likely to lead to litigation," said Nan Wishner of the California Environmental Health Initiative, one of the groups represented by the letter.
"The state's proposal raises serious questions about when and where pest eradication projects will occur, how will the public be informed, and what will be the impacts to public health and the environment," said Earthjustice attorney Erin Tobin. "If the state intends to cut the public out of future pesticide projects, this PEIR will be vulnerable to legal challenge."
The groups demand that the state change its pest eradication planning to include:
* evaluation of the scientific bases for CDFA's current "quarantine and spray" approach
* the costs of CDFA's pest programs as well as their effectiveness at actually controlling or eradicating pests
* the impacts of the state's practices on the growers whose products and livelihoods pest management programs are intended to protect
* the criteria (if any) CDFA uses to determine whether pests are a serious environmental risk
* the impact of global warming on the arrival and spread of pests in California
* CDFA's current practice of declaring "emergencies" for pest eradication projects instead of following CEQA's procedures for preparing EIRs prior to taking action.
"It is critical that the PEIR rigorously evaluate how the state decides whether a pest poses an environmental risk and should be eradicated, as well as how effective its current practices are in actually controlling or eradicating pests," said Caroline Cox, Research Director for Center for Environmental Health. "As we recently saw with the light brown apple moth, the state's determination that the moth posed a serious threat was inaccurate. The apple moth has done no damage in the three years since CDFA declared it an emergency. When decisions about pest threats become justification for spraying in communities and on food, those decisions must be transparent and based on sound science."
The group called for an alternative planning process led by an independent body that would bring stakeholders together to create a less toxic, less costly, and more effective pest control plan that would be easier for farmers to comply with. This call has been ignored by the state agency leading to the letter sent today.
"The state's project description says that one objective of the PEIR is to minimize human health impacts of pest treatments; however, nothing else in the document addresses health impacts. CDFA's past history, from aerial spraying for the medfly 30 years ago to aerial spraying for the apple moth 3 years ago, makes clear that the agency's approach does not prioritize protecting human health and is sorely in need of updating. But, unfortunately, the PEIR project description indicates that the PEIR will focus on CDFA's business-as-usual approach," said Debbie Friedman, Chairperson of MOMS Advocating Sustainability (MAS), another of the groups on whose behalf the letter was prepared.
"One ostensible purpose of the PEIR is to avoid the repeated emergency declarations for pests that have been the agency's pattern. How can a PEIR address emergencies when, under CEQA's definition, they are unexpected occurrences? The real question the agency must ask is whether it is justified to treat pests as emergencies. Lack of time to complete legally required environmental review does not constitute an emergency," said Jason Flanders, Staff Attorney at San Francisco Baykeeper, one of the groups joining in the Earthjustice comments.
The state says it will consider how to minimize damaging peoples' health when it sprays pesticides to eradicates pests but it should instead be insisting on avoiding health threats to people altogether," said Mayor Farid Javandel of the City of Albany, which endorsed the Earthjustice letter. "Given a choice between public health and economic impacts to agricultural interests, public health must be held paramount."
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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On Kent State Massacre Anniversary, Progressives Decry Repression of Student Protests
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," said one state lawmaker.
May 04, 2024
As U.S. Republicans push for the deployment of National Guard troops to quell nationwide student demonstrations against the Gaza genocide, progressive lawmakers marked the anniversary of the 1970 Kent State Massacre by condemning police repression of peaceful protesters and reaffirming the power of dissent.
"On the 54th anniversary of the Kent State Massacre, students across our country are being brutalized for standing up to endless war," Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said on social media. "Our country must learn to actually uphold the rights of free speech and assembly upon which it was founded."
Fellow "Squad" member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said that "54 years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students at Kent State."
"Students have a right to speak out, organize, and protest systemic wrongs," she added. "We can't silence those expressing dissent, no matter how uncomfortable their protests may be to those in power."
On May 4, 1970, 28 Ohio National Guard troops fired 67 live rounds into a crowd of unarmed Kent State students rallying against the expansion of the U.S.-led war in Vietnam into Cambodia. They murdered students Allison Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder—all aged 19 or 20. Nine other students were wounded, including one who was permanently paralyzed.
"The militarized repression of young people speaking out against a terrible war was shameful then and it's shameful now," New York state Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher (D-50) said on Saturday.
Protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—which according to Palestinian and international officials has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 123,000 Gazans—have spread to dozens of campuses across the U.S. and around the world. Police have been called in to break up protest encampments at numerous schools. Hundreds of students, faculty, and journalists have been arrested, sometimes violently.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), police stood by this week as a pro-Israel mob attacked a campus protest encampment before officers arrested peaceful protesters and supporters.
As law enforcement officials have tried to justify the crackdown by claiming "outside agitators" are behind the protests, some observers noted historical parallels.
"Watching what is happening at UCLA," Virginia state Sen. Mamie Locke (D-2) said on social media. "Old enough to remember Kent State, Jackson State, South Carolina State, and the dog whistles of 'law and order,' 'outside agitators.' So reminiscent of 1968."
On February 8, 1968, police shot 31 students—most of them in the back—at a protest against Jim Crow segregation at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, murdering three young Black men: Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith.
Eleven days after Kent State, police opened fire on a crowd of Black students protesting the bombing of Cambodia at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, killing Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green and injuring 12 others.
"Our institutions must learn from these past mistakes to not use militarized responses against unarmed, peaceful student protesters by calling in the National Guard, bringing in state troopers, or deploying police in riot gear," Laurel Krause, the sister of slain Kent State protester Allison Krause, said in a statement marking the ignominious anniversary.
"We must not repeat the horrors of Kent State 54 years later," she added.
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UN Food Chief Says Northern Gaza Suffering 'Full-Blown Famine'
"And it's moving its way south," she warned.
May 04, 2024
United Nations World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said Friday that Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip are experiencing "full-blown famine" after nearly seven months of Israeli bombardment and invasion—and that deadly malnutrition is "moving its way south" through the embattled enclave.
While U.N. agencies have warned since March that famine was imminent in Gaza, McCain's remarks—which came during an interview with Kristen Welker that is scheduled to air on Sunday's edition of NBC News' "Meet the Press"—make her the most high-profile international official to date to publicly acknowledge a state of famine in parts of the Palestinian territory.
"It's horror," said McCain, who is American. "There is famine—full-blown famine—in the north, and it's moving its way south."
UN World Food Program @WFPChief: “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north of Gaza, and it’s moving its way south.”
pic.twitter.com/eyk0OeOEzr
— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) May 4, 2024
McCain's remarks come as hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on the brink of starvation. Dozens of Palestinians—the vast majority of them children and infants—have already died of malnutrition and dehydration in northern Gaza.
According to Palestinian and international officials, Israel's 211-day assault on Gaza—which many experts including Israelis call genocidal—has killed or maimed more than 123,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks, including an estimated 11,000 people who are believed to be dead and buried beneath the ruins of the hundreds of thousands of destroyed or damaged homes and other buildings.
In addition to not allowing adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israeli forces have also repeatedly attacked both aid workers and desperate civilians trying to access the lifesaving provisions.
"What we are asking for and what we continually ask for is a cease-fire and the ability to have unfettered access, to get in safe through the various ports and gate crossings," McCain said during the interview.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesperson Osman Hamdan said there have been "some forward steps" toward a cease-fire agreement during negotiations in Egypt. Egyptian mediators proposed a six-week cessation of hostilities, the release of an unspecified number of Israeli and international hostages, and a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
However, one Israeli official toldABC News on condition of anonymity Saturday that "Israel will under no circumstances agree to the end of the war as part of an agreement to release our abductees."
The negotiations come as Israeli forces prepare for an expected ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, where more than a million refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of the strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents. On Friday, the U.N.'s humanitarian agency
warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death."
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'Racist POS' Mike Collins Cheers Video of Ole Miss Mob Attack on Black Student
"This is not about Israel, Palestine, or Gaza. This is old-fashioned American racism and misogyny," said one observer. "These are the types of young white men who will grow up to be Republican governors, senators, and members of Congress."
May 03, 2024
Republican Georgia Congressman Mike Collins came under fire Friday over a social media post applauding video of white University of Mississippi students racially abusing a Black woman participating in a campus protest for Palestine.
Collins posted the video—in which numerous people can be heard grunting like apes and one young man is seen jumping up and down like a monkey in front of the Black woman—with the caption, "Ole Miss taking care of business."
Collins—or whoever's in charge of his social media accounts—sparred with Black leaders who called out his racism. When former Democratic Ohio state senator Nina Turner said the video showed "anti-Blackness," the congressman shot back, "*Anti-terroristness."
When Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) accused Collins of "fueling white supremacy," the Republican retorted, "Don't take down any more signs at our workplace, please" along with a photo of the Democrat triggering a fire alarm in a House of Representatives office building last year.
Around 30 protesters were rallying in support of Palestine in the Ole Miss Quad when counter-protesters gathered near the demonstrators. Some booed and chanted, "We want Trump!" Others singled out the Black woman—who NBC Newssaid is a graduate student at the school—chanting "Lizzo, Lizzo, Lizzo," "take a shower," "your nose is huge," "fuck you, fat bitch," and "lock her up!"
The counter-protesters also sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves shared a separate video of the singing students on social media, captioning his post, "Warms my heart" and "I love Mississippi."
No racist language can be heard in the video shared by Reeves.
The Daily Mississippianreports the demonstrators were escorted off the Quad after counter-protesters threw water bottles at them.
Collins is no stranger to accusations of racism. Earlier this year, he suggested murdering migrants by throwing them from helicopters into the sea, in the manner of U.S.-backed South American dictators in the 1970s.
He also
introduced the Restricting Administration Zealots from Obliging Raiders (RAZOR) Act, which would ban the federal government from removing or altering "any state-constructed barriers installed to mitigate illegal immigration," such as the razor buoys installed in the Rio Grande by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Collins was also
accused of antisemitism after he amplified a social media post by an avowed neo-Nazi targeting a Washington Post reporter for being Jewish.
Ole Miss said Friday that "statements were made at the demonstration on our campus Thursday that were offensive and inappropriate."
"We cannot comment specifically about that video, but the university is looking into reports about specific actions," the school added. "Any actions that violate university policy will be met with appropriate action."
The Ole Miss incident comes amid rapidly spreading campus protests across the U.S. and around the world in response to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, which has killed, maimed, or left missing around 5% of the embattled strip's 2.3 million people, most of them civilians, while forcibly displacing nearly 9 in 10 people and driving hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.
While numerous Ole Miss students said they did not understand what the pro-Palestine protesters hoped to accomplish, others voiced support for the demonstrators—and for Palestine.
"As we've seen throughout history, time and time again, the student movement is never wrong. Time and time again, anytime there's a student protest, and you're against it, you're on the wrong side of history," Xavier Black, a junior majoring in international studies, told
The Daily Mississippian. "So I would like to be on the right side."
One Palestinian American Ole Miss student was teary-eyed as she thanked the protesters.
"Hey guys, I know that what just happened was really intimidating, and it was a little scary, but I just want to say I'm so proud of you guys," the student—who gave only her first name, Jana—said,
according toMississippi Today. "This wasn't going to happen... without all of you guys. Palestine was being heard. And I just want to thank you guys so much."
"I know that was such a big risk, but this is the most that people have ever thought for us, so don't give up," she added. "I know that was really hard, but we need to keep fighting. This was just the start of it, okay?"
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