Category Archives: San Joaquin Valley

Photo exhibit!

Posted in Environmental justice, Participation, public sociology & campus-community collaboration, Photography, San Joaquin Valley, Voices from the Valley by

This Friday opens the latest exhibit of my photos in the “25 Stories from the Central Valley” collection.  They are already online here, but there’s something extra-special about seeing them “in the flesh” too.  I dropped them off on Sunday and had a good time deciding how to group them in the space they’ll be displayed.

The exhibit is hosted by the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust at their scenic headquarters in Fresno.  I’m excited about the show for two reasons.  First, this is the first conservation group (as opposed to environmental justice group) that I’ve had contact with in the Central Valley, and I’m happy the photos can serve as a small bridge between these two facets of environmentalism.  Second, we’ve already shown the photos on the campus where the project started, UC Davis, and this will be the first time they are shown in the region where they were actually taken.

I’ll be attending the exhibit’s reception this Friday (details here).  Hope to see you there!

New radio series on birth defect cluster in Kettleman City, CA

Posted in Environmental justice, San Joaquin Valley by

Capital Public Radio produced a new three-part series on the birth defect cluster in Kettleman City, listen to it here.

Kettleman City located in California’s Central Valley, a few miles away from the largest hazardous waste incinerator west of the Mississippi.  Residents defeated an attempt to add a hazardous waste incinerator to the landfill site in the early 90’s.  Nonetheless, they continue to live near a large amount of toxic waste stored by a company that has been fined for breaking the law in their storage practices.  The birth defect cluster has brought them to national attention once again, as the try to make sense of what is happening to them and find out what is causing it.

This also seems like a good opportunity to collect some of the other recent press coverage.  See other teaching resources specific to Kettleman City here, here (in adaptations sections) and here.

Kettleman City Birth Defect Cluster – Press

Radio:
Newspaper and Magazine: