Published: May 26, 2013

By Mark Grossi — The Fresno Bee

HURON — At 5:30 a.m., the main drag here fills with campesinos — farmworkers facing another sweaty day at low pay. Fieldwork is the main occupation in poverty-plagued Huron.

The 98% Latino city might seem the poster child for disadvantaged communities in California.

It is poorest among cities in the state, according to U.S. Census numbers, and fourth-poorest in California by a state analysis released this year. The analysis also shows that Huron is third-worst for education — three-quarters of residents older than 25 don’t have a high school diploma.

Yet the city of nearly 7,000 does not qualify as a disadvantaged community on the fast track for a piece of the money being raised in the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. The money might be used for all kinds of projects to improve the city.

But the fast track to funding is all about health risk, and it takes more than poverty, lack of education and a community of color to be on it. About 20 health-risk factors are considered, including low birth weights, traffic density and exposure to toxic chemical releases.

Rosa Moreno, 45, who grew up in Huron and works with a Latino group to improve the city, says she can’t believe Huron doesn’t qualify as a disadvantaged community with extreme health risks.

“Huron needs the help,” Moreno says. “Why isn’t Huron on that list?”

Huron in southwest Fresno County is not the only Valley poverty pocket that didn’t qualify for the fast track.

This look at Huron and other poor Latino communities is part of The Bee’s series Living in a Toxic Land, an ongoing investigation of environmental risks that confront the San Joaquin Valley.

More than half of California’s 20 poorest ZIP codes are in the Valley. Most are Latino-dominated. But they do not have enough health risks to be on the list, according to the state.

Like many rural areas, Huron has its own local problems. Soil containing naturally occurring asbestos just outside of town. For decades, a creek has flooded periodically and blocked Lassen Avenue, dropping more and more asbestos-laced sediment from the mountains to the west.

Asbestos fibers are linked to lung cancer. Are they harming Huron residents? Past state investigations have concluded the danger is minimal, but residents still wonder.

Sitting in the El Michoacano restaurant in Huron, Moreno says all kinds of health problems are widespread here — asthma, heart problems, cancer. She suffered a cancerous thyroid tumor.

“A lot of people have trouble breathing here,” said Moreno. “There are pesticides in the fields all around.”

Pesticide exposure is among the 20 factors the California Environmental Protection Agency considered when analyzing health risks. But, like poverty, it is only one factor in assessing the risk.

Using its analysis, EPA this year released an online health screening tool, ranking the risk in more than 1,700 ZIP codes. The tool has been hit 130,000 times as Californians check on their own neighborhoods.

The ZIP codes among the top 10% riskiest will be considered a high priority for funding from the state’s greenhouse gas cap-and-trade auctions.

The money comes from businesses buying credits to meet state greenhouse gas emission targets. The auctions are raising millions of dollars, but no specific spending plan has emerged yet.

California Rural Legal Assistance, which represents rural communities, has suggested expanding public transit, providing energy-efficiency upgrades to homes and training residents for green jobs.

Many activists like the state’s work on the new health-screening tool, but they are keeping an eye on where the money goes. They say the state EPA’s analysis is skewed toward disadvantaged communities in urban settings.

“Why are so many disadvantaged rural communities excluded?” asked Northern California sociologist Jonathan Kusel in a written comment to EPA.

EPA leaders say it is not surprising that about half of the 10% riskiest places are in Southern California around the greater Los Angeles area. The region is home to half the state’s population, they say.

In fact, state leaders have heard surprise that rural agricultural areas have so many communities in the top 10%, Sam Delson, EPA spokesman, said. He noted nearly a third of the 10% riskiest places are in the San Joaquin Valley.

Valley ZIP codes among the top 10% in risk include West Fresno and Selma in Fresno County, Kettleman City and Stratford in Kings County and Atwater and El Nido in Merced County. There are others in Tulare, Madera and San Joaquin counties.

When asked why some of the poorest Valley communities, such as Huron, were excluded, Delson said the tool was designed to analyze all the factors. It’s deceptive to look just at poverty.

“We think it’s a good example of why looking at one indicator at a time is not a particularly useful way of understanding an area’s burdens and vulnerabilities,” he said.

But the screening tool should be tweaked, said CRLA lawyer Phoebe Seaton. Aside from excluding some poor rural communities of color, it also masks the needs of disadvantaged towns in the same ZIP code as affluent cities.

She said, “We are confident that the state will make necessary changes.”

Poverty, lack of education and shorter lives are defining features in rural Valley communities.

Compared to more affluent Valley areas, people in many rural communities die a decade earlier, according to a Fresno State study. “Place matters for health in the San Joaquin Valley,” the study says.

On the west side of Fresno County, the ZIP codes of five other communities join Huron among the poorest 20 ZIP codes in the state. The communities include Raisin City, Five Points, Mendota, Tranquillity and Cantua Creek.

In Tulare County, Richgrove and Alpaugh are among the state’s 20 poorest. In Kern County, it’s Arvin. In Merced County, it’s South Dos Palos.

None qualified as disadvantaged communities with the highest risk.

Back at El Michoacano in Huron, Rosa Moreno says she left the town years ago and now lives in the Kings County community of Avenal. She still comes to Huron regularly as a volunteer with Valley LEAP (Latino Environmental Advancement Project).

“There’s no money in Huron,” Moreno said. “People used to get a $20 voucher for transportation, especially when they needed medical attention. Not now.”

Huron has medical clinics, and one of them has a pharmacy. Otherwise, people must go to surrounding cities for prescription medication.

Doctor visits here are rushed, says resident Lupe Aviña, 49, and sometimes medical problems don’t get addressed.

“People leave Huron for almost everything they need,” Aviña said. “You go to Hanford for groceries, gas, shopping and a lot of other things.”

The children of Huron are the biggest concern, say Aviña and Moreno. Another resident, Lydia Ramirez, 39, said the city needs to clean up parks, build a high school and encourage children to pursue education.

But here in the middle of world-class agriculture, there’s no spark for change, she said. “It’s sad. People don’t care about Huron.”

The reporter can be reached at (559) 441-6316, mgrossi@fresnobee.com or @markgrossi on Twitter.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/05/26/3314632/poor-latino-towns-cant-get-state.html#storylink=cpy

A young man rides his bike along Lassen Avenue Tuesday, May 21, 2013 in Huron, Calif. Huron is 98 percent Latino and the fourth-poorest place in California.

ERIC PAUL ZAMORA/THE FRESNO BEE

Valley’s smaller towns hit hardest by economy (four of top ten are from Fresno County)

By Kurtis Alexander- The Fresno Bee

Sunday, Dec. 09, 2012 | 10:00 PM

Fresno’s high rate of poverty has grabbed headlines and dominated discussion of the nation’s poor.

But California’s fifth-largest city, where 1 in 4 lives below the federal poverty line, is far better off — statistically speaking — than its smaller neighbors in the San Joaquin Valley.

The city of Huron, population 6,733, is the poorest city in the state, according to new census data. The city’s median household income is $22,969, almost half of Fresno’s $43,440 per household and one-third of the state’s $61,632 per household.

A mostly farmworker community near Interstate 5, Huron is among several rural cities within an hour’s drive of Fresno that rank as California’s poorest. San Joaquin and Mendota, similarly located on the Valley’s west side, also have household incomes that are among the state’s five lowest.

The hardship of these communities is nothing new. But the data released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey show just how tough the conditions are. The data represent five years worth of census surveys, between 2007 and 2011, and provide a picture of small cities that most data sets are too thin to offer.

“It’s hard here,” said Juanita Veliz, a lifelong resident of Huron. “I feel for the people.”

Most in Huron are hard-working and try to do the best for their families, Veliz said, but a lack of jobs and the seasonal positions in agriculture make it tough to earn a living.

“The lines are always long at the food drives,” she said.

Huron City Manager Gerald Forde said the agriculture industry, which provides about 70% of the city’s jobs, hasn’t provided enough work in recent years to accommodate the labor supply. He attributes this to changes in farming technology, water shortages and evolving market conditions.

Underlying the city’s economic struggle, nearly half of Huron’s residents are foreign born and 98% speak primarily Spanish, according to census figures.

The city, whose population grows by several thousand during the warmer harvest months, sits east of the interstate and is surrounded by miles of row crops and vegetables, such as lettuce and cotton.

At City Hall, Forde and the City Council are working to bring new businesses and job opportunities to Huron. A Family Dollar store, which opened this year, marks a small success.

National trend

Across the nation, small cities on the outskirts of large metro areas have seen bigger rises in the number of poor recently than the inner city, says Elizabeth Kneebone, a fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution who studies poverty.

“It’s not that urban poverty went away, it’s just that we’re increasingly seeing poverty in the suburban areas,” she said.

Much of this shift, Kneebone said, can be explained by the small-town jobs that dried up with the recession and generally weren’t replaced. In bigger cities, by contrast, there were more jobs and different industries to fall back on during the downturn.

In Fresno, the poverty rate stands at 25.9%. That compares to 47.4% in Huron, according to the new census data. Huron’s poverty level is statistically no different than the state high of 49.7% in San Joaquin or Mendota’s 47.5%.

The poverty level varies with family size and makeup, but for an average household of two parents and two children, the poverty line last year was $22,811 of income.

Another telltale sign of poverty, Kneebone said, is a lack of education, which factors heavily into how well people can provide for themselves and their family.

Lack of education

In Huron, 75% of the adults don’t have a high school diploma. That’s the most without a high school education of all California cities, according to the census data.

San Joaquin, Arvin (Kern County), Mendota and Orange Cove (Fresno County) round out the five cities with the highest percentages of people without diplomas in the state.

In the city of Fresno, by contrast, about 25% of adults are not high-school educated.

By sheer numbers, Fresno still has more people living in poverty than the county’s rural cities. But Fresno also has more rich and middle-class residents, which means more tax dollars and job opportunities to benefit the community as a whole.

“You have fairly rapid growth in the suburban populations but there may not be the safety-net services in these municipalities,” Kneebone said. “In the suburban areas, they have this additional challenge.”

Seeking answers

Ismael Herrera, director of the San Joaquin Valley Rural Development Center at Fresno State, said a lot is being done to assist the Valley’s smaller communities.

State and federal grants are helping cities build affordable housing. Churches commonly offer free meals. And nonprofits sometimes help residents pay their bills.

“Thankfully, we have a lot of partners,” said Herrera, who is a resident of Mendota. “And as neighbors we try to do our part to make sure our neighbor across the street or our neighbors next door have enough to get by on. If my father has some tomatoes he got from work, he might share them. The neighbor down the street might share some corn.”

But most critical to the well-being of these communities, Herrera said, is getting residents to stand on their own financially.

His university-backed program is helping coordinate vocational efforts at rural high schools and community colleges — to prepare people for jobs in the trades, water management and manufacturing, many outside of agriculture.

His program also is working with homegrown businesses, to help them expand.

“You start building the wealth in one household and all of a sudden you see the wealth of the community start to build,” Herrera said. “There’s opportunity for growth and prosperity here.”

California’s poorest cities

Many of the cities with the lowest annual median household incomes are small cities in the Central San Joaquin Valley.

1. Huron $22,969
2. Weed (Siskiyou County $25,659
3. San Joaquin $25,702
4. Mendota $25,807
5. Tulelake (Siskiyou County) $26,389
6. Fort Jones (Siskiyou County) $26,875
7. Orange Cove $27,642
8. Westmorland (Imperial County) $28,375
9. Clearlake (Lake County) $28,604
10. Avenal $29,183

For comparison
Fresno $43,440
California $61,632

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

By: Marco Lopez- A+ Media

(March 14, 2012 Fresno CA)— In the Valley, where jobs are hard to come by, and with unemployment continuing to linger and worsen across the state; Valley leaders are getting things done. As a solution, current clean-energy pioneers met to discuss, educate, and inform constituents of upcoming opportunities.

During the seminar, state officials caution that California remains one of the “worst-off” states for jobs, especially in the Central Valley where the unemployment rate remains on the rise. As of December 2011, unemployment rates in Fresno and Kings County alone were at 16.9 percent. In Merced County the rates stood at 19.5, up from the previous 18.1 percent. While the state unemployment rate currently sits at 10.9 percent.

For this reason San Joaquin Valley LEAP and Regional Green Jobs joined forces to bring about critical information on the state of clean energy in California and the San Joaquin Valley. The meeting was held at the Small Business Administration facility in Fresno California on March 14, 2012. The most pressing topic aside from renewable energy was the creation of jobs across the golden state. “This is exactly the information industries in our area have needed” said Courtney Kalashian from the SJV Clean Energy Organization (www.sjvcleanenergy.org).

Rhonda Mills, of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology (CEERT also known as the clean energy hub in California, http://www.ceert.org) presented those in attendance with upcoming clean energy opportunity information and case studies from successes and challenges in other regions of the state.

CEERT designs and fights for policies that promote global warming solutions and increased reliance on clean, renewable energy sources of California and the west. They carry out technical policy-making, and policy implementing work through advocacy programs that focus on key renewable-energy development issues.

Mills expanded on the benefits offered from clean energy, along with employment information and future business opportunities.  She shared data regarding current and future clean energy projects, policies, as well as those in the pipeline.

During the presentation Mills pointed to Governor Brown’s goals during his campaign when he presented a “Clean Energy Plan” which would increase the states’ renewable energy capacity. The plan could also create 2-3 times as many jobs as equivalent investments in fossil fuel.

Mills stated, “Governor Brown has a goal where he wants to build 12,000 mega watts of solar power or distribute generators like fuel cells and bio-methane generators throughout California. They have been working on it for a year, talking to everybody, trying to figure out how to do it.”

Among the attendees was Fresno City Council Member Oliver Baines, who praised both organizations and their efforts. “We are a fan of the work Valley LEAP is doing, we are trying to be a great partner with renewable energy and the jobs that are created by it. We are trying to learn more, trying to figure out how we interject the city into this, and how we can incorporate more education and investment in renewable energy and green solutions.” Stated the council member while accompanied by Valley LEAP’s Executive Director, Rey Leon and his Chief of Staff on either side.

In California, CEERT is continuing to champion clean and renewable energy.  In Fresno County groups such as San Joaquin Valley LEAP, Regional Green Jobs Coalition and Clean Energy Organization are spearheading the green energy movement. With jobs down across the state, particularly in the Central Valley, it’s no coincidence that many are taking notice of their work and its importance.

For video on the meeting go to: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/green-live (stay tuned for better video when our website is back up, thank you for your support of Clean Energy Alternatives and Green Jobs!)

San Joaquin Valley LEAP and Regional Green Jobs have come together once more to bring you critical information on the status of clean energy in California and the San Joaquin Valley!  Rhonda Mills, of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies (the clean energy industry hub in California) will bring us to speed on the tremendous OPPORTUNITIES COMING UP in the state and region with clean energy.  Learn of the employment and business opportunity CLEAN ENERGY offers and the projects, programs and policies currently in effect and those in the pipeline.

http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201111280600/NEWS01/111280303

A new study on the the environmental health risks across Central California describes conditions strikingly similar to those confronting many eastern Coachella Valley residents.

More than 1 million people living in the sprawling San Joaquin Valley face serious health risks from toxic air, polluted water and other environmental factors, according to a University of California, Davis report published earlier this month.

Residents there buy bottled water to avoid the arsenic-tinged water supplies where they live, according to researchers. They’ve also fought expansion of an unpermitted rendering plant, and they pushed to close a hazardous waste facility spreading noxious odors.

Those incidents in the report, called “Land of Risk/Land of Opportunity,” paint a portrait familiar to many in the eastern Coachella Valley.

The report shows that the health risks faced by thousands of residents in hundreds of small mobile home parks stretching from Coachella to the Salton Sea are endemic, statewide problems.

In the east valley, many agriculture and service-sector workers have also bought bottled water to avoid bacteria-contaminated and arsenic-tinged wells at the trailer parks where they live.

Like their San Joaquin Valley counterparts, many east valley residents are counting on public money to eventually help connect their communities to nearby water district pipes.

And in Mecca, students and residents have endured overwhelming, noxious gas-like odors that authorities say stem from the nearby Western Environmental, Inc., which treats contaminated soil.

State regulators acknowledge Western lacked the proper permits to operate, although Western officials dispute they needed that state approval because they operate on tribal land.

The UC Davis report is based on a three-year study that researchers say is the first of its kind for the San Joaquin Valley. Its authors hope regulators, policy makers and community leaders will use it to help resolve the area’s pervasive environmental issues.

No such comprehensive report exists for the eastern Coachella Valley. However, academics and community advocates have taken steps to understand the scope of the environmental health problems in the east valley.

Ryan Sinclair, a Loma Linda University environmental health assistant professor, has spent the past year mapping mobile home parks to assess health risks from wastewater that isn’t properly disposed.

“I’m doing this to demonstrate that there is a wastewater problem out there,” said Sinclair, who grew up in Desert Hot Springs. A team of Loma Linda students assists him on the project.

The Loma Linda map is hosted on a website, the Imperial Visions Action Network (www.ivanonline.org), which collects reports of illegal dumping, burning and other hazards in the east valley and verifies them.

But Sinclair’s mobile home park map is still a work in progress. Sinclair said he’s had less than $10,000 in funding so far to work the project and he intends to finish it as soon as he finds more money.

“Getting out there, getting these parks mapped, you can see how bad the problem is or how minor the problem is,” Sinclair said.

To read the UC Davis report, visit:http://regionalchange.ucdavis.edu/projects

Reach Desert Sun reporter Marcel Honoré at (760) 778-4649 or atmarcel.honore@thedesertsun.com.

Getting Jumped by Pollution: To read the full report or the executive summary, please visit: http://bit.ly/ucdceva.

Statement from Rey Leon, Founder and Executive Director of SJV Latino Environmental Advancement Project (Valley LEAP):

Valley LEAP’s economic equity arm, the Regional Green Jobs Coalition, is made up of over 300 allies representing, community, entrepreneurs, labor, non-profits, government and business.  Being consistent with this reports findings, we are striving to develop a region with a new economy that has a moral character and culture to provide a social structure that cares for people first while enhancing the environment and building local high road jobs and economy.

Study after study has shared the story of poverty and vulnerability.  This report helps connect the dots with how pollution is involved and effectively impacts the socio-economic downward spiral that has paralyzed our regions human development.

This is concerning to us because of the consequences entailed to the Latino community which currently represents over 40% of the Valley and is disproportionately impacted by these indicators.  While the region is the fastest growing in the state, the Latino community is the fastest growing community in the region.  Without a doubt, the future of the Latino community is the Future of the Valley, hence, to have a strong and prosperous region we must remedy the issues impacting the Latino Community.

In order to advance the economic development of the region we need to focus on a sustainable green economy that can provide benefits and co-benefits to advancing the social and environmental status of all residents and communities in the region.  These advancements would include localized manufacturing of new technologies to enhance the environment, including air, water and land, while creating jobs, impacting at least 80% of the region.  This would require vocational opportunities to build the skills of farmworkers and others in preparation of high road jobs, educational opportunities for students, and English learning programs for adults.  The goal is to allow employers and employees to effectively participate, together, in diversifying the economy with a new culture of engagement to improve quality of life for all with particular attention to those communities that are most vulnerable.

Apart from the other challenges, siloes are contributing to the downward spiral.  Economic Development must focus to remedy economic inequities where the identified vulnerabilities exist.  Less healthy and less educated people provide for an unstable regional economic foundation.  Innovative and firm regulations to enhance environment paired with creative incentives to stimulate job creation can help green the economy (Green Economic Empowerment Zones) and develop the human potential of our regions greatest resource, the people. Not only will the 51% of the residents in elevated risk and the 31% at extreme risk will benefit immensely of what can result as a response to this reports findings but also farmers, small businesses, entrepreneurs and all air breathers!

Please share with us what you think about this practice.  Seems to be a good green option for the use of old tires but does it impact water efficiency?   What do you think?