South LA youth, non-profits sue city over neighborhood oil drilling



At its closest point, the Jefferson drill site is only three feet from homes. | Caitlyn Hynes, Intersections South L.A.

A few blocks west of the University of Southern California, behind ivy-covered walls, is the Jefferson oil-drilling site. The walls may block neighbors from seeing what goes on behind them, but they know, nonetheless.

Now, South Los Angeles youth, tired of living near toxic chemicals with little protection, are joining together with environmental non-profits to sue the city.

The Jefferson drilling site, owned and operated by Freeport-McMoran Inc., is one of the sites named in a lawsuit brought against the city. Located in the heart of a South Los Angeles neighborhood, the site is protected only by a retaining wall that neighbors say does little to contain the noise and odors produced by drilling. Other South L.A. sites face similar problems.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the South Central Youth Leadership Coalition, Communities for a Better Environment, and the Center for Biological Diversity, held a press conference last Friday to announce the case. The groups allege that the city has not only violated regulations from the California Environmental Quality Act by issuing exemptions for environmental impact reports on oil drilling and production sites, but that it has also forced residents of color to bear disproportionate environmental and health burdens because of the lack of safety measures around several South Los Angeles sites.

Standing outside City Hall Friday with signs with that read, “Our health is not for sale” and, “Ain’t no power like the power of youth,” the minors stood behind speakers who demanded that the city comply with the California Environmental Quality Act by conducting environmental impact reports and providing better protection from, odors, toxins and noise pollution at the drilling sites.

“Our health and our environment are at risk. Community members should not have to jeopardize their health by simply being at home,” high school student Joshua Navarro told the press.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of an October audit that found that since 2007, most Los Angeles oil sites have not been subjected to an environmental impact report assessing the site’s health and environmental impacts on surrounding communities.

Reports from Al-Jazeera America found that the Jefferson drilling location is one of the sites lacking such documentation.  It is currently unclear why these oversights have continued.

Protests and this lawsuit against oil companies have drawn the support of youth who live in the neighborhoods surrounding the Jefferson drill site. Many of the kids involved have lived around the site for years. They’ve smelled the chemicals and heard the loud sounds that often accompany drilling.

Elena Hume, 10, has been involved with several protests. She said she and her family would smell the chemicals as they went on walks around their neighborhood.

“I never knew it was an oil-drilling site. We’d see the bushes, and the rows of trees, and the big yellow gate,” Hume said. But now she knows what is happening and she feels it’s wrong to expose her neighborhood to the fumes of the toxic chemicals.

Jordan Parks, 12, has lived near the site his entire life. For a long time he and his family didn’t know exactly what was behind the walls. But when his father discovered it was an oil-drilling site, “Everyone started realizing how incredibly bad it was,” Jordan said.

Youth from the neighborhood around the Jefferson site, brought together by school, church and neighborhood tutoring programs, have become more involved in the issue through protests at the drilling site over the past few years.

Richard Parks, Jordan’s father, said that the kids were the ones who wanted to take action. He said the youth wanted to initiate the process because their homes and families were being directly affected.

A report from the National Resources Defense Council found that the chemicals used at oil drilling sites have been linked to cancer and other reproductive health problems. Neighbors have also blamed the site for headaches, nosebleeds and asthma.

Tanja Srebotnjak, a professor at Harvey Mudd College who has worked in oil and gas research for over fifteen years, said that the closer neighbors are to the chemicals used at oil drilling sites, the more susceptible they are to health complications.

“Farther is better and some states and municipalities have set distances ranging…up to 1,500 feet, 2,000 feet,” Srebotnjak said.

But a 2014 Community Health Councils study found that South L.A. drilling sites located in neighborhoods with high percentages of people of color were significantly closer to homes, schools and churches than sites in West L.A.

While the average distance from homes, schools and churches in South L.A. is 85 feet, the West L.A. and Wilshire sites, located in primarily white neighborhoods, are about 400 feet away.

Many West L.A. sites also have enclosed structures or some type of geographic barrier like a golf course that can help mitigate noise and odors. The Jefferson site, in contrast, has only a retaining wall as physical protection.

Niki Wong of Redeemer Community Partnership, a South L.A. non-profit that works in the neighborhood around the Jefferson drill site, estimated that the wells at the site are a mere 60 feet from homes, a distance that almost certainly exposes residents to toxins. Without an environmental impact report, it is hard to know exactly how the community would be affected if an explosion or other accident were to happen on the site.

Wong said that it is key to involve the youth of the neighborhood in this effort. “It’s important for them [to recognize] the need for a healthy and safe environment to grow up in.”

As for the kids around the Jefferson drill site, they say they just want their neighborhood to be safe for families. “It’d be nice if they just shut [the drilling site] down and turned it into a park or something, or more housing,” said Jordan.

The city attorney’s office told the Los Angeles Times that it will review the lawsuit.

 

South LA residents march to protest neighborhood oil drilling



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By Diana Lee, Intersections South LA and Pierce Larsen, Annenberg TV News 

South L.A. residents protested against oil company Freeport McMoRan yesterday by marching through Jefferson Boulevard in their fight against disruptive – and potentially hazardous – drilling operations.

This isn’t the first time Freeport has clashed with residents over their concerns about noxious fumes, truck traffic and health hazards. The company, which runs 34 wells in Jefferson Park near the University of Southern California, faced numerous criticisms from residents when it tried to get a permit to expand its site last November.

The oil and gas group announced yesterday that it would be conducting a “routine cleanout,” according to issue advocacy group RALLY. In response, locals traveled to the drill site on Jefferson while holding signs and singing, “Stand together!” Others followed with: “…against neighborhood drilling.”

But the trucks didn’t come rolling in like the residents expected. In a gathering before the march, community organizer Niki Wong told residents that 15 minutes before the scheduled 7 a.m. visit, she got a notification that Freeport had cancelled.

“There is no maintenance work planned for today,” Freeport told Intersections in a statement.

Wong, who represents the Redeemer Community Partnership, decided to continue with the protest.

She said what the company calls a “routine cleanout” essentially refers to acid drop, in which they bring tens of thousands of gallons of hydrochloric acid and corrosive liquids to put into the area’s wells.

“The process for why they do it and how they do it is not very clear,” she said.

Wong believes the company has not been transparent about its practice to the residents, who only began getting work notices since 2012 through the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the agency in charge of air pollution control for Los Angeles. She wondered if the company got tipped off about their planned march and decided to call off their visit.

The company said it provided notice to the management district to conduct “routine and conventional well maintenance work,” comparing the task to what might be performed on water supply wells in Los Angeles, as well as all over the world.

Freeport said in a statement: “The work is designed to remove calcium deposits from building up inside the well bore. Rumors and assertions that hydraulic fracturing or well stimulation work are being planned are not accurate.” The notice given to the SCAQMD shows there was no plan for hydraulic fracturing, a process of using high pressure to pump liquid down a well and fracture the rock.

The agency received 29 order complaints about the oil company’s practices in 2014, according to spokesman Sam Atwood. After investigating these claims, SCAQMD issued two violations to Freeport over air pollution and odor.

Atwood said he thinks the oil company was told about the protest, but is unsure if that was the reason it called off their plan for maintenance acidizing.

Whether the trucks carrying toxic chemicals are responsible for health problems is still unproven.

But Kathryn Wiley, co-founder of Church of the Redeemer, said her sons now experience asthma and bloody noses. She worries that air pollution caused by oil sites is the culprit.

“I physically have seen these trucks come in and out around 6:30 or 7 in the morning,” she said. “They have people standing out, rushing them in before anybody could see them.”

Like Intersections on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and sign up for the Newsletter to stay in the loop on news and views from South L.A. Follow the author on Twitter at @atdianalee.

Also see this story at Annenberg TV News.

South LA police brutality vigil turns into protest



People gathered in Leimert Park to give a moment of silence and also vocalize their anger at police brutality | Alex Kanegawa

People gathered in Leimert Park to give a moment of silence and also vocalize their anger at police brutality | Alex Kanegawa

Initially designed as a peaceful vigil for victims of police brutality, the high-profile shootings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. and Ezell Ford in South L.A. turned Thursday’s National Moment of Silence into an outlet for anger.

Crowds swelled in Leimert Park to voice their frustrations, just days after a LAPD officer shot and killed Ford, 25, a little less than 5 miles away from the gathering. Like Brown, Ford was also unarmed.

A community activist known as Feminista Jones—whose real name is Michelle according to USA Today—was, like many, glued to the events unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri. She took inspiration from a planned vigil in New York to create an event called National Moment of Silence, popularized through its hashtag, #NMOS14.

From Long Island to San Diego, the event was designed to be, according to the Los Angeles Facebook page, “not protests, not rallies, just peaceful gatherings of friends.”

The L.A. gathering was held in Leimert Park, an area significant to African-Americans in South Los Angeles. People from outside the greater L.A. region also came to show their support, such as Joanna Lopez from the Inland Empire. Lopez came out for her 4-year-old son who is half-black and half-Latino.

“I feel like if I don’t step up, no one will,” Lopez said. “He will soon be a young man, and I would like him to feel safe.”

At around 4:00 p.m., a large crowd comprised mostly of African-Americans gathered peacefully with a variety of signs that read, “We stand with Ferguson,” and “Black lives matter.”

The gathering was led by citizens such as Najee Ali and members affiliated with Revcom, who gave speeches on police injustice against people of color throughout the country. When the group called for a moment of silence for victims of police brutality, the crowd raised their hands—a nod to Brown who, according to witnesses, was shot with his hands in the air.

NMOS14 was meant to be a quiet vigil, but anger and impatience ran high in Leimert Park, especially after the recent death of Ezell Ford, who was shot by the LAPD on Aug. 11. After the moment of silence, speeches by Ali and Revcom members were met with cheers and calls to “stop just standing around.” Actress Jenifer Lewis, who grew up around Ferguson, took up a microphone and recounted that “she was one of those people.”

“I want you all to take to social media, write so many letters to the White House that they can’t get out the door,” Kuenta said as she stamped her foot. “We need to tell the authorities to stop shooting our children.”

This prompted the crowd to march down Leimert. LAPD officers were nearby, and a drone even flew above the demonstrators, but authorities kept their distance.

The vigil-tuned-protest caused some mixed feelings from Breanna Jordan, a teacher who came to honor one of her students who was shot, unarmed, by police last year.

“Protest is good, but eventually these things die down. I want to see how we can organize to actually make change,” Jordan said. “All this yelling, I understand why some people are upset, but at the end of the that that’s just going to start nothing.”

Others, such as Alphi Black, want to see more action taken in situations of transparent police brutality. Black is from St. Louis, Mo. and is temporarily living in Los Angeles. She came to Leimert Park because she wanted to give support even though she couldn’t be in St. Louis.

“I’m going to be honest, in Ferguson there’s a lot more than peaceful protest that’s needed. It’s ground zero—the anger and energy is higher there, the police are agitating the situation. I’m not saying violent protest is needed, but if they are meeting us with violence, then we deserve to retaliate.”

For many people in the crowd, angry emotions stemmed from personal connections—such as Lopez’s fear for her son and Lewis’s childhood around Ferguson. The gratitude expressed by Deric Lewis, Michael Brown’s cousin, served as a reminder that the gathering was of a united community. Lewis even gave thanks to the media, who were initially slow to cover events in Ferguson until national outlets arrived on Tuesday.

“I came to show my support along with these people,” he said. “So thank you for coming out here to let people know what’s going on.”

Beyond the anger, some people called for peace. Mir Harris took up a microphone to tell the crowd to be mindful of how they treat others in their daily conversations. Change, it was implied, starts with individuals showing respect to each other in their communities.

For those who were critical of the approach, Harris made her feelings clear: “Don’t worry about who’s in front of the camera. Fuck knowing my name, just know that I’m as passionate as you are.”

Though NMOS14 was supposed to be merely a vigil, the high emotions that ran in Leimert Park strengthened the ties between those from both inside and outside L.A., and hardened people’s resolve to support the people protesting in Ferguson against racial injustice and police brutality.

This article was originally published on Neon Tommy.

South LA’s Southern California Library keeps social justice history alive



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A wall of the library’s exterior features an Olmec statue. | Stephanie Case

It’s been fifty years since Emil Freed—son of anarchists, a Communist Party member, and staunch activist—founded the Southern California Library to save materials at risk of being destroyed amid fear of McCarthyism. A lot has changed in South L.A. since then: the 1992 riots rocked the city, workers’ unions grew stronger, and race, class and sexuality have been at the forefront of political battles. And today, more people than ever are using the social justice library.

“Maybe less than 200 people would come through the door in a year” in 2002, said communications director Michele Welsing. “Now, we’ve seen those numbers go up to as much as 10,000. And for researchers, we’re getting as many people now in one month as we would get in an entire year.”

Take an audio tour of the library with reporter Stephanie Case:

Freed’s small collection of leftist papers has blossomed into more than 400 archives, including vinyl records, film reels and shelves upon shelves of political pamphlets. [Read more…]

South LA protest pays tribute to Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis



A scene from the protest | Isaac Moody

A scene from the protest | Isaac Moody

The Stop Mass Incarceration Network staged a protest in South Los Angeles yesterday in remembrance of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, both African-American 17-year-olds from Florida who were killed in 2012. At the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Slauson Avenue, community members rallied to draw attention to the criminalization of youth of color as well as the pipeline that can lead to incarceration. The rally was accompanied with massive posters of the boys’ photos along with bold statements like “We are all Trayvon” and “The whole damn system is guilty.”

“There’s a green light to shoot and murder, to criminalize and incarcerate Black and Latino youth in this society, that’s gotta stop,” said one protester. Click play to hear more of the charged voices and opinions from the event.

Reconstitution and magnet convert at Crenshaw High draws protests



Parents, teachers and students held a press conference outside of Crenshaw High School on Monday to push back against a plan to magnet convert and reconstitute the South Los Angeles high school. image

Community members are upset at LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s proposal to convert Crenshaw High School, including Orville Wright Middle School and Central Region Elementary School #20 (CRES 20), into a magnet school, and reconstitute Crenshaw High, which means all teachers and staff must re-apply for their jobs, according to parent Loutrisha Swafford.

Swafford questioned the necessity of having existing staff and teachers re-apply for positions they were already hired for.

“It doesn’t necessarily stabilize what we’re trying to build here. It destabilizes it,” said Averie Blackwell, student at Crenshaw High School. “It kills everything that we worked for. It doesn’t allow us to be students, to be free, to learn from the same teachers every single day. You know how hard it is to learn in a classroom that has a different teacher every single day?”

Supporters held signs with slogans like “Stop Educational Racism, Keep Community Control” and “Keep Our Schools Public,” while several students sang songs in protest as their peers played the drums.

“We have students here who are high-achievers because they’re coming through the streets filled with crime,” said Swafford.

Anita Parker, a senior at Crenshaw High School, said reconstitution would not help a school with already low resources. She said many lunch tables are broken and some classrooms are so full “you have to sit on the floor.”

image Those at the press conference expressed outrage at LAUSD for not consulting with parents, teachers, students and staff. According to Swafford, there was no prior knowledge or mention to the community by LAUSD of their intention to convert Crenshaw into a magnet school.

Swafford said the community is demanding that LAUSD reverse reconstitution and postpone any vote until further discussions are made with the community. They are also demanding support and resources for a recently implemented Extended Cultural Learning model from LAUSD.

The Extended Cultural Learning model offers a more well-rounded approach to curriculum, according to a statement by members of the school. The model focuses on cultural relevance, behavioral support and services, and outside activities like internships. Based on that model, the school was awarded a grant of $225,000 from the Ford Foundation.

By using the Extended Learning Cultural model, Swafford outlined a list of achievements made by students and staff. In 2011 – 2012, the school was able to improve its API by 15 points, including higher API levels among African-American students that were above six of the seven major South LA high schools.

Haewon Asfar, an organizer with the Community Rights Campaign, said the Extended Cultural Learning model showed improvements in more than just measurable ways. Many of her students in the after-school program she runs at Crenshaw feel more empowered and excited about coming to school.

“It has to be put within the context of their everyday lives…more than half are below the poverty line,” said Asfar, who also mentioned that many students come from single parent households. “It’s not the same conditions as other communities.”

South LA residents join coalition calling for responsible banking law in LA



imageBy Jacob Hay, Good Jobs LA

On Monday, residents from South LA communities joined activists from a broad coalition representing the 99% – including Occupy LA, ACCE, PICO/LA Voice, SEIU and Good Jobs LA – for a rally at city hall calling on LA city leaders to hold Wall Street banks accountable and pass the “Responsible Banking Ordinance.”

The law, being considered by the LA City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee, would publish a report card of bank activity – such as loan modifications to keep people in their homes and local investments to create jobs – so the public and city leaders will know which banks are helping or hurting Los Angeles communities in order to better guide banking relationships involving taxpayer dollars.

Overall, LA homeowners are estimated to lose $78.8 billion in home values as a direct result of the 200,000 foreclosures for 2008-2012.

imageForeclosures not only throw families out of their homes and sink home values in local communities, they cost governments and taxpayers significantly. The typical foreclosure costs local governments more than $19,229 for safety inspections, police and fire calls, and trash removal, and maintenance. In LA, theses costs are estimated to be $1.2 billion.

“After all the damage Wall Street Banks have done to our communities, shouldn’t our city keep a scorecard and stop doing business with the most irresponsible banks,” said Silvia Sanchez, an unemployed South LA resident and mother of four who recently lost her home to a Chase bank foreclosure. “LA should not spend one more cent of our money on banks that are needlessly throwing families out of their homes and cutting back on job-creating investments.”

The City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee is set to vote on the Responsible Banking Ordinance in January.

CSU professors strike for higher pay



imageHundreds gathered to picket in front of CSU Dominguez Hills Thursday. The Carson campus is one of two CSU campuses staging walkouts. The other is CSU East Bay, but professors from Cal State’s 23 campuses around California joined the protest. The strike comes just one day after CSU student protests over a nine percent tuition hike turned violent.

The strike is being staged by the California Faculty Association, or CFA, the union that represents CSU professors. They’re calling for a quarter-percent pay raise and urging CSU Chancellor Charles Reed to shift his priorities to focus on students.

The California Faculty Association is the union that represents CSU professors. While roughly half of all CSU professors boast CFA membership, the union negotiates on behalf of all 44-thousand educators in the system, members or not.

The message from the professors is clear–you can’t put students first if you put teachers last.

“I got two kids, can’t afford daycare,” said Steve Jobbitt, a history professor at Cal State Fullerton. “With the money they pay me up at Cal State Fullerton, I can’t even afford the cheapest subsidized housing. That just goes to tell you. Take a look at the cost of living. Take a look at what we earn and what we invested in our education. I’m going deeper into debt now than when I was a graduate student.”

When adjusted for inflation, Cal State professors are making less on average than they were in 1998. Chancellor Reed maintains that the university system cannot afford to offer the professors a pay raise. He estimates the quarter-percent pay raise translates to $20 million per year.

But Jobbitt and the others insist the strike is about more than salaries. It’s about the quality of education for California’s students.

“Truthfully, if you look around here, everybody here isn’t here about money,” said Lillian Taiz, CFA President. “They’re here about trying to preserve the education for our students–the road to the middle class–to improve middle class jobs. We’re just like everybody else is the country that is sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Some students joined in support of the striking professors. Gavin Centeno is a junior at CSU Dominguez Hills. He skipped classes today to stand with the professors.

“They sacrifice so much for us. It’s time that we need to support them. In essence, when we support them, we’re supporting our education,” Centeno said.

Fourth-year Fredit Figueroa is another Dominguez Hills student. He wasn’t intending on skipping classes today, but all three of his were cancelled.

“Campus is looking pretty empty today. At least half of the students are missing, half of the faculty. I’ve never seen it like this before,” said Fredit, who was not involved in the protest, but supportive. “I think this is great, someone is finally doing something. Tuition has been going up every year. I started out paying $1,800 and now I’m paying $4,000 already.”

Tuition is also an issue for Cal State LA student Semein Abbay.

“We have to pay more tuition, while the administration and Chancellor Reed are getting raises and it’s coming out of our pockets, so I’m here fighting against that,” Abbay said.

Liz Chapin, a spokeswoman for Chancellor Reed’s office, said students shouldn’t be put in the middle of negotiations between the union and CSU and any effort by the union to do so in unacceptable. She said that while they share frustration about cuts to the system, they’ve had to go to great lengths to keep the doors of its campuses open.

Demonstrators arrested in downtown anti-Wall Street protests



Listen to an audio story by Annenberg Radio News

imageTen anti-Wall Street protesters were arrested downtown Thursday afternoon after entering a Bank of America. They were a small part of Re-fund California, a coalition that marched to protest bank policies. They were joined by demonstrators from Occupy LA, who’ve been camping outside City Hall since this weekend.

The march started with a rally at California Plaza, then snaked its way through the skyscrapers and food plazas in the financial heart of LA.

The marchers stopped at the intersection of 7th and Figueroa streets, in front of both a Bank of America branch and a Chase Bank office in the Ernst and Young plaza.

The marchers were young and old; black, white, Hispanic, Asian; students, grandparents, homeowners, young families. All were upset with the irresponsibility of financial organizations.

Barbara Gustafson joined the protest after she saw a lack of cooperation from banks.

“It’s game playing and you don’t get the same person to talk to,” she said. “They don’t want to work with you because it behooves them to foreclose. I am not an activist by nature. I’ve been forced to do this.”

A police spokesperson estimated that 1,000 people turned up for the protest, which mirrors the Occupy LA protests of the last week.

James McDade works in the financial services industry, but said he supports the protesters.

“It’s democracy at work,” he said. “People have the right to express their opposition to ideas, and I think it’s great.”

The march was a coalition of groups including ACCE, the SEIU, and various faith-based groups.

Tenants in District 10 want a break from rising rents



On the morning of the most romantic holiday of the year, Los Angeles City Councilman Herb Wesson had a “Valentine” hand-delivered to his District 10 campaign office, but the message on the card was anything but loving. 



Members of the LA Right to Housing Collective gathered outside Wesson’s office, demanding changes in the city’s rent-control law. A law that would temporarily freeze rent increases failed to pass last year. While rents are rising, many wages are not, and some tenants say they are seeing more and more families displaced from their neighborhoods.


Wesson was not present in the office when the group walked inside and delivered their card, which had a picture of a broken heart. A staff member in the office said she did not know when Wesson would be back or what his response would be to the group’s requests.

Interpreter services provided by Davin Corona, co-director of Comunidad Presente.

More stories on housing in South Los Angeles:

Protestors give Herb Wesson a hand-delivered Valentine
Historic South Los Angeles neighborhood breaks ground on new housing project
City Planning postpones ruling on luxury apartment complex