The Marquez Equation:
Knowledge x People = Power
By Jaime Ruiz, Community News Reporter

     “Okay Port of Los Angeles, okay refinery business, okay tank facility. If you generate pollution, there’s a cost you must integrate into your cost of business.” So says Jesse Marquez, the preeminent Chicano environmentalist in the region. With a view that “we have right to clean air, we have a right to a healthy life,” Marquez works relentlessly towards a healthier environment, diligently attending local community meetings and public hearings, as well as state forums, providing key written and verbal testimony that educates the public and officials with an uncanny ability to strike at the heart of the powers that be. As Skip Baldwin of the Wilmington Citizen’s Committee declares, “Jesse is a bulldog. He likes to bite people in the ass.”
     Most recently, Marquez played a vital role in helping San Pedro residents to shut down the Kinder Morgan (KM) marine oil and fuel facility on Gaffey Street, housing 13 tanks. KM (founded by two former Enron executives) proved unable or unwilling to make the upgrades necessary to come into compliance, and on July 7, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) ordered KM to “cease and desist conducting operations at the Facility” by September 5. An abatement order by AQMD is “a severe remedy normally reserved for serious violators.” The decision carries with it the possibility of sweeping changes in how all tank facilities in the region operate—yielding substantial improvements in public health.
     A union electrician by day, environmentalist by night and weekend, Marquez somehow finds time to finish his last field methods course towards a professional certificate in UCLA’s Archaeology program. Marquez’s ability to work in a team environment—combined with his commitment to precision, documentation, vision and ability to think outside of the box made Marquez instrumental to the environmental justice movement in the L.A. Harbor.

Early Years

     Like other Latinos, Marquez has deep historical roots in the LA Harbor. Born and raised in Wilmington, he recalled growing up on the eastside, the “seven of us, five children, mom and dad in a one bedroom house. We had a walk-in closet and took everything out for space for two bunk beds.” Yet, Marquez recalls “growing up happy. I never really recognized poverty so much or how low-income we were because everyone was the same in the community.”
     His awareness of glaring disparities grew with age, “high school really changed my life.” Initially fired from a teen post job for challenging wage discrepancies, Director John Mendez told Jesse, “I have just the thing for you.” For six weeks during the searing summer of 1968, Marquez attended a summer youth leadership program at UCLA designed to develop leadership in Los Angeles and take it back to the community.
     “That changed my whole life…. I began to realize that we could make change, we could have things we never dreamed of having. So I became more of a trouble-maker when I got back!”
     Under community pressure, the LAUSD formed a Mexican American Education Commission, with Marquez representing the first region outside East Los Angeles. His goal was to read policies, procedures coming from the board as the commission fought for bilingual education and ethnic studies. He became a regular at teen posts, from Gardena to San Pedro, promoting the commission and attending city council meetings, laying the foundation of community ties and political experience that has become invaluable today. He was involved in forming the Gardena Mexican American Police Brutality Committee, and worked on the campaigns of Jimmy Carter and Congressman Glen Anderson.

     When the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) decided to build a wall 20 feet tall and 1.6 miles long separating the Port from Wilmington, it proved to be the catalyst for Marquez’s next evolution. Although still unaware that the Port plans to triple in production in the next twenty years, the terms “noise abatement” and “mitigation” were familiar enough. San Pedro activists in attendance provided information on the deleterious health effects of pollution, and Marquez began his quest to construct an alternative waterfront redevelopment plan. He went to work organizing and interviewing other community members, starting with a committee of three people, later 15, and now over 300 members in the Coalition For A Safe Environment.
     San Pedro activists played a key role in the initial education of the committee, Marquez expresses a “deep appreciation and respect for our San Pedro community leaders who helped guide Wilmington and our organization to learn about our community environmental health problem. They’ve had a profound effect on me.”
     Nowadays, though, the influence tends to go the other way.
     “I have prided myself on writing a lot of letters and public comments, but he’s far surpassed anything I’ve ever done,” says Noel Park, a fellow member of the Port Community Advisory Committee (P-CAC). “My comment letters tend to be two or three pages, his tend to be 15 or 20, with an intense level of detail. Now when I write a comment letter, I call him up to find out what he’s written and I reference his comment to give mine more weight. And his testimony is really effective.”
     Although not a plaintiff like Park, Marquez made his mark on the China Shipping case during the appeals process. He provided the court with 80 letters from the community opposing port expansion and organized two busload trips to the courthouse, filled with three generations of community members. He also submitted stunning panoramic photographs of the around-the-clock construction by the POLA seeking to beat the court’s decision. In the spate of four months, he says, China Shipping “went from literally a dirt field to a virtual container parking lot.”
     Park feels strongly that the pictures’ graphic display of rapid change made a difference as the court ordered all construction “to cease and desist” the day the Appeals Court overturned a lower court decision.
     Challenging the POLA at every turn, the coalition turned its sights on refineries and challenging their Title V permit, a license to conduct business every five years.

     Earlier this year, Skip Baldwin happened to read the fine print in the classifieds about Kinder Morgan seeking a conditional use permit to expand its oil and fuel tank facility in Carson by building 18 new 80,000 gallon tanks and one mixed fuel tank. Duly notified, Marquez went to work, organizing seasoned Carson activists and surrounding areas to oppose the permit. Despite his research, planning commissioners approved the permit, but KM sent it back to the commission after NRDC filed a brief. The brief, based on Marquez’s earlier written and verbal comments during the public hearing, provides the foundation for any future lawsuit.
     Robert Lesley, host of Carson Speaks Up, says he “commends Jesse for his efforts and his energy. He brought a level of awareness about various toxins and demonstrated how KM was not following rules and guidelines.”
     Vera Robles DeWitt, former Carson Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem for ten years, also says that “we came together on Kinder Morgan and he was instrumental in bringing other folks along, very knowledgeable. When the leadership of Carson can’t grasp the fact that we have some serious environmental issues, we welcome the help.”
     Then, in the middle of the Carson KM hearings, the California Energy Commission (CEC) proposed a dramatic change in the decision-making process for petroleum industry permits, bypassing local bodies, from local planning commissions (as in Carson) to the Air Quality Management District (AQMD) (see RL, April 2-April 15, 2004, 1, 10). Astonishingly, AQMD had never been notified of CEC’s intentions. It was Marquez who alerted them to the proposed change. AQMD then sent CEC a blistering letter, saying “Your agency’s activities create a grave concern” by attempting to sneak through a massive power grab away from local authorities.
     As Carson was waiting for KM’s next step, the order to shut KM’s San Pedro facility came down. Marquez had joined the persistent San Pedro residents in their struggle by first making connections with them at a Carson hearing. Then he traveled to the CEC’s headquarters with the residents and testified at the first of the agency’s two hearings.
     Jody James, who was instrumental in organizing citizens near her San Pedro home, thanks Jesse for his “information, moral support and care for this end of town. He’s a genuine article.
     “I’ll walk over broken glass for him. A humble guy and very smart,” James said. Infused with the same spirit and determination, James says that Amerigas, a site that has two tanks that holds 12 million gallons of butane sitting next to a refinery, “is the next facility and dock that needs to be closed.”
     The success of the San Pedro residents has caught the interest of Robert Lesley, who along with other Carson activists such as Roy Love, have fought KM pollution for years, are now looking to possibly “transfer what happened to the San Pedro facility” over to the Wilmington and Del Amo site.
     Through his diligent work, Marquez sits at the center table of these historical changes at play, the victories of the public over polluting interests and the broader awakening of a regional environmental consciousness. This year alone he has received the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters Award, the Palos Verdes/South Bay Audubon Conservation Award and several certificates, including a Liberty Hill Foundation Environmental Justice Grant to the Coalition For A Safe Environment for $7,500. At the recent League of Conservation Awards Ceremony, 15th District Councilwoman Janice Hahn stated “Jesse has single-handedly mobilized the local community to improve air and quality and bring environmental accountability to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.”
     Nevertheless, he has paid some hefty dues. In the last four years, Marquez has lost five jobs, while spending as much as $300 per month out-of-pocket on organizing expenses. His workload is akin to a college student facing finals week every other week, producing documents worthy of publication. “Nearly 90 percent of the time my research documentation is coming off of the internet,” he says.
     After a taxing all-nighter, Marquez finds himself too tired to drive, sometimes to the point of sickness. That’s when the help of longtime friend, activist and secretary-treasurer of the Coalition, Cecilia Ponce-Mora steps in, and delivers on what she calls a “buddy system, where you help me, I help you.” Ponce-Mora gives moral support, helps with copying and delivery, and a place to crash.
     But don’t expect Marquez to crash and burn. His lifelong commitment to social and environmental justice remains at peak level, and so is his optimism: “When you are a visionary, nothing is impossible; when you are believer nothing is impossible; with technology, everything is possible.”