SAN PEDRO — The Port of Los Angeles processed 902,644 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in October, a decrease of 8% compared to last year, which was the busiest October on record. Year to date, overall cargo volume has increased 22% compared to 2020.
Since Oct. 24, there’s been a 31% drop – from 94,981 to 65,080 – in the number of import containers on Port of Los Angeles marine terminals. Import containers dwelling nine days or more has declined 35%, from 37,410 to 24,361.
October loaded imports reached 467,287 TEUs, an 8% decline compared to the previous year. Loaded exports dropped 32% to 98,251 TEUs compared to 2020.
Empty containers increased to 337,106 TEUs, an increase of 2% compared to last year. Ten months into 2021, the Port has processed 9,079,562 TEUs, 22% more than the 7,444,464 TEUs handled at this time last year.
Gov. Newsom Tours twin Ports with White House Port Envoy Highlights Actions to Address Supply Chain Crisis
LOS ANGELES — At the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach Nov. 17, Gov.r Gavin Newsom highlighted the ongoing work to address the global supply chain crisis, including policies to help ease congestion and alleviate backlogs. The Governor was joined by Port Envoy to the Biden-Harris Administration Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force John D. Porcari, ILWU International President Willie Adams, port leadership, local legislators and elected officials. The combined actions of government, labor, port operators and the private sector have resulted in a 32% drop in containers sitting on dock for more than nine days in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
To support these efforts to keep goods moving and lessen backlogs, last month Gov. Newsom and the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a partnership to help facilitate projects and financing opportunities for multi-billion infrastructure improvements in California, including providing up to $5 billion for ports and supply chain infrastructure. In addition, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) workers committed to a shift towards 24/7 operations in the coming months.
The week of Nov. 8, maritime industry stakeholders announced a new and more environmentally friendly queuing policy, in which vessels will be assigned a queue spot at their port of last call. The port is also utilizing sweeper vessels to support the movement of empty containers. Over the last weekend, carriers loaded out about 10,000 of the remaining 72,000 containers, with additional sweeper vessels coming in the next few weeks. Port Envoy Porcari has also been leading thrice weekly meetings with terminal operators, shipping lines and other key stakeholders to identify operational problems and immediate solutions at the two ports.
Transportation Secretary Buttigieg and POLAs Executive Director Discuss Supply Chain Solutions
SAN PEDRO — U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka Nov. 16, held a virtual media briefing Tuesday to discuss the latest developments in the supply chain, including how ports nationwide will benefit from the new Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Secretary Buttigieg outlined the expected impact of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was recently passed by Congress and signed Nov. 15, by President Biden. The Secretary and Seroka discussed the $17 billion “Action Plan for America’s Ports and Waterways,” which includes funding for navigation construction, port infrastructure and reduction of truck emissions.
LONG BEACH — Limited capacity at marine terminals hampered imports at the Port of Long Beach last month, although volumes were still strong enough to mark the Port’s second-busiest October amid an ongoing transition to extended operating hours.
Dockworkers and terminal operators moved 789,716 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), down 2.1% from the port’s strongest October on record, achieved in 2020. Imports decreased 4.3% to 385,000 TEUs, while exports increased 6.6% to 122,214 TEUs. Empty containers moved through the Port declined 2.4% to 282,502 TEUs.
Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero noted the port is trying to add capacity by searching for vacant land to store containers, expanding the hours of operation at terminals, and implementing a fee that will incentivize ocean carriers to pull their containers out of the port as soon as possible.
The Port of Long Beach enacted a Congestion Dwell Fee on Nov. 1, charging ocean carriers for cargo containers that remain too long on the docks. The program is aimed at speeding the flow of cargo containers moving through the San Pedro Bay ports complex and reducing a record number of vessels waiting off the Southern California coast. As of Nov. 10, there has been a 20% decrease in loaded import containers that have dwelled at the Port of Long Beach past their respective time limits. The Port of Los Angeles has adopted an identical measure.
Additionally, the Port continues to work with marine terminals and other supply chain partners to expand hours as part of a framework for 24-7 operations.
The Port of Long Beach has moved 7,884,565 TEUs during the first 10 months of 2021, up 21% from the same period in 2020. The Port is on pace to move more than 9 million TEUs by the end of this year, surpassing the current record of 8.1 million TEUs achieved in 2020.
L.A. Controller Ron Galperin released a new detailed report analyzing the city’s sidewalk repair program and urging sweeping changes to get more walkways fixed. Controller Galperin found that less than 1% of the city’s sidewalks have been certified as repaired. When it fixes a sidewalk, the city replaces the entire parcel — far more than it is legally required to do — extending the cost and time to make than the repairs. In addition, the current priority is to fix sidewalks next to city-owned facilities, leaving out L.A.’s residential neighborhoods and commercial centers. Controller Galperin also determined that the city is responding slowly to simple repair requests. Los Angeles lacked a comprehensive sidewalk repair program for nearly 50 years. That changed following the 2016 Willits settlement, when the city agreed to spend $1.37 billion over 30 years to address broken sidewalks, inaccessible curb ramps and other barriers in the pedestrian public right-of-way. That year, the City Council also adopted a “fix and release” policy, allowing L.A. to repair broken sidewalks and then issue a certificate of compliance, along with a limited warranty to the adjacent property owner for the repair. After that, the city can enforce the owner’s duty to maintain the sidewalk on their private property. Along with the report, Controller Galperin created an interactive dashboard that maps 50,000+ sidewalk repair requests over the past six years. Users can view the requests by Council District or Neighborhood Council.
LONG BEACH — Following the recent passage of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act in Congress, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) Nov. 12, received a joint briefing from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach along with CalSTA Secretary David S. Kim, U.S. Congressmember Nanette Barragan, Mayor of Long Beach Dr. Robert Garcia, local labor leaders, and representatives from the ports.
The Senator highlighted how the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act will benefit California’s ports and waterway infrastructure and improve supply chain resiliency, as well as the Biden administration’s recent announcement of a multi-billion dollar plan to accelerate investment in ports, waterways, and freight networks.
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handle an estimated 40% of the container traffic that enters the United States. Senator Padilla recently spoke with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in support of the innovative partnership between the State of California and the U.S. Department of Transportation to help strengthen the supply chain with multi-billion dollar infrastructure improvements in California designed to improve the capacity and resiliency of the goods movement chain.
The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is the largest investment in the nation’s infrastructure in nearly a century. It will provide approximately $17 billion for port and waterway infrastructure, and $5 billion for the Consolidated Rail Infrastructureand Safety Improvement program to improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of freight and intercity passenger rail across the country. Senator Padilla has advocated for investments in the Build Back Better Act to address the environmentalimpact of supply chain activities in nearby communities, including $3.5 billion for port electrification and decarbonization as well as $3 billion inenvironmental justice block grants.
The week of Nov. 8, the Biden-Harris Administration announced additional steps to mobilize federal agencies and lay the foundation for the successful implementation of the historic Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The U.S. Department of Transportation will allow port authorities across the country to redirect project cost savings toward tackling supply chain challenges.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or EPA and U.S. Department of the Army (the agencies) Nov. 18, announced a proposed rule to re-establish the pre-2015 definition of “waters of the United States” or WOTUS which had been in place for decades, updated to reflect consideration of Supreme Court decisions.
This action advances the agencies’ goal of establishing a durable definition of WOTUS that protects public health, the environment, and downstream communities while supporting economic opportunity, agriculture and other industries that depend on clean water.
This proposed rule would support a stable implementation of “waters of the United States” while the agencies continue to consult with states, Tribes, local governments, and stakeholders in both the implementation of WOTUS and future regulatory actions.
Recent court decisions have reinforced the need for a stable and certain definition of WOTUS. The U.S. District Courts for both Arizona and New Mexico have vacated the Navigable Waters Protection Rule. In light of the court actions, the agencies have been implementing the pre-2015 regulatory regime nationwide since early September 2021. The Nov. 18 action is important because it would solidify the rules for a stable implementation of “waters of the United States” while the agencies continue to consult with stakeholders to refine the definition of WOTUS in both implementation and future regulatory actions.
The proposed rule would maintain the longstanding exclusions of the pre-2015 regulations as well as the exemptions and exclusions in the Clean Water Act on which the agricultural community has come to rely.
EPA and Army conducted extensive pre-proposal engagement, including Federalism and Tribal consultation, to help inform the content of the proposed rule.
The agencies are taking comment on this proposed rule for 60 days beginning on the date it is published in the Federal Register.
Details: To submit written comment or to register for the virtual public hearings on the proposed rule, visit, www.epa.gov/wotus.
The Los Angeles Harbor Department or LAHD has released a Draft Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration for the Berths 148-151 (Phillips 66) marine oil terminal and wharf improvement project located at Berths 148-151 in Wilmington.
The primary objective of the proposed project is to ensure that the Phillips 66 marine oil terminal at Berths 148-151 complies with Marine Oil Terminal Engineering and Maintenance Standards (MOTEMS) to protect public health, safety, and the environment. The timber wharf at Berths 150-151 would be replaced with a new concrete wharf and associated equipment to comply with MOTEMS seismic and safety standards. The proposed project includes temporary improvements at Berths 148-149 that would allow these berths to continue to be utilized while the Berths 150-151 are being reconstructed. The proposed Project also includes consideration of a new 20-year entitlement (with two potential 10-year additional options) to Phillips 66 for continued operations at Berths 148-151. The 30-day review period started today, Nov. 18, 2021, and ends Dec. 20, 2021.
Details: The Draft Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration is available on POLAs website at www.portoflosangeles.org under the “Environmental Documents” tab.
Ports and sustainability was the topic of a well-attended discussion at the Long Beach Aquarium’s Aquatic Academy on Nov. 10. The second session is scheduled for November 17, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m., and is open to the public.
This topic is particularly relevant now, given the recent large-scale backlog of ships waiting to unload cargo and the inability to solve the problem in the short term despite 24/7 port operations.
Featured speakers were Dr. James Fawcett, director of the USC Sea Grant program and Capt. Kip Louttit, executive director of the Marine exchange San Pedro.
To provide an idea of why the backup exists with up to 100 ships waiting, 35 of them ‘loitering’ (drifting without mooring) farther out west of Catalina beyond all of the 55 stationary moorings, Marine Exchange Director Capt. Louttit explained that one large container ship in the port now is 200 feet wide 1200 feet long and contains 17,000 containers.
“It takes 8500 trucks to unload this one ship or 4250 railcars,” Capt. Louttit said. “The backup is further complicated by a system designed for, just-in-time delivery, with minimal wait time for ships to enter the port, and begin the unloading and loading process which takes up to two weeks.”
The 35 private companies that have port leases serve to inhibit coordination and planning.
“Central to the development of the ports in LA and Long Beach where the railroads that turned the mudflats into massive ports, ultimately now combined to be the ninth-largest port in terms of cargo in the world.” They did this through venture capital, land grants, and money from the government.
“Originally a mudflat, Phineas Banning in 1871 dug a channel for sailing ships up into Wilmington. Later, Los Angeles Times owner Otis Chandler led the effort to build the breakwater in San Pedro in 1899 and San Pedro and Wilmington became part of LA proper in 1909; LA would operate the port from then on.” continued Dr. Fawcett.
The Port of Long Beach began with the building of the breakwater in 1949 and is differentiated from LA because it is privately owned. Private capitalists with government support forcibly removed the sizeable Japanese community of fishermen and fisherwomen living west of Terminal Island; razing their homes and stores, sending them to the concentration camps, clearing the way for expanding the port.
Dr. Fawcett pointed out six reasons for the success of both ports.
The railroads and the El Cajon Pass enabled them to easily transport freight and passengers eastward.
World War II shipbuilding and the great expansion of the labor force.
Population growth of LA County 107,000 in 1900 to 10 million in 2020.
Weather favorable to the year-round operation of the ports and railroads.
Interport competition, the LA and Long Beach ports cannot legally collaborate, but compete for lessees
Port expansion capabilities.
He ended his presentation by talking about the air quality problems caused by soot and other airborne carbon particulates, which increases breathing problems and asthma — a battle still being fought by community activists such as Communities for a Better Environment.
“We have no solution at the present time for the last three pollutants except through reducing ship speed, electrification of the port, and positioning ships further out of the harbor while awaiting unloading,” Dr. Fawcett said.
Marine Exchange Executive Director Capt. Kip Louttit, likened the operation of ship traffic to the control tower at an airport.
The Marine Exchange tracks more than 27,000 vessels a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week from Morro Bay to the Mexican border, 100 miles out. Louttut said the Marine Exchange grew out of the 1994 Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster and the recognition that greater organization and control of commercial shipping was needed in Southern California to prevent further environmental catastrophes.
“The Exchange’s task is to carry out the scheduling of inbound and departing ships and provide safety for commercial ships,” Louttit said. “There have fortunately been no groundings nor collisions through the use of the massive sensor array, although there have been some whale strikes, which we are trying to avoid by changing the shipping routes.”
Louttit further noted that “Ship speed is controlled and those traveling under 12 knots receive a 25% reduction in port fees, which are generally $250 per barge and $1400 per container ship.”
The cost of shipping a TEU across the Pacific is now $20,000.
Louttit pointed out that one in nine jobs in LA and Long Beach harbor related and that 50% of the seaborne cargo entering the US comes thru these ports. Recent data confirms 1 million cruise ship passengers, 500,000 autos, 18 million TEU’s (20’ shipping containers), which comprise 47% of all traffic. The two harbors combined are responsible for 4 million jobs nationwide.
Attending the meeting were local harbor residents, teachers, and students. David Trumbull is a high school student at the Sato Academy in Long Beach is interested in an engineering career. He spoke to this reporter saying “I came for the history of the railroads and I really enjoyed the railroad history, the information on ships and shipping and the ports. It was a great event for engineering or biology students.”
The second Aquatic Academy program on November 17 will address major environmental issues facing the ports.
The El Camino Warriors was defeated by the Palomar Comets 47-42 on Nov. 13 at Featherstone Field and Murdock Stadium. The Warriors (6-4, 2-3) put up 453 yards of total offense and led the Comets (5-5, 3-2) by 10 points early in the second half, but the Comets outscored the Warriors 26-11 in the final 16 minutes of regulation.
Dylan Guerra went 21-for-33 for 277 yards and a touchdown through the air and added a rushing touchdown to place the Warriors’ offense. Robbie Colenzo hauled in six catches for 98 yards while Tyler Luckett added 73 receiving yards on seven receptions in the loss.
This was a tough loss for the Warriors, but Warrior’s coach Gifford Lindheim believes they’re in bowl contention.
“We had some great competitive games that were exciting for fans,” Lindheim said. “We’re gonna have one more game, and that would be our fourth straight bowl game.”
Lindheim gave high praise to sophomores, DJ Wakefield and Kevin Durant on the offensive line and freshman, Steven Bradford.
When asked about the student-athletes work in the community, he said he was proud of their work with the Warrior Pantry, which helps students struggling with food insecurity.
Lindheim was named the eighth head coach in the 75-year history of the El Camino College football program.
Federal Bureau of Investigations — Seven defendants were arrested Nov. 17, in Los Angeles, San Diego, Bullhead City and Calexico for their roles in a drug trafficking organization operating out of the Harbor Area of Los Angeles.
Authorities are continuing to search for six fugitives.
This investigation was initiated by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor Division and the Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force or LA IMPACT in 2020. The four indictments unsealed Nov. 17 outline various illegal transactions, including undercover purchases of firearms and narcotics such as methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine.
Between April and July of 2021, undercover officers conducted dozens of operations leading to the identification of subjects in Los Angeles, Arizona, San Diego and Tijuana. During this time, about 250 pounds of methamphetamine and one pound of fentanyl were recovered, as well as six handguns and one rifle.
The 13 defendants are named in four separate indictments and charged with varying offenses including: conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine; possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine; possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime; felon in possession of firearm and ammunition; conspiracy; unlawful sale, transport, and transfer of a firearm by an unlicensed dealer; conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine; and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, fentanyl, and cocaine.
Those arrested today are:
Adrian Abasolo, 26, of San Diego;
Alejandro Mendoza, 45, of Los Angeles;
Hector Valentin, 28, of Long Beach;
Rodolfo Ulyses, 61, of Bullhead City, Arizona;
Juan Antonio Aguilar-Bravo, 45, of Calexico;
Gabriela Contreras, 42, of Gardena; and
Marisela Sanchez, 43, of Wilmington.
Those arrested today are making their initial appearances this afternoon in federal court in the federal district nearest to where they were apprehended. Those arrested in Los Angeles are appearing in downtown Los Angeles.
Six of the defendants charged in the indictment are considered fugitives and are being sought by law enforcement. Their photographs and descriptions are being distributed to the media. The fugitives are:
Hector Yair Sanchez, 25, of Pomona;
Christian Garcia, 29, of Long Beach;
Jorge Luis Perez Sandoval, 36, of Victorville;
Luis Fernando Verdugo; 25, of Pacoima;
Alexander Guerrero; 42, of Los Angeles; and
Oscar Humberto Gallegos, 35, of San Diego.
This case is the result of an investigation by the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Gang and Narcotics Division and its Harbor Division, as well as LA IMPACT (Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force). Considerable assistance was provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Los Angeles Field Office and the Joint Regional Intelligence Center (JRIC), as well as the FBI’s San Diego and Phoenix Field Offices, and the FBI’s Legal Attaché in Mexico City. The cases are being prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.
If convicted of the charges in the indictment, the defendants face a range of statutory maximum sentences between five years and life in federal prison.
Alberto Sanchez came to the United States without papers in the 1950s. After working for two decades, he found a home in Lanare, a tiny unincorporated community in the San Joaquin Valley, where he has lived ever since. “All the people living here then were Black, except for one Mexican family,” he remembers.
Lanare is one of the many unincorporated communities in rural California that lack the most basic infrastructure. According to PolicyLink, a foundation promoting economic and social equity, there are thousands of unincorporated communities throughout the U.S., mostly Black and Latino, and frequently poor, excluded from city maps — and services. PolicyLink’s2013 study“California Unincorporated: Mapping Disadvantaged Communities in the San Joaquin Valley” found that 310,000 people live in these communities scattered across the valley.
They are home to some of the valley’s poorest residents in one of the richest, most productive agricultural areas in the world. Today, their history of being excluded from incorporated cities affects their survival around the most critical issue facing them: access to water.
Tooleville resident Maria Paz Olivera displays a photo of the water faucet in her house, with no water coming from it. Photo by David Bacon
Lanare residents and community organizers Alberto Sanchez, Angel Hernandez and Isabel Solorio. Photo by David Bacon
Lanare: A History of Racial Exclusion
Lanare has its origin in land theft and racial exclusion, like many similar colonias. The land on which it sits was originally the home of the Tachi band of the Yokut people. It was taken from them and given by Mexican governor Pío Pico of California as a land grant to Manuel Castro, two years before California was seized from Mexico in 1848. Castro’s Rancho Laguna de Tache was then fought over by a succession of owners until an English speculator, L.A. Nares, established a town and gave it his own name. From 1912 to 1925 Lanare had a post office and a station on the Laton and Western Railway.
Lanare drew its water from the Kings River. The larger town up the road even changed its name to Riverdale to advertise its proximity to the watercourse. But big farmers tapped the Kings in the Sierras to irrigate San Joaquin Valley’s vineyards and cotton fields. Instead of flowing past Lanare and Riverdale, in most years it became a dry riverbed. By the 1950s Tulare Lake, the river’s terminus, had disappeared.
With no river, people left. The families who stayed in Lanare, or moved there, were those who couldn’t live elsewhere. Paul Dictos, Fresno County assessor-recorder, has identified thousands ofracially restrictive covenantshe calls “the mechanism that enabled the people in authority to maintain residential segregation that effectively deprived people of color from achieving home ownership.” One such covenant, written in 1952, said, “This property is sold on condition it is not resold to or occupied by the following races: Armenian, Mexican, Japanese, Korean, Syrian, Negros, Filipinos or Chinese.”
Juventino Gonzalez, who helped organize the fight for safe water in Lanare, walks next to an abandoned gas station in 2010. Photo by David Bacon
Excluded from Fresno, 30 miles away, as well as from Hanford, 23 miles away, and even from Riverdale, a stone’s throw down the highway, Black families found homes in Lanare. For farm laborers, truck drivers and poor rural working families, living in Lanare was cheaper. By 2000 Lanare had540 residents. A decade later, 589. Most people moved into trailers and today are farmworkers in the surrounding fields. A third live under the poverty line, with half the men making less than $22,000 per year, and half the women less than $16,000.
With no river, Lanare had to get its water from a well. And in the late 1990s residents discovered thatchemicals, especially arsenic, were concentrated in the aquifer below this low-lying area of the San Joaquin Valley. They organized Community United in Lanare and got a $1.3 million federal grant for a plant to remove the arsenic. When theplant failed, the water district they’d formed went into receivership, leaving families paying over $50 a month for water they couldn’t use.
A water treatment facility built in 2007 to treat Lanare’s water for arsenic shut down within months due to a lack of funding. Photo by David Bacon
Community United in Lanare banded together with many of those unincorporated settlements suffering the same problem, and began to push the state to take responsibility for supplying water. California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) filed suit on their behalf, saying California’s Safe Drinking Water Act required the state to formulate a Safe Drinking Water Plan. Then former CRLA attorneys set up a new organization, the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, which filed more suits.
“We organized to make the state respond,” says community activist Isabel Solorio. “We got stories in the media and took delegations to Sacramento many times.” State Sen. Bill Monning, who gained firsthand knowledge of California’s rural poverty as a lawyer for the United Farm Workers, wrote a bill to provide funding for towns like Lanare.SB 200, the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) Act, finally passed in 2019, providing $1.4 billion over a decade to fund drinking water projects, consolidate unsustainable systems and subsidize water delivery in low-income communities.
Old house trailers in a Lanare junkyard provide shelter for people with no money to live elsewhere. Photo by David Bacon
Lanare resident Ricardo Camarena Tafolla collects cans to survive. Photo by David Bacon
Matheny Tract: Fighting for Water and Basic Services
For many unincorporated towns, however, funding for water service alone is not a complete solution. A history of exclusion has left them without other services, near the towns and cities that excluded them. One is the Matheny Tract, just outside Tulare city limits. Vance McKinney, a truck driver who grew up there,recalls that his parents, whom he called “black Okies,” couldn’t get a loan for a home when they came up from the South in 1955. They bought a lot from developer Edwin Matheny, who’d subdivided land just outside the city limits and sold lots to Black families.
Four decades ago Tulare County’s General Plan even proposed tearing down the community. Matheny Tract, the plan said, had“little or no authentic future.”After the Matheny Tract Committee organized to pressure the state, in 2011 the city and county of Tulare agreed to connect city water lines with Matheny’s Pratt Mutual Water Company. The city then backpedaled, claiming it had no water during the drought. At the same time, however, it was providing water to its own, higher-income subdivisions and industrial developments.
Community leaders Caty Topete, Irene Paredes and Vance McKinney, pictured here in 2010 standing outside Tulare’s huge sewage treatment plant just beyond their homes. Residents have long complained that they are forced to endure foul odors while being denied the services the plant could provide. Photo by David Bacon
Finally the state Water Resources Control Board issued an order for the voluntary consolidation of Tulare and Matheny’s water systems. When the city still dragged its feet, the state issued a mandatory order and the systems were connected in 2016.
But Matheny Tract also has no sewage system, and discharges from septic tanks sometimes even bubble up in the yards of families like McKinney’s. Tulare’s wastewater plant is a stone’s throw away, but Matheny residents can’t hook up to it. According to activist Javier Medina, “On some days it smells really bad here. I went to a city council meeting once, and one of their experts said it was probably because they were using the waste to irrigate the pistachio grove next to it.”
Medina says he invited Tulare Supervisor Pete Vander Poel to come to Matheny to experience it. “He said he’d only meet with us in the cafeteria in the Target store in Tulare, because Matheny was very dangerous,” he recalls. For Reinalda Palma, another committee member, the reason for Tulare’s reluctance is simple. “There’s a lot of discrimination against Mexicans,” she charges. “We have to mobilize if we want anything to change.” Finally a threat to sue from the Leadership Counsel got the city to agree to begin planning a sewer consolidation as well.
Javier Medina points to a dry canal that bisects Matheny Tract. Photo by David Bacon
Jose Gomez collects the sweet sap from agave plants in his yard. Matheny’s residents are mostly immigrant farm workers from Mexico, and many, like Gomez, come from the countryside with farming knowledge and skills. Photo by David Bacon
Sunset in Matheny Tract. In front of this home are large tanks used to store water. Photo by David Bacon
Tooleville: “They Think We’re Nothing”
Even less cooperation has been forthcoming in Tooleville, less than a mile from the Tulare County city of Exeter. In 2001 residents of this unincorporated community began asking Exeter to extend its water lines to provide service. The city refused, thus beginning one of the longest fights for drinking water in the valley’s history.
Ironically, Tooleville’s two dirt streets end at the base of the Sierra foothills, where the Friant-Kern Canal carries millions of gallons of water from the Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River to fields at the valley’s south end. The canal was built with taxpayer funding by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the 1940s, as part of the Central Valley Project. It diverts so much water that the San Joaquin River disappears in areas below the Friant Dam during dry seasons. With no river water, farmers in the river basin pump water from the aquifer below, leading to land subsidence in many areas of the San Joaquin Valley. Even the canal itself has lost up to 60% of its delivery capacity because the land is sinking under it.
The Friant-Kern Canal, pictured here in 2010. Photo by David Bacon
While Tooleville residents can watch the water flow by on the other side of a chain-link fence, they can’t touch it, much less drink it. The community gets its water from two wells. One has alreadygone dry. “We only have water in the morning,” says Maria Paz Olivera, secretary of the Tooleville Mutual Nonprofit Water Association. “When workers come home from the fields in the afternoon there’s no water, and they have to wait until late before they can shower.”
The state has discovered hexavalent chromium in the water as well, and people fear drinking and cooking with it. It currently supplies bottled water to residents.
Tooleville is surrounded by grape vineyards and citrus groves. “The growers beside us have sunk 400-foot wells, while our wells only go down 200 feet,” Paz Olivera says. “Growers run Exeter, and they’re all Trump people. When they look at us, all they see are poor Mexicans. They think we’re nothing.”
Eunice Martinez, a leader of Tooleville’s fight for safe drinking water, holds a glass of contaminated tap water in 2010. Photo by David Bacon
Blanca Escobedo, a Leadership Counsel organizer working with the Tooleville community, agrees. “The Exeter City Council members are all white, while half of Exeter is Latino,” she says. “You see this in their comments. One councilmember said they wouldn’t connect with Tooleville because people there wouldn’t pay their bills. When the community invited the Exeter mayor and council to tour, they wouldn’t talk with residents. In one meeting the mayor said consolidation was a waste of money and he wished Santa Claus was real.” When Tooleville residents attended a meeting in 2019, Escobedo says councilmembers asked to be escorted to their cars by security.
Afternegotiatingfor a year and a half with Michael Claiborne, the Leadership Counsel attorney representing Tooleville, the Exeter City Council adopted a water master plan in 2019 with no consolidation. Mayor Mary Waterman-Philpot said, “We have to take care of Exeter first,” and was “not interested” in Tooleville.
Under previous laws the state water board could only request a voluntary consolidation in a case like Tooleville’s. But this year the legislature passedSB 403, authorizing mandated consolidation where a water system is at risk of failure. The water board has told Exeter that it is prepared to issue an order, and according to Leadership Counsel co-director Veronica Garibay, the city has agreed to begin planning a consolidation.
In Tooleville the water runs out in the afternoon, and residents want their water system connected to the nearby city of Exeter. Ruben Garcia has lived in the colonia for 14 years, and says growers just want to keep the water to themselves. Photo by David Bacon
Canaries in the Coal Mines?
Perhaps these small communities, vulnerable due to their history of exclusion, are like canaries in the coal mines. Even the large cities of the San Joaquin Valley now have burgeoning problems finding water. Roughly80%of the water used by all California businesses and homes is taken by growers to irrigate 9 million acres of farmland.
While state legislation has given unincorporated communities more power to negotiate for their tiny portion, the system is structured to serve the needs of agriculture. And as the land sinks in many areas, and wells go even deeper, the aquifer itself is in danger.
For African Americans who began many of the valley’s unincorporated settlements, state legislation comes late. Ten years ago, Vance McKinney showed me the place where sewage welled up in front of his house. Now he has moved his family into Tulare and just comes for visits to the place where he grew up.
Willie Davis is the former board secretary of the Monterey Park Tract Water District. Her grandfather started the settlement because Black people were barred from living in Modesto in the 1930s, she says. Her sister is one of the few African Americans who still live there. Davis and other members of her family have moved away. Photo by David Bacon
In another colonia, Monterey Park Tract, the community finally won a water connection to the nearby city of Ceres (itself facing rising water contamination), but the Black families who settled here are mostly gone. Betty Yelder, still on the local water board, remembers that her father came from Biloxi, Miss., in the 1930s, “when we couldn’t live in most parts of Modesto. But I’m retired now, and the rest of our family doesn’t live here anymore.”
Mary Broad, one of the last Black residents of Lanare, died a few years ago.
In the middle of the Matheny Tract, a dry canal bisects the community. It’s empty except for a few windblown papers and dead tumbleweeds. Javier Medina says residents still pay $50 a year for the privilege of having it run through town. “We have better water now,” he admits, “but I wonder if the canal is also a warning of what’s in store.”
Mary Broad, pictured here in 2010, moved to Lanare in 1955, when only Black families lived there. Photo by David Bacon
The U.N. climate summit in Glasgow concluded with massive protests against the do-nothing, hypocritical remarks by US President Biden, UK president Johnson and others.
Activists staged a Nov.12 walkout in response to the late decisions made by negotiators to significantly weaken commitments in the final agreement. While the earlier draft of the unbinding Glasgow Agreement called for “phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels,” the new draft calls for the phaseout of “unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels.”
“We should not call it a Glasgow pact, we should call it the Glasgow suicide pact for the poorest in the world,” COP26 Coalition spokesperson Asad Rehman said. “They’re ramming through so many loopholes that it makes a mockery of these climate negotiations.”
Rehman was part of a group of members from U.N. constituencies that took over one of the main negotiation rooms inside COP26 this morning to issue a “people’s declaration” in light of the weakened language.
“Even the LA Times, representing the views of the ruling rich, acknowledges the COP26 failure. The 11/16 editorial laments “The array of new climate pledges, if ultimately delivered on, would shave a fraction of a degree off the warming expected by the end of the century, and that’s not enough to avoid calamity.”
“It continues, Glasgow, like other conferences before it,highlighted the chasm between world leaders’ pledges and their actions.” Isn’t this what Greta Thunberg and millions of youth worldwide have exposed for the past 30 years of do-nothing meetings?
Indigenous leaders and climate justice activists denounced the draft agreement as a failure and that will make it impossible for what climate scientists say is crucial to do to contain global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels.
“[This] leads us closer to 3 degrees [Celsius], where governments turn their backs on the poorest and the most vulnerable in the world, unable to even meet the paltry $100 billion,” Rehman added. “They’re ramming through so many loopholes that it makes a mockery of these climate negotiations.”
Rehman went on to announce that he and his fellow activists have issued their own people’s declaration calling on COP26 countries to commit to strong binding targets with real zero emissions by 2030, channel $100 billion a year to less wealthy nations while recognizing that trillions of dollars more are needed to have a real, transition that leaves no one behind. This, while recognizing that the climate crisis means that we need adaptation and loss and damage for the poorest and most vulnerable and that rich countries need to take responsibility and liability for the damage that they’re causing.
“We know that it is the polluters and big businesses who helped draft some of these clauses,” Rehman said. So this was our attempt, as people, drafting our declaration as a rallying call both from the inside and the outside.”
More than 500 lobbyists and representatives of Big Oil were reportedly lobbying the conference to reduce impacts on their profits.
“We’re absolutely fed up. We’re absolutely frustrated by the slow pace of action, by the inaction,” Rehman said. He went on to note that the anti-fossil fuel movement is growing and getting stronger.
“We’re uniting trade unions and Indigenous, women, and students, young and old. And we’re building the movement that is needed,” Rehman said. “We know that this change will only happen when we, as ordinary people, lead this change and force our governments to act in our interests.”
Rehman and others called out the United Kingdom’s hypocrisy by pointing out that the common-wealth cannot be a climate leader and greenlight more gas and oil licenses in the North Sea, or cut over-seas development aid for the covid vaccine in poor countries but dole out billions and billions of pounds in fossil fuel subsidies. The same can be said of the United States at COP26.
Critiques of COP26 from activists both inside and outside its walls range from business as usual to abject failure. The United Kingdom’s shambolic management of the event, its strict visa requirements and its failure to deliver on its promised, pre-COP vaccination plan for attendees from nations with low vaccine availability have made this summit the whitest, most privileged COP in its 30-year history.
While widespread access challenges have prevented thousands from participating, over 500 oil, gas and coal lobbyists have been given the red-carpet treatment. If they were a nation, according to a new Global Witness report, they would be the largest delegation at COP26.
The US declined to join the promise to end coal mining and to compensate poor countries for climate damage.
The United States, which has trumpeted its regained climate leadership at the summit, has not joined any pledges as the talks draw to a close.
“If the Biden administration wants to be serious about its promise to demonstrate US climate leadership, it must first clean up its own back yard,” said Steven Feit, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law.
Eighteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke on Nov. 8 at the rally of 100,000 in Glasgow organized by Fridays for Future, an international movement of students which grew out of her climate strike outside the Swedish parliament that began in 2018.
It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure. It should be obvious that we cannot solve a crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place. And more and more people are starting to realize this. Many are starting to ask themselves, “What will it take for the people in power to wake up?”
But let’s be clear: They are already awake. They know exactly what they are doing. They know exactly what priceless values they are sacrificing to maintain business as usual. The leaders are not doing anything; they are actively creating loopholes and shaping frameworks to benefit themselves and to continue profiting from this destructive system. This is an active choice by the leaders to continue to allow for the exploitation of people and nature and the destruction of present and future living conditions to take place.
The COP has turned into a PR event where leaders are giving beautiful speeches and announcing fancy commitments and targets, while behind the curtains the governments of the Global North countries are still refusing to take any drastic climate action. It seems like their main goal is to continue to fight for thestatus quo.
This is not a conference. This is now a Global North greenwash festival, a two-week-long celebration of business as usual and blah, blah, blah. The most affected people in the most affected areas still remain unheard, and the voices of future generations are drowning in their greenwash and empty words and promises. But the facts do not lie, and we know that our emperors are naked.”
And the climate and ecological crisis, of course, doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is directly tied to other crises and injustices that date back to colonialism and beyond, crises based on the idea that some people are worth more than others, and therefore had the right to steal others — to exploit others and to steal their land and resources. And it is very naive of us to think that we could solve this crisis without addressing the root cause of it.
Others commented about failed conclusions despite potential.
Dr. Sarah Marie Jordaan Assistant professor in the school of Advanced International Studies and Environmental Health and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University noted that present pledges are known not to be on track towards meeting the Paris goals of 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius.
“This type of pledge can contribute on the order of 0.25 degrees Celsius by 2030—and more if methane emissions are cut by 50 percent,” Dr. Jordaan said. “I do want to emphasize those technology goals, such as renewable portfolio standards, and such technology goals as we’re talking about here can actually be exceeded.”
Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, the director of the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton University added, “The pledges that countries have made so far are nowhere near enough to avoid one-and-a-half degrees of warming. And if we’re to judge by actually how much has started to be implemented by the major emitter countries, you’re even further behind.”
Many youth activists and those from some of the most vulnerable countries took a bleaker view, however. Vanessa Nakate, a climate activist from Uganda, said, “Even if leaders stuck to the promises they have made here in Glasgow, it would not prevent the destruction of communities like mine. Right now, at 1.2C of global warming, drought and flooding are killing people in Uganda. Only immediate, drastic emissions cuts will give us hope of safety, and world leaders have failed to rise to the moment.”
She went on to say that the scale of the climate movement was increasing.
“People are joining our movement. 100,000 people from all different backgrounds came to the streets in Glasgow during Cop and the pressure for change is building,” Nakate said.
Rachel Kennerley, the climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, criticized the United Kingdom’s government as the host nation of the talks.
“The road to 1.5C just got harder when these talks should have cleared the way to make it a whole lot easier,” Kennerley said. “The UK government cunningly curated announcements throughout this fortnight so that it seemed rapid progress was being made. Here we are though, and the Glasgow get-out clause means that leaders failed to phase out fossil fuels and the richest countries won’t pay historic climate debt.”
A summary of the pact The Glasgow Climate Pact is incremental progress and not the breakthrough moment needed to curb the worst impacts of climate change.
The final text notes that the current national climate plans, nationally determined contributions (NDCs) in the jargon, are far from what is needed for 1.5°C. It also requests that countries come back next year with newly updated plans.
The Pact also states that the use of unabated coal should be phased down and not a “phase out” of coal, as should subsidies for fossil fuels. The wording is weak, according to every environmentalist quoted in the international media.
Rich countries continued to ignore their historical responsibility While developing countries have called for funding to pay for “loss and damage”, such as the costs of the impacts of cyclones and sea-level rise. Small island states and climate-vulnerable countries say the historical emissions of the major polluters have caused these impacts and therefore funding is needed.
Big capitalist countriesled by the US and EU, have refused to take any liability for this loss and damages and vetoed the creation of a new “Glasgow Loss and Damage Facility”, a way of supporting vulnerable nations, despite it being called for by most countries. The US government, representing the interests of automobile makers, refused to sign on to any agreement that would significantly advance electric over internal combustion automobiles. By throwing a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry, allowing them to claim “carbon offsets” and carry-on business as usual.
Thank climate activists for the progress It is clear that wealthy, powerful countries are moving too slowly and they have made a political decision to not support a major change in both greenhouse gas emissions and funding to help income-poor countries to adapt to climate change and leapfrog the fossil fuel age.
But they are being pushed hard by their populations and particularly climate campaigners. Indeed, we saw huge protests with both the youth Fridays for Future march and the Saturday Global Day of Action massively exceeding expected numbers.
It is clear to tens of millions now that these conferences do not advance the needs of working people to deal with environmental crises. That ability to enact real change comes from us, unionists, farmers, activists, in the streets as noted by the young activists, and systemic change as well. Meaningful change never comes from the top down.
Tooleville resident Maria Paz Olivera displays a photo of the water faucet in her house, with no water coming from it. Photo by David Bacon
