To: Debbie Raphael, Director, State Department of Toxic Substances Control (California), Jared Blumenfeld, Region IX Administrator, USEPA, and Governor Gavin Newsom

Stop Environmental Racism Against Kettleman City!

I stand in solidarity with the people of Kettleman City, California who are suffering from severe health impacts including birth defects, infant deaths, miscarriages, and childhood cancer.

We demand an end to the environmental racism and injustices and call on you to deny the permit to expand Chemical Waste Management's hazardous waste landfill. You must deny the permit due to chronic permit violations, racial discrimination in the permit process, and the health crisis resulting from the pollution impacting the residents of Kettleman City.

Why is this important?

Kettleman City is a tiny Latino farmworker community in California's San Joaquin Valley that is polluted by a gigantic toxic waste dump, pesticides, diesel pollution and toxic-contaminated drinking water. Its residents suffer from horrifying rates of birth defects, miscarriages, cancer, asthma, and other illnesses. The health crisis in Kettlemant City is a reflection of environmental injustice -- low-income communities of color like Kettleman City have been targeted for years for the siting of dirty industries and toxic waste.

The State Department of Toxic Substances in California and the US Environmental Protection Agency are getting ready to approve permits for the expansion of the Chemical Waste Management hazardous waste and PCB landfill, despite the violations, health crisis and racial discrimination in the permitting process - and we need your help to stop the permits and protect the people of Kettleman City!

Please sign this petition to the DTSC, the USEPA and California Governer Jerry Brown to demand they deny new permits for the hazardous waste landfill, and end environmental racism now.

For more information contact
Greenaction for Health & Environmental Justice
[email protected]
415-284-5600
www.facebook.com/Greenaction4EJ