STOP: ALPAUGH
LISTEN/DOWNLOAD [MP3]
SB CUE Utica Ave.
NB CUE Utica Ave.
SITE
Alpaugh
View LANDSAT Map
LOCATION
Center Ave., between 6th Ave. and Hwy. 43
THREATS AND CONTAMINANTS
Fertilizer manufacturing, attempted incinerator siting, groundwater arsenic contamination, pesticide drift
VOICE
Linda MacKay
Alpaugh is a small rural farming community in between I-5 and Hwy. 99, in the corner of Kings and Tulare counties. The town sits on land that was once an island in the now-drained Tulare Lake. Settled by Dust Bowl migrants in the 1930s, it is now largely a low-income farm worker community, whose 761 inhabitants are fifty-four percent Latino, and where twenty-eight percent of families have incomes below the poverty line. This isolated farm town has been perceived as a convenient place to site polluting industries since the 1970s, when the Western Farms West Isle Production Plant was built there. The plant produces 33,000 tons of liquid fertilizer annually and recently had a chemical spill that led to evacuations.
In 1990, residents of Alpaugh including Linda MacKay learned they had been targeted as the proposed site of a waste incineration plant by Pro-Kleen. They immediately joined together to oppose the project, and were able to stop the incinerator plan through well-organized community resistance.
More recently Alpaugh faced a water access crisis. When the area's well failed in 2002, the community struggled to get potable water when no alternative water resource was provided to replace it. At that time, residents had to buy their own bottled water for everyday use - an expensive necessity. Resident Sandra Meraz also discovered the well water was contaminated with eighty-six parts per billion (PPB) of arsenic, but that the community had not been informed. (At the time, the EPA's maximum allowable limit of arsenic in potable water was fifty PPB, which has since been lowered to ten PPB).
The community came together to address the failure of the old water infrastructure, high water rates, contaminated drinking water, and a lack of community representation on the local water board. Meraz and the community-based Committee for a Better Alpaugh went to the media and helped rally local advocacy organizations to apply pressure on the local and state government for fair water access. In a victory for the community, ground was broken for a new well and new infrastructure in Alpaugh in 2004.
LISTEN/DOWNLOAD [MP3]
SB CUE Utica Ave.
NB CUE Utica Ave.
SITE
Alpaugh
View LANDSAT Map
LOCATION
Center Ave., between 6th Ave. and Hwy. 43
THREATS AND CONTAMINANTS
Fertilizer manufacturing, attempted incinerator siting, groundwater arsenic contamination, pesticide drift
VOICE
Linda MacKay
Alpaugh is a small rural farming community in between I-5 and Hwy. 99, in the corner of Kings and Tulare counties. The town sits on land that was once an island in the now-drained Tulare Lake. Settled by Dust Bowl migrants in the 1930s, it is now largely a low-income farm worker community, whose 761 inhabitants are fifty-four percent Latino, and where twenty-eight percent of families have incomes below the poverty line. This isolated farm town has been perceived as a convenient place to site polluting industries since the 1970s, when the Western Farms West Isle Production Plant was built there. The plant produces 33,000 tons of liquid fertilizer annually and recently had a chemical spill that led to evacuations.
In 1990, residents of Alpaugh including Linda MacKay learned they had been targeted as the proposed site of a waste incineration plant by Pro-Kleen. They immediately joined together to oppose the project, and were able to stop the incinerator plan through well-organized community resistance.
More recently Alpaugh faced a water access crisis. When the area's well failed in 2002, the community struggled to get potable water when no alternative water resource was provided to replace it. At that time, residents had to buy their own bottled water for everyday use - an expensive necessity. Resident Sandra Meraz also discovered the well water was contaminated with eighty-six parts per billion (PPB) of arsenic, but that the community had not been informed. (At the time, the EPA's maximum allowable limit of arsenic in potable water was fifty PPB, which has since been lowered to ten PPB).
The community came together to address the failure of the old water infrastructure, high water rates, contaminated drinking water, and a lack of community representation on the local water board. Meraz and the community-based Committee for a Better Alpaugh went to the media and helped rally local advocacy organizations to apply pressure on the local and state government for fair water access. In a victory for the community, ground was broken for a new well and new infrastructure in Alpaugh in 2004.