EL CENTRO — The Thirteenth edition of the two-day Annual Environmental Health Leadership Summit hosted by Comite Civico del Valle began Tuesday at the Old Eucalyptus House west of this city and is set to end today.
This year the summit aims to create a dynamic gathering for attendees to experience two days of enrichment through workshops, panels, and networking to stimulate discussion and excitement about various topics surrounding environmental and public health, the summit’s program reads.
“This year’s Environmental Health Leadership Summit will focus on environmental justice principles, civic engagement, community benefits, zero-emissions transportation challenges, training the workforce for the just transition, and include opportunities for you to connect with community advocates, professionals, and experts,” the program reads. “The generational opportunity to transform our local economy and provide future generations with cleaner energy, zero emissions technologies, and high road jobs is tempting, but we mustn’t sacrifice our communities to provide these for others without direct benefits to our fenceline populations.”
For some visitors, the summit experience in past years has led them to learn about health issues in the Imperial Valley that are significant to their lives due to issues dealing with high asthma, cancer, and other health problems like allergies caused by dust — with some families having at least two members with allergy issues.
Mexicali-based environmentalist Ray Williams Askins said in an interview people in the Imperial Valley must understand exactly what they are breathing, which is shortening lives. To solve the issue, people and officials must find a way to improve air quality.
“What I have done is try to expose the bad actors,” Askins said. “But it still needs work done.”
The environmentalist put Mexicali as an example, where solving air quality problems will solve issues here in the county.
“All this money that’s being pumped into Imperial County is a waste,” Askins considered. “You must fix the problems in Mexicali.”
Although a lot has been done to reduce air pollution, the expert said the problem has a long way to go.
According to Askins, even though Mexicali and Baja California officials have launched efforts many streets on the other side of the border are still unpaved.
“That problem has to be resolved,” Askins said. “As the city expands, they have to keep up the same pace as the city expands.”
At the same time, the environmentalist noted that public works agencies must keep roads updated not just across the border, but in Imperial County as well, where drivers and pedestrians can find a pothole one after another.
“It just seems to me that the money is being directed in the wrong direction,” he said. “And again, that creates dust, and the dust affects the health.”
Askins considered money on this side of the border is being misappropriated.
“I think that they would focus on doing the things that will help to keep the air quality,” the expert said. “They’re just putting their faces into other dumb projects.”
According to the environmentalist, officials must understand that clean air does not come from ignoring the state of local roads.
Askins pointed out the state of Highway 111 in Calexico — a road he considered terrible.
“It’s just incredible and the wear and tear it takes on the tires, the dust is created comes up into the air,” he said. “Their order of priorities again, they’re ignoring maintaining their roads to keep the dust down.”
The summit began at 8:00 a.m. with registration and networking breakfast. Later, Comite Civico del Valle Executive Director Luis Olmedo welcomed participants from the Imperial Valley and other areas.
Day One included workshops on environmental health, the Salton Sea, community resources programs, the Lithium Valley, COVID-19 and bird flu, climate resilience, community benefit agreements, and climate and water diversion impact on farmworkers.
“We’ve definitely come a long way,” Olmedo said about the summit.
The executive director said the Imperial Valley has had a hundred years of neglect to the community that struggles with disadvantages and imposed burdens on certain segments of the population.
“The data is clear,” he said, adding that it has been well documented that colored members of the community who have a certain socioeconomic level struggle with these burdens. “I would say that we are on a good path to bringing greater equity, greater inclusion, greater involvement.”
CCV has been in existence for over 35 years and has been consistently growing to allow residents access to information.
“As a result of that we’ve been able to share more information,” Olmedo said. “In recent years, we have also become aware of the wealth that exists in our communities.”
That has led CCV to tell the public about their water, their air, their land, their minerals, and their tax credits, as well as their grants and investments coming to communities.
“So it really is a sense of power,” said Olmedo, who highlighted that “we as a community can have greater involvement, greater decision-making, greater civic engagement to be able to heal the deep inequities of the past and be able to set us in a more positive, more inclusive, more sustainable, movement towards the future.”
The summit continues today starting at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday’s activities include workshops about defenders of environmental justice at 10:00 a.m. and binational climate change at 11:05 a.m. The summit concludes at 12:40 p.m. with a call to action.
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