You may be familiar with Coachella from hearing about the annual music festival there. But for 10 years, journalist Ruxandra Guidi has been visiting farmworkers in the area, learning about the deplorable conditions in which they live.Ruxandra Guidi reported and produced this episode of Living Downstream, The Trailer Park Activists of Eastern Coachella Valley
Thanks to Anthony Garcia for mastering the show.
The Living Downstream theme music was written by David Schulman.
Steve Mencher is the host and senior producer. Darren LaShelle in the executive producer, and the president and CEO of Northern California Public Media is Nancy Dobbs.
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Activist Eduardo Guevara takes a picture inside Lawson Dump as smoke rises from a fire smoldering belowground. Although it was ordered closed in 2006, underground fires continued to burn for years afterward, and residents of nearby mobile home parks continued to complain about noxious odors and possible contamination. (Credit: Roberto (Bear) Guerra, 2010)
A hand-written sign warns Duroville mobile home park residents in Thermal, California, to stay away from a waste pond on the neighboring property. On the far side of the pond is Lawson Dump, now closed by the EPA because it contained dangerous amounts of arsenic, PCBs, asbestos, dioxin and other toxic materials. (Credit: Roberto (Bear) Guerra, 2010)
For the Navajo people Mother Earth is sacred. She places her mineral riches below ground. That’s where they’re meant to stay. If the Earth’s elements are hauled up to the surface, Navajos believe they can turn monstrous -- or they can unleash the monsters in humankind.
"Smackdown" tells the story of Richmond California, a working class town that grew up in the shadow of a massive Chevron refinery. The refinery emits a toxic soup of chemicals and residents suffer an asthma rate that is double the national average.
Explosions and fires have periodically shaken the refinery since 1989. But Chevron is also the biggest employer in town and its taxes supply tens of millions of dollars for city services. Can Richmond maintain a healthy economy while transitioning away from fossil fuels and lessening its reliance on Chevron? And what role does electoral politics play in the mix?
In October, 2018, Chevron settled a suit brought by the U.S. EPA, requiring it to pay nearly $3 million in damages, and spend about $160 million dollars upgrading refineries around the United States, including the facility in Richmond, Calif.
(Pictured: Community demonstrates against Chevron, April 20, 2012. Credit: Daniel Arauz, Flickr)
Listen to Smackdown, produced and reported by Claire Schoen.
Learn more about refinery towns in the U.S.
For a technical but very accessible animation describing the explosion and fire at Chevron's Richmond refinery in 2012, see below. The video was produced by the U.S. Safety and Chemical Hazard Investigation Board.
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