Toxic waste dump receives new EPA order to clean up contaminated soil

The facility near Kettleman City has 60 days to reduce PCB concentrations. Many residents suspect the landfill is causing serious birth defects.

By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times

July 17, 2010

Federal authorities have given a toxic waste dump near a Central California farming community plagued by birth defects 60 days to clean up soil contaminated with carcinogenic PCBs, or lose its permit to receive the dangerous substance trucked in each year from throughout Southern California.

The facility's owner, Waste Management Inc., received the order late Thursday from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in connection with PCBs discovered in soil beneath a concrete pad adjacent to a building where extremely hazardous wastes are treated for disposal.

Preliminary results released Friday showed PCB at concentrations of up to 440 parts per million. Spills and other uncontrolled discharges of PCBs at concentrations of 50 parts per million on concrete or soil constitute a violation of the Toxic Substances Control Act, EPA officials said.

The landfill is the largest hazardous waste facility in the western United States and the only one in the state permitted to accept polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.

Employees of Chemical Waste Management Inc — the managing company of the facility — discovered the contamination while they were cleaning up spilled PCBs related to an earlier EPA warning of noncompliance with hazardous waste regulations at the same location about 3 1/2 miles southwest of Kettleman City, an impoverished Kings County community of about 1,500 mostly Spanish-speaking residents.

Many residents suspect the landfill is causing serious birth defects, including heart problems and cleft palates and lips, and adding toxins to the community that for decades has already been surrounded by agricultural sewage, diesel exhaust, pesticides and elevated levels of arsenic in drinking water.

In an interview, Chemical Waste spokeswoman Jennifer Andrews said the latest EPA action "was unnecessary."

"We were unpleasantly surprised to get hit with a second violation at the same place because we were already in the process of cleaning it up," she said. "In other words, while cleaning it up we found more PCBs there and reported it."

Last year, the landfill took in 400,000 tons of hazardous waste. PCBs made up roughly 1% of that amount.

State health and environmental safety officials are conducting ongoing investigations into possible causes of the birth defects. In recent weeks, they have launched studies of the medical histories of a half dozen impacted families and tests of air, water and soil throughout the region.

The investigations were prompted by local health surveys showing that at least five of the 20 babies born in the community between September 2007 and November 2009 suffered serious birth defects. Three of them died.

Political tensions have been on the rise in the community since the company in 2009 requested a county permit to expand its landfill operations. About 499 acres of the facility's 1,600-acre parcel is currently used for the management of hazardous waste.

California's two U.S. senators have called for a moratorium on plans to expand pending the completion of the investigations into the birth defects.

Sam Delson, spokesman for the California Environmental Protection Agency, said Friday, "No decision will be made on the request for a permit for landfill expansion until our environmental exposure investigation is completed at the end of this year."

Waste Management officials said they welcome the scrutiny. The landfill has operated for 28 years and is monitored, regulated and controlled by nearly a dozen state and federal agencies.

In those 28 years, the company has been fined more than $2 million for infractions, including mishandling of PCBs, failing to properly analyze incoming wastes, storm water and leachate for PCBs, and failing to properly calibrate equipment.

"The fact that Chem Waste has had years of problems with the improper disposal, handling and monitoring of PCBs is a major concern," said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, "due to its extreme toxicity and the birth defect crises plaguing Kettleman City's residents."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-toxic-20100717,0,2246631,print.story

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Arizona's immigration law isn't the only one

Many states have their own regulations governing illegal immigrants. And five states have introduced bills similar to Arizona's SB 1070, which is the target of a federal lawsuit.

By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times

July 16, 2010

Colorado restricts illegal immigrants from receiving in-state tuition. Nebraska requires verification of immigration status to obtain public benefits. In Tennessee, knowingly presenting a false ID card to get a job is a misdemeanor.

Arizona's strict new law has generated the most controversy, but there are hundreds of immigration-related laws on the books across the country. The laws regulate employment, law enforcement, education, benefits and healthcare.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit last week to stop the Arizona law from taking effect July 29, saying that immigration policy is a national responsibility and "a patchwork of state laws will only create more problems than it solves." But according to experts, that is precisely what exists.

In fact, the number of immigration-related laws and resolutions enacted by states surged to 333 last year, up from 32 in 2005, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And during the first three months of 2010, lawmakers introduced more than 1,000 bills and resolutions, though it's too early to tell how many will become law. Bills on topics such as employment verification and driver's license requirements are on the table in 45 states.

"Lawmakers are frustrated with the federal inaction," said Ann Morse, program director for the organization's Immigrant Policy Project. "Until the federal government acts, states will still see this as an area where they see the need to play a leadership role."

Already, the organization says, legislators in five states — South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Michigan — have introduced similar bills to Arizona's SB 1070, which requires police to check the immigration status of people they lawfully stop and suspect are in the country illegally. As of last month, six resolutions had been passed in five states regarding SB 1070 — four opposing it and two supporting it. The law has prompted lawsuits, protests and boycotts.

"I frankly understand the position Arizona finds itself in," said Virginia state Sen. John Watkins. "We all live in elected republics. The pressure gets put on, especially in tough economic times."

Watkins said he is frustrated that Congress cannot get beyond the politics on immigration. "The federal government has walked away from its responsibility. They are the reason states are scrambling."

In a speech this month at American University, President Obama called for comprehensive immigration reform but did not set any timetable for legislation to be introduced.

States have a long history of enacting immigration laws. In 1996, after Congress denied welfare to most legal immigrants, states stepped in with laws to provide safety net services. And following the Sept. 11 attacks, state lawmakers passed bills aimed at protecting national security.

"People were concerned about dangerous immigrants in their midst, and they thought they should take matters into their own hands," said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute's office at New York University School of Law.

The increase in state laws parallels the changing settlement patterns of illegal immigrants. Between 1990 and 2008, illegal immigration slowed significantly in California but grew in Georgia, North Carolina and other states, according to a 2009 Pew Hispanic Center report.

"These are not your typical immigrant-receiving states, so they are not accustomed to having large immigrant populations," said Michele Waslin, senior analyst at the Immigration Policy Center. "They are struggling with how to deal with new populations."

Citizen groups also noticed the demographic change and the federal government's inaction.

Carol Helm, retired from the oil and gas industry, started an organization in 2004 called Immigration Reform for Oklahoma Now. She began working with state lawmakers to draft legislation that would restrict the rights of illegal immigrants, who were arriving in large numbers in search of jobs. Lawmakers passed the bill in 2007, limiting the ability of illegal immigrants to get public assistance and giving police the authority to check the immigration status of anyone arrested.

"The constituents' voices were heard," Helm said. "They are the ones who actually pushed it."

Not all of the laws are anti-immigrant, said Suman Raghunathan, immigration policy specialist at the Progressive States Network. Ten states have passed laws to allow undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition, and several have expanded access to state-funded health benefits and improved enforcement of wage and hour laws.

"There is an alternative way to look at this … for legislators to realize the value of integrating and welcoming immigrants and immigrant families to their states," she said.

Washington state Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos said that although immigration falls under the federal government's jurisdiction, states are responsible for illegal immigrants living within their borders. States have to pay the bulk of the cost for education, healthcare and incarceration of illegal immigrants, and they must help newcomers integrate.

Santos said the conflicting laws from state to state can create confusion. For example, a company may have offices in two states — in one that requires employment verification and in one that doesn't. "It is exactly those kinds of issues that need to be worked out at the federal level so that there is no question across the 50 states as to what the rules are," she said.

Santos said states generally agree that the enforcement of civil immigration policy is a federal responsibility. "It is not a responsibility that states necessarily want," she said.

But Federation for American Immigration Reform President Dan Stein said immigration policy is inevitably a partnership between states and the federal government. The states are "the keys to the kingdom" — where immigrants get identification documents, services and jobs, he said.

"If you try only to control immigration at the border … it's an exercise in futility," he said. "National immigration policy can only be carried out with the participation of the states."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration-states-20100717,0,6937743,print.story

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Two Utah state workers may have helped compile deportation list

Both are put on leave while officials investigate a letter urging expulsion of 1,300 people the writers say are illegal immigrants.

By Steve Padilla, Los Angeles Times

July 17, 2010

Authorities in Utah said Friday that at least two state employees may have been responsible for compiling and distributing a list containing the names and personal information of 1,300 people who, the senders charged, are illegal immigrants and should be deported immediately.

The employees, who were placed on leave, work for the Department of Workforce Services, which maintains a database containing information matching that on the list. More state employees also might be involved, and officials said the investigation into the list continues.

The list, sent to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Salt Lake City in April, was redistributed this week with additional names to Utah lawmakers, news organizations and police chiefs. The senders called themselves Concerned Citizens of the United States and demanded that authorities begin deporting people on the list.

The list included addresses, Social Security numbers and even whether some women were pregnant. "Most likely both federal and state privacy laws may have been violated," Utah Atty. Gen. Mark L. Shurtleff said Friday.

Shurtleff, speaking in a teleconference from Salt Lake City, was joined by immigrant rights advocates, a lawmaker and the head of a group that promotes stronger immigration controls in denouncing the list.

Shurtleff and the others sounded similar themes — that a new Arizona law to control illegal immigration was promoting anti-immigrant sentiment and that the aggressive nature of the list did not reflect the welcoming nature of Utah.

"I know that the good people of Utah won't have any of this," said Paul T. Mero, president of the Sutherland Institute, a conservative think tank.

The speakers also said that the federal government's failure to enact a comprehensive overhaul of immigration rules, with a path to citizenship for illegal residents, helped foment anger and ill will against illegal immigrants.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-utah-immigration-20100717,0,533619,print.story

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Border Patrol arrests 22 migrants off Camp Pendleton

U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 22 immigrants Friday after they illegally entered the country at sea and attempted to disembark on shore near Camp Pendleton.

The immigrants included 20 Mexicans, one Guatemalan and one Columbian who authorities said had been at sea for a long time and were suffering from severe sun exposure and dehydration.

Agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection spotted a panga boat carrying the passengers near shore about 3:30 a.m.

Officers from the Oceanside Harbor Police Department assisted in preventing an escape back to sea by those aboard the panga.

The group was taken to a local Border Patrol office for processing. Authorities are conducting an investigation into those responsible for the smuggling attempt.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Family to get $3.5 million in death of man restrained by sheriff's deputies in Moreno Valley

The family of a man who died seven years ago while being restrained by sheriff's deputies in Moreno Valley will receive $3.5 million in a settlement announced Friday.

Last year, a Riverside County jury found that deputies used excessive force against Arthur Lewis Jr., 33, in the October 2003 incident and awarded the family $4.7 million. The county appealed the verdict, however, and the settlement was reached in negotiations between the family and the county.

The victim's parents said they called 911 because Lewis was not eating, speaking or communicating. When Riverside County sheriff's deputies arrived, the family alleged that they assaulted Lewis without warning with pepper spray, placed him a deadly chokehold and then slammed him to the ground.

The parents testified they heard a “gurgling sound” from their son and saw him go limp. Lewis was carried by deputies to the front lawn of the house, where he was pronounced dead.

The family sued Riverside County, which provides police services for Moreno Valley. Bruce Disenhouse, who represented the county in the lawsuit, declined to comment.

Lewis was a Navy veteran, Loveland Church member and worked in the pharmaceutical industry before his death. He had two sons.

“The family is glad this tragic incident finally has some level of closure,” said Jon Mitchell Jackson, the family's attorney. “They're hoping this settlement and verdict will help protect other families in their community from this kind of conduct.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Dion's short, tragic life

Life, death and drugs in a New Mexico village taught her a lot about addiction, and treatment, in America today.

By Angela Garcia

July 17, 2010

Not long ago, Dion, my former neighbor in the northern New Mexico village of Velarde, died of a drug overdose. He was 2 years old. Traces of antihistamines, alcohol, cocaine and opiates were found in his small body. Early newspaper reports suggested that Dion had come down with the flu and that his parents may have "treated" him with the drugs they knew best. His death was officially labeled a homicide, and his parents were charged with first-degree felony child abuse.

People in town were outraged, saddened and ashamed. But no one was surprised. Everyone knew about the area's drug epidemic. The small, tight-knit communities of the Espanola Valley have long been celebrated for their pastoral beauty, their folk art and their traditional way of life. But in recent years, media attention has focused on the valley's other distinction: According to national statistics, it has the highest per-capita rate of heroin-related deaths in the United States.

The weekly local newspaper, the Rio Grande Sun, regularly attests to the crisis. Every Thursday morning when the paper hits the streets, retired Latino men gather to read the Sun at a local coffee shop and discuss the latest news, which usually means talk of death, crime and other fallout from drug abuse.

Lately, the paper has again been filled with news of Dion's death. In May, his parents struck a plea bargain and received a sentence of three years' probation. A lot of people in the valley feel the punishment was far too lenient. Editorials and letters to the editor of the Sun have expressed frustration over the inability of local government to control the addiction problem, and anger at Dion's parents, particularly his mother, whose roots run deep in the Espanola Valley — and in the region's drug problem. The two are related in this part of New Mexico, as many locals consider the region's struggles with addiction as stemming in part from its history of land loss, which reaches back to the colonial era and continues today. In many ways, Dion's death is a symbol of laments both personal and cultural.

I lived in the Espanola Valley as an anthropologist studying addiction. Although Dion's parents fit the profile of my research perfectly (young, marginally employed Latinos addicted to heroin for most of their lives), I never interviewed them or made them part of my research. They were neighbors. In the three years that we lived beside each other, we maintained a respectful distance. I didn't ask about the steady flow of people who dropped by their house day and night, and they kept their visitors from bothering me.

Early on in my research, I considered talking to them about their addiction. Dion hadn't been born, but they had a 7-year-old son. When the fights between his parents reached an uncontrollable pitch, he would run out of their house and take refuge in a small shed bordering my property. As part of my research, I also worked at the region's only drug clinic, assisting patients at night as they went through heroin detox. I thought my neighbors might benefit from rehab.

Of course, they were already familiar with the clinic; everyone in town was. And I soon realized its services were deeply inadequate. Like so many recovery programs, particularly in poor, rural America, the clinic was underfunded, and its medical personnel did constant battle with the for-profit management company that ran the place. Turnover was high as staff members, many of whom were only recently out of rehab themselves, relapsed or were fired. The clinic was as unstable as the patients it served.

I left the valley when my research was completed in 2007, more than a year before Dion's death. I learned of the tragedy from the online edition of the Sun, which I still read each Thursday evening from my home in Los Angeles.

On a return visit to my old village, a neighbor told me about the day Dion overdosed. She described the flurry of activity along our shared dirt road, the speeding cars and indecipherable cries. She had assumed it was just another drug deal gone bad and so had stayed inside her trailer with her young son, curtains drawn.

After the conversation, I drove to the village cemetery. The small mound of dirt marking Dion's grave was completely covered with small toys, handmade crosses and plastic figurines of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and superheroes. There were also handwritten notes from his mother, anchored on the grave with heavy stones. Among her promises to her son was this: "I will be joining you soon."

The notes seemed to me more than just a mother's remorse — the writings of an addict with a foreboding of her own dark future. According to clinical studies, somewhere between 70% and 90% of addicts who try to quit using relapse, many of them repeatedly.

Standing beside Dion's grave, I questioned my respectful distance during those years that I was his family's neighbor. What if I, and the entire village, had not adhered to the same code of live-and-let-live ethics? What if we had intervened? What form would such an intervention have taken?

This is a question that television poses, in its way, week after week. A&E's reality-based series "Intervention," for instance, closes each episode with a gathering of family, friends and a professional "interventionist" confronting the featured addict. Accept the "gift" of in-patient treatment, they are told, or be cut off from the circle of people who have heretofore loved and "enabled" you. Overwhelmingly, the addicts featured on "Intervention" agree to treatment.

In the world of television, this means they get meds to stabilize them and are then chauffeured to a state-of-the-art inpatient program, usually by the sea. Like other "makeover" shows, the lavishness of the solution is so grossly disproportionate to what would be available in real life that it all seems like a Frank Capra movie. To be fair, "Intervention" does report relapses in that little text box at the end of the show.

For most addicts, "rehabilitation" isn't so glamorous. It usually comes through some form of incarceration by the state, often ordered by the courts after an arrest. As part of their plea agreement, Dion's parents will be treated at the clinic where I once worked. I hope they succeed, but I also know that today, the service the clinic provides is even more limited than it was in my time.

On Monday night, I will again watch "Intervention." Much as I resist it, there will be moments when I am moved by the story line. But when it's over, I will be angry — angry at how easy it all looks, at how accessible treatment appears to be, at how great the distance is between this representation and the reality for most addicts. Then, on Thursday morning, I will again read the online edition of the Sun and learn the latest news about overdoses in the Espanola Valley. And I will wonder how much longer it's going to take for a more profound intervention to take place.

Angela Garcia is an assistant professor of anthropology at UC Irvine and the author of "The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession along the Rio Grande."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-garcia-heroin-new-mexico-20100717,0,7445688,print.story

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Let the legal system work

President Obama should listen to a federal judge, and Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, and allow Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other alleged terrorists to be tried in U.S. civilian courts.

July 17, 2010

A federal judge in New York has strengthened the case for trying accused terrorists in civilian courts rather than before military commissions. His decision should be required reading for President Obama, who has developed unsettling second thoughts about the Justice Department's plans for a civilian trial of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four alleged accomplices.

District Judge Lewis Kaplan's ruling came in the case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was indicted in 1998 for conspiring in al Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Ghailani, who was captured in 2004, interrogated in one or more CIA prisons abroad and then transferred to Guantanamo Bay, argued for dismissal of the charges against him on the grounds that he had been denied his 6th Amendment right to a speedy trial.

Kaplan rejected the argument, noting that the Supreme Court has held that speedy trial claims must be viewed "in the particular context of the case." He said there was no persuasive evidence that the delay "has impaired Ghailani's ability to defend himself in any respect or significantly prejudiced him in any way pertinent to the speedy trial analysis." Moreover, because the government had the right to hold Ghailani as an enemy combatant without trial, the delay of the prosecution did not cause his prolonged incarceration.

If embraced by other judges, Kaplan's approach would seem to clear one hurdle from the Justice Department's plan to try Mohammed and four other defendants in a civilian court: a possible claim that they were denied the right to a speedy trial. But there is another obstacle, political rather than legal.

In the face of congressional opposition, Obama has indicated that he might overrule his own attorney general and try Mohammed before a military commission, a less tested and less credible system of justice. The president's hesitation has moved Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. to make an unusual public plea to his boss. In a recent television interview, Holder asked: "Why can't we use a great criminal justice system that has proven effective in these kinds of cases over the years, that has proven effective in a wide range of cases over the last 200 years.…It is that system that we have often said distinguishes us from other countries."

Even as he rejected Ghailani's speedy trial claim, Kaplan sounded a similar theme: "The court understands that there are those who object to alleged terrorists, especially noncitizens, being afforded rights that are enjoyed by U.S. citizens. Their anger at wanton terrorist attacks is understandable. Their conclusion, however, is unacceptable in a country that adheres to the rule of law." Holder should direct Obama's attention to the judge's opinion.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-holder-20100717,0,2415836,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Arizona: Immigrant Deaths Are on Pace to Hit Record

The number of deaths among illegal immigrants crossing the Arizona desert from Mexico could reach a new monthly high, a county medical examiner said Friday.

Since July 1, the bodies of 40 illegal immigrants have been taken to the office of Dr. Bruce Parks, the Pima County medical examiner. At that rate, Dr. Parks said, the deaths could top the single-month record of 68 in July 2005.

His office began tracking such deaths in 2000. Dr. Parks said his office, which handles immigrants' bodies from three counties, was currently storing about 250 bodies and had to start using a refrigerated truck because of the recent increase.

The authorities believe that the high number of deaths are likely due to above-average and unrelenting heat in southern Arizona this month and tighter border security that pushes immigrants to more remote, rugged and dangerous terrain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/us/17brfs-IMMIGRANTDEA_BRF.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Injustice for Children

If New York abides by the settlement it reached this week with the Justice Department, mentally ill children in four of the state's infamous youth prisons will finally get decent psychiatric care and will no longer be subject to brutal disciplinary practices. As important as it is, however, the settlement cannot be a substitute for the overhaul of the state juvenile justice system proposed by Gov. David Paterson's juvenile justice task force.

The Justice Department focused on New York because of people like Darryl Thompson, an emotionally disturbed 15-year-old who died after being pinned face down on the floor at the infamous Tryon Residential Center. A federal investigation found that children in the system were often brutally punished for minor offenses like laughing too loud or sneaking an extra cookie.

The investigation also suggested that charges of abuse by guards were being swept under the rug and that psychiatric services for mentally disabled children were shockingly inadequate. As Nicholas Confessore reported in The Times the other day, the state's juvenile justice system does not employ even one full-time psychiatrist to treat young offenders.

Under the settlement, the state must now provide a credible program of psychiatric care. The settlement also wisely limits the use of dangerous physical restraints. The Department of Children and Family Services will create a new division to investigate allegations of abuse and excessive force, and the state is required to inform the federal government within one business day when children are injured or killed or when there are allegations of sexual misconduct by staff.

The settlement applies to only four of the state's 26 facilities. But Gladys Carrión, the commissioner of the Office of Children and Family Services, is committed to phasing in the new policies throughout the system. The new regime will require a great deal of retraining of prison personnel and a sea change in culture and is likely to face stiff resistance from the unions that represent juvenile facility workers and their backers in the Legislature. The Justice Department will need to keep a close eye.

The state also must follow the call of the governor's task force and work to send as many low-risk children as possible to community-based programs. Albany needs to listen to what the task force and the Justice Department are saying: the juvenile justice system in New York has failed the state and its children.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/opinion/17sat2.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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