Episode 46: Environmental Justice in the San Joaquin Valley
“Farmworkers have not worked for over a month because even when is not raining, a lot of the fields have been flooded, so they have not been able to go and work. Often times when the farmers say ‘We need help’—they have their insurance that protect their crops and themselves—farmworkers don’t and for those who are undocumented, there is not even the opportunity to get unemployment.”
A conversation with Nayamin Martinez (Central California Environmental Justice Network) about environmental public health issues and activism in the San Joaquin Valley. Released March 24, 2023.
guests on the show
Nayamin Martinez
Nayamin Martinez is the Executive Director of the Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN). Prior to joining CCEJN, Nayamin worked for the Madera County Public Health Department as a Health Education Coordinator and for ten years was the Health Projects Coordinator for the Binational Center for the Development of the Oaxacan Indigenous Communities.
Nayamin has vast experience in working with immigrant and indigenous communities across the San Joaquin Valley managing public health programs in a variety of environmental topics including pesticides and air pollution. She has conducted participatory research and launched leadership and civic engagement programs. Nayamin serves in various advisory groups including the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program’s Pests, Pesticides and IPM Project; the Environmental Justice Advisory Group of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District; the Community Stakeholders Advisory Committee of the UC Davis Environmental Health Science Core Center; and the Children’s Health & Air Pollution Study, among others. Nayamin holds a Master’s Degree in both Public Health and Sociology. Follow Nayamin’s work @CCEJN.
TRANSCRIPT
Sam Sandoval
Bienvenidos a Water Talk, in today's episode we're talking about environmental justice from a bottom-up approach. We will talk about the disproportionate burden of environmental hazards that low-income communities of color in the San Joaquin Valley experience. Our guest is Nayamin Martinez, the Executive Director of the Central California Environmental Justice Network, CCEJN.
I was really excited to invite Nayamin. One of the things that I admire of her is how brave she has been in identifying the different risks that the people are suffering in the Central Valley. And what are some of the activities that are highly contributing to it. That is one of the things that I'm really excited. The other one is how she's approaching these environmental justice problems by getting together communities and empowering. And I am really looking forward to listening from her what are their experiences on the organization of communities of color. Mallika, Faith, what are you thinking about this episode with Nayamin.
Faith Kearns
I think for me, it's always super interesting talking with people who are really on the ground and living the experiences that some of us are more removed from. California is such a big state and I think you can get caught up in what's happening just in your specific spot. And so just the wisdom of people who are really living their challenges on a day-to-day basis, and so inspiring to actually take action on them as well. So, I really look forward to hearing from Nayamin.
Mallika Nocco
How did you first get to know Nayamin and Nayamin's work, Sam?
Sam Sandoval
I talked with her in a couple of conferences, mostly on sustainable agriculture. And she has been a very loud and clear voice on what are the needs of communities of color and how they should be treated. So that's how I got to know her. CalCAN the California climate and agriculture network and others. And then seeing some of the work that she has been doing in the San Joaquin Valley.
Mallika Nocco
One of the things that just looking and trying to learn more about the central California Environmental Justice Network that I was noticing is just this idea of the right to know. Around application of different types of agricultural inputs and pesticides and things like that, just wanting to know what is happening on the lands that you're living adjacent to seems to be a pretty strong focus of the work that I think is really interesting and makes a lot of sense. If there's something happening or something being applied to land into water, we know that all of this is connected.
By water and by air and particles move through the air right so if something is being done on neighboring lands there's so many times where even myself, you wonder what's being sprayed or what's being applied, if you don't know then you don't know what could be harming you. So, I think that that right to know feels very powerful, like very powerful work that she has been doing.
Sam Sandoval
And I would say that we will also expand from our typical topics. I hope that she talks about the oil and gas industry and how that has affected literally people that are living less than half a mile around these wells, oil wells. And also the vision that she has, a systems vision–it's not only water, it’s water and air and all the different employments and how, yes, they provide employment, but at what cost? Last but not least, I think I hope that she talks about how she's helping communities to organize what you're saying Mallika, the right to know. But what can people do with that knowledge? How they can advocate for themselves, how they can raise their voice and go and raise their concerns. And without further ado, let's start with Nayamin.
Sam Sandoval
Bienvenidos, Nayamin.
Nayamin Martinez
Gracias por la invitación. Thank you. I'm humbled with this opportunity and looking forward to our conversation.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, thank you again Nayamin for joining us. A very warm welcome to Water Talk today. So, we're hoping we can start with you sharing with us your path toward working on the issues you work on, toward working in California. And really what made you become interested in the topic of environmental justice?
Nayamin Martinez
Sure, well, a little bit about myself and my journey. What brought me to California in 2000. So almost 23 years ago, I was following my heart. I got married with an immigrant. And he had lived in California since he was 10, but he was doing postdoctoral research in Mexico. And then when we came to California, he started teaching at Fresno State. And that's how I ended up living in Fresno, the heart of the San Joaquin Valley. One of the interesting things about why we selected Fresno; it was my choice. Because we have lived in Mexico City prior to moving to California. And I was so sick of that pollution and the traffic, because I thought that cars were the only source of air pollution.
I took a look at different parts of California where my husband was thinking of applying to teach, and I selected Fresno because, in my mind, it was a small community, not too many cars, that's what I thought, and it will be fine. And oh my god, it was just like destiny was putting me here. Why? Because shortly after I arrived, I started hearing that a lot of people had asthma. And a lot of people had allergies, and a lot of things that make no sense to me. And I'm like, why, and then I started digging, and found some advocates that were at the time with the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, really trying to understand the air quality problems or the valley. And that was kind of like my first step into, at least, air quality problems.
And then it took a deeper approach to me, when in 2004, when my son was just two years old, he was diagnosed with asthma. And then it was personal because I had to be checking the air quality before going out for a stroll to the park because he had asthma. And I cannot count how many times we had to go to the doctor, a few times to the ER, because it took a while for his asthma to get under control. Luckily, he's better. But it was just like the whole thing of us having to monitor the air to see when it was okay for him to be outside. And he was a very active kid. And it was difficult. And that kind of put the nail in the coffin, that I knew I wanted, and needed, to be an advocate for clean air. And that was just one part of it.
The other part was that just two months after I arrived in California, I started volunteering for the Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño, or the Binational Center for the Indigenous immigrant communities. They work primarily with indigenous immigrants from Oaxaca. And I started seeing that it was not only about their quality, for example, farm workers were exposed to pesticides oftentimes drifted with these dangerous chemicals, oftentimes had to work, you know, in unhealthy conditions, such as the heat waves that we have, in the summer times that have become even worse during the last year due to climate change impacts.
And then the wildfires, so that motivated me to start really going and understanding better how we can change this, how we can help them be protected because they were not. And employers oftentimes were not helping them either. So, I had a lot of experience in social justice, in general, since I was living in Mexico. I had advocated for human rights protections, especially in rural communities. So, it was just like a natural follow up.
Sam Sandoval
Gracias, Nayamin for telling us how you got here in your path to environmental justice. Many, many times I go to the San Joaquin Valley, Tulare, and I work and talk with the farmworkers about it, but you're living in it. And you work with a lot of these communities there. So, could you share with us and with our audience, what are the risks in terms of environmental justice problems that this community is experiencing in the San Joaquin Valley?
Nayamin Martinez
Sure, sadly, I sometimes joke with people that are unfamiliar with the Central Valley, I say, you name it, we have it. Because in some areas it’s just one single aspect, right like air pollution. Well, the Central Valley has one of the worst air quality in the entire United States. Every year, when the American Lung Association published their State of the Air report, three or four of the communities ranked at the top of most polluted for, let's say particulate matter, PM 2.5, are also in the Central Valley. It's amazing that from all the cities that there are in the entire United States, we have three or four of them at the top. So that's one big thing. And that affects everybody. But obviously, it affects more some people.
And as you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, those people are mostly people of color, low-income people. Because of where they live. The way that a lot of the decisions have been made in the Central Valley as where to site industry, or where to site certain activities that are going to cause more air pollution are now like the modern way of redlining. Yes, there's no laws that prohibit someone to, you know, from going and purchasing a house or a property anywhere, regardless of your ethnicity or race. But the matter of the fact is that a lot of people are still secluded to certain parts of the cities and counties where the decision makers continue to permit these sources of pollution.
Nayamin Martinez
So, an example of that, the city of Fresno. One of the largest cities in the San Joaquin Valley. If you live in the northern part of the city versus the south part of the city, you will have almost a 10 year life expectancy difference. If you live in the north, you will live 10 years more than if you live in the south. And if you go to CalEnviroScreen that is one of the tools that the California Environmental Protection Agency has created to show us where the accumulation of pollution is, the south part of Fresno is ranked in the 99th percentile for CalEnviroScreen. What does that ranking mean? It has the largest burden of pollution, and at the same time, a concentration of social vulnerability, meaning that people have a largest percentage of people living in poverty, and having low access to health services having higher rates of asthma.
A concrete example in addition to the difference in life expectancy, I did an exercise: I typed into CalEnviroScreen the address of a high school in northern Fresno (City of Fresno) and then I typed the address of Edison High which is in southwest Fresno. The asthma rates were triple around Edison high compared to northwest. The diesel pm was double in southwest Fresno compared to north Fresno. And that's just two indicators of these environmental injustices, and I would even say racism, because when you see the makeup of the community, who lives in North Fresno? More than 60% are white people. On the opposite, who lives in South Fresno? More than 60% were Latinos, plus another 10% of African Americans and another 10% of Southeast Asians. So, if that's not an example of how we are still seeing environmental racism and redlining in our communities, I don't know what is.
So definitely, our decision makers continue to put the burden of sources of air pollution on low-income communities. That's just one thing: the air. But let's talk about the water. The San Joaquin Valley has the largest number of small water districts that are impacted by water pollution. You name it from arsenic that we know is naturally occurring, but then we also have a lot of communities affected by nitrates. Where do nitrates come from? Most of them from the main industries that we have–ag industries, fertilizers, pesticides, dairy discharges. So, these industries are causing that pollution of our water, not to name the scarcity of the water that our communities are suffering.
There are communities that do not have water, or people who live in areas where they have a domestic well, that now is dry. Why is it dry? Because the big ag companies have been over pumping water from our aquifers causing that certain parts of our valley are sinking, and that these domestic walls are going dry, and now we are not even able to pay that thousands of dollars that it costs to dig a new well. There's a waiting list, a long waiting list from drill companies to do new wells or to go deeper in wells. And then there's always a risk of not finding one.
And that is a consequence of this extractive form of agriculture that we have practice in the valley. They always say that they grow the food that feeds the world. But sadly, it oftentimes feeds other parts of the world, not exactly where we live. Because oftentimes, and especially since COVID, our rural communities, and especially the farmworkers that are growing these foods, are suffering from food scarcity. So they are growing fresh fruits and vegetables that oftentimes they're not able to put on their table. Because those are exported. So definitely, that's a big impact of all the water issues that we're facing in our region.
And then the other thing that I will just mention two more things, the other one is related to agriculture as well. The agriculture industry in California, especially in the Central Valley, has been relying on a massive use of pesticides, to kill pests. 61% of that over 200 million pounds of pesticides that are applied every year in California, are applied in the Central Valley, with Fresno, Kern, and Tulare being the number one users. So, all those pesticides are polluting our water, our soil, and our communities.
So, they're impacting farmworkers, but also the people who live near these fields that right now don't even have the right to know before the pesticide is applied. I just talked to someone last week in the community of Taraval in Tulare County, she was saying that her kids were playing outside a few weeks ago, and they were all excited because they saw an airplane. And when she goes out, it was an airplane applying pesticides. She said "Why? Why can they even at least let us know before they apply the pesticides so we can put our kids inside, our pets inside?"
Mallika Nocco
What you've kind of laid out in terms of impacts to air, impacts to soil, impacts to water, it's so powerful and distressing. And I understand and it makes sense to me why someone like you who has these organizing skills and had that experience would start the organization that you started, which is called the Central California Environmental Justice Network. And it's been around for over 20 years. And yeah, we were wondering if you could just tell us a little bit more about how you started this organization and what kind of work the organization does?
Nayamin Martinez
Well, let me just say, I don't want to take credit. So, the organization, you're right, was started in 2000. I was not part of that initial movement. I just came on board in 2016. So, I'm relatively new to the organization. However, I am so proud and humbled to be following the path of visionary leaders that some of them are still around and are still on our board. Because right now you hear environmental justice everywhere. From the US EPA to the state agencies here, everybody wants to know and say something and do something about environmental justice.
Well, this is 2023. But in 2000, when CCJN was created, there was not that interest in environmental justice. So, I always feel very inspired by the fact that these grassroots leaders--without any payment without any resources–had the vision of starting the organization because they saw all that all the problems that I described, and they got together created the network, and they met, oftentimes, paying for their own way to go and meet each other. They didn't have paid staff for the first 11 years. They were all doing voluntary work. They organized some of the first Environmental Justice conferences in the Central Valley where they brought academics, agencies, community members affected by these problems.
And then they noticed that bringing together and supporting each other to overcome these local problems was one way of doing it, but they wanted to have more impact. So, they decided to fundraise to have paid staff. That happened in 2013, for the first time, so just 10 years ago. It started with two people. One working out of Bakersfield, and another one in Fresno. Right now, 10 years forward, I'm pleased to say that, our staff has grown to 30 full time employees. We have three offices. Now we have an additional office in Coalinga, the western part of the county of Fresno. And we have expanded our projects, to cover all the areas that I described.
Sam Sandoval
Thank you, thank you a blessing. I mean, and I think for all the work and the community engagement advocacy that you do. And speaking of that, so I also know that you worked very hard on Assembly Bill 1066, which I think it was a huge victory for farmworkers to receive overtime payment. Let me just be clear for our audience. So, until 2022, agricultural farm workers weren’t allowed to receive overtime payment. So, if they work more than 40 hours, that 41st hour will be one-and-a-half times paid. This is until 2022. We have passed regulations since 1938 and farm workers were excluded. So, this was a huge win. And I know that you were working on it. So, could you explain to us a little bit of what was going on there?
Nayamin Martinez
Well, yes, you know, it's one of the many ways in which farm workers were falling through the cracks of many of our labor practices. And, sadly, I have to say that, you know, sometimes we make mistakes, even without knowing it. And these end up being like a victory, but again, the industry knows how to take advantage of it. Why? Because now the farm workers are mad. Not exactly at me, but at the growers, because what they are doing is that they have cut down the hours.
So instead of paying them the overtime, they're only giving them 40 hours. And that has become a problem, because they were working six days a week before now they're working five. And some employers have agreed to let them work that extra day, but they would get paid in cash, so they don't have to pay them the overtime. So, they are again breaking the law. Sometimes they would go and hire other people to work that extra day just to avoid paying them overtime. So, when we were super happy with the theoretical protection of farmworkers to be allowed to get paid overtime, we are very upset with the industry, once again, trying to go around to cut, or to find a way to get away with not paying that.
Sam Sandoval
And also, just to kind of put a background on it. The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, that was passed and excludes farm workers because at that time, most of the farm workers were Black. And that was a racist deal to exclude farmworkers from that, that now, since it was passed, if you look at the history and the comments of the Senate and the Assembly, go look for the Assembly Bill 1066 on the comments of both the Senate and the Assembly. And you will see who was in favor who was against it what were the institutions opposing it. And some of the arguments that they made that ultimately that's how they were able to game the system. And I think it’s very sad because these are low-income families. These are low-income laborers, that when you're trying to get a win, find ways to actually game the system.
Nayamin Martinez
I agree with you, Samuel. And sadly, that's the case, right, that they are always looking for ways around that their profits are not affected. But, you know, we also have learned, when we get lemons, we make lemonade. So, now we're looking into other ways we're talking to, at least senators and assembly members here in California, to find a way there's to see, not for this legislative cycle, but maybe next year, where we can get like a bill that could try to close this loop so that they cannot do that.
And not only that, but we’re also very concerned, because I think that in many ways, farmworkers continue to be impacted significantly by climate change impacts. And we're seeing it now. In the middle of the wildfires, as I said before, they were working when they shouldn't, because it was not safe to breathe those ashes.
Right now, the flooding. They have not worked for over a month because even when it's not raining, a lot of the fields have been flooded so they have not been able to go and work. Oftentimes the farmers say we need help. They have in their insurance that protects their crops and themselves. Farm workers don't. And for those around documented, there's not even the opportunity to get unemployment. So, we're leaving this important part of our community, without any safety net, resources protections. So that continues to be a major concern for us. And we will continue to talk to decision makers that will be willing to help do something for farmworkers.
Mallika Nocco
Now, I mean, I feel kind of foolish, actually. Because I mean, I've been thinking, and I think many of us in the water community have been thinking about the floods in a lot of different aspects and angles. But I had not been thinking about how it means that farmworkers are out of work. And it makes sense to me, because all of the field aspects of what we do in science have been paused. So of course, all of the field operations that the farm workers are doing will also have been paused during this time. But that is such an important issue that you bring up.
Nayamin, we always like to ask our guests if there's anything more that you would like people to know about your work and how we can all support your efforts. And for you, this feels really important, because I know, just from conversations, I know that there are a lot of young people who are studying water who want to be involved in environmental justice efforts. So how can all of us support you?
Nayamin Martinez
Well, thank you, we are always eager to get help from especially those young generations and people who are right now educating themselves to understand these complex issues of water and, not only groundwater, but drinking water. I think that as I said, sometimes we do not have that expertise in-house of understanding all those things. So, if there are any listeners that are experts on water issues, that would like to help as consultants, as volunteers, it could be done remotely, we really lack a lot of that type of knowledge. And we have our website ccjn.org, where you can find our contact information. And we know that we have received support from other scientists in areas such as oil and gas extraction, but we are eager to get more support for water issues.
Sam Sandoval
I mean, muchas gracias, thanks. Thanks for sharing with us what is happening in the San Joaquin Valley with our communities. Thanks. Thanks for being here.
Nayamin Martinez
Thank you all for the time.