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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Kathryn Phillips, Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation, Environmental Defense, 60 S. Market St., Suite 1000, San Jose, CA 95113, 408-278-2279, mvanscherrenburg@kirschfoundation.org

Environmental Defense (ED), a member of the Central Valley Air Quality coalition (CVAQ), will articulate how CVAQ organized communities to apply pressure on the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to ultimately become the first air district agency in the nation to enact Indirect Source Review rules (ISR). ISR requires the review of the air pollution impacts of new residential and commercial development and levies fees to offset the air quality impacts. ED will also explain how national groups can successfully work in coalition with local grassroots organizations to enact change. California's San Joaquin Valley, the state's agricultural heartland, is host to a unique concentration of environmental health risks from air pollution, including pesticides, dust from plowed fields, smoke from agricultural burning, diesel emissions, and urban air pollution, among other sources. It shares the distinction of having the worst air quality in the nation with the Los Angeles area, with asthma and disease rates at epidemic proportions. CVAQ is a diverse group of organizations and individuals – from premier environmental organizations to grassroots communities of color – with the shared goal of cleaning up the Valley's air, and comprises more than 120 members representing 55 organizations with environmental, public health, community, and environmental justice concerns. CVAQ is an excellent example of how a coalition – operating in a politically conservative and environmentally hostile region – can add up to more than the sum of its parts.

Learning Objectives: