[CPEO-BIF] "Can the California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control Be Trusted to Clean Up Vulnerable Communities?"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Can the California Dept. of Toxic Substances Control Be Trusted to Clean Up Vulnerable Communities?
As the agency rolls out a $500 million clean up program, it must navigate skepticism from environmental experts and the public.
 
By Dan Ross 
Capital & Main
February 23, 2022

As Gov. Gavin Newsom described it, a set of legislative reforms and financial plugs to the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) — the agency responsible for the state’s most dangerous materials and wastes — would prove a huge boon for the state, vulnerable communities in particular. “In the California Comeback, no one is being left behind,” he enthused after the bill was passed last year.

But Luis Olmedo, executive director of Comité Cívico del Valle, Inc., a grassroots environmental group, is highly skeptical after living and working for more than four decades in a low-income community in Imperial County surrounding a toxic site. Olmedo questioned the adequacy and ultimate intent of some of the reforms, which include $500 million for cleanups in vulnerable neighborhoods. “I have never seen where disadvantaged communities are that important” to the DTSC, he said.
 
These diametric views epitomize the critical juncture for the agency as it seeks to execute its new mandate and justify a newly swollen budget against a backdrop of ingrained public distrust.

…

For the entire article, see
https://capitalandmain.com/can-the-california-dept-of-toxic-substances-control-be-trusted-to-clean-up-vulnerable-communities

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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