Analyze

1. data injustice: the Cerda family did not have access to the data linking chlorpyrifos as a neurotoxin. 

2. economic injustice: the Cerda family are agricultural workers and are exposed to pesticides like chlorpyrifos on a regular basis. Rafael Cerda's developmental disabilities will present barriers in economic and overall well-being. 

3. epistemic injustice: Cerda family's complaints and allegations are not being considered by the pesticide manufacturers and sprayers 

4. health injustice: Rafael Cerda's disabilities are a direct result of his in-utero and natal chlorpyrifos exposure 

5. intergenerational injustice: Rafael Cerda's disabilities were caused in-utero as his mother was exposed to large amounts while she was pregnant with him. 

6. media injustice: inadequate attention to the extent of harm this pesticide can cause

7. procedural injustice: ongoing lawsuit, result not yet known

8. racial injustice: the affected are Latino/a agricultural workers 

9. reproductive injustice: exposure to Chlropyrifos in-utero

1. Scientists at Columbia university estbalished a link between exposure to chlorpyrifos and alterations in brain structure

2. California Gov. Gavin Newsom banned chlorpyrifos in the state in may 2019

3. EPA banned the chemical in 2015. Trump admin reversed the ban. 

4. Cerda family: chronic exposure to chlorpyrifos, suing for general damages, compensatory damages due to Cerda’s loss in earning capacity, medical costs, and “punitive damages for the willful, reckless, and recklessly indifferent conduct of the Defendants,” 

1. Seventeen-year-old Avenal resident Rafael Cerda Calderon: platiniff, impacted heavily by the pesticide Chlorpyrifos 

2. Corteva, Inc.: multi-billion dollar agribusiness company; 

3. pesticide applicators Woolf Farming Co. and Cottonwest, LLC

4. municipalities of Huron and Avenal

5. pesticide applicators Woolf Farming Co. and Cottonwest, LLC

6. attorney groups: Calwell Luce diTrapano PLLC of Charleston, West Virginia, and Bonnett, Fairbourn, Friedman & Balint P.C. of San Diego, and Phoenix.

1. The agricultural region's dependence on the pesticide Chlorpyrifos to "control insects that can attack almond orchards, cotton fields, and apricot trees, among other popular crops". 

2. Deadly and insidous nature of the chemical: its effects are similar to sarin gas and "it gets everywhere... for a child living there, with every breath he takes, he’s getting a little dose. It’s very insidious"

3. Lack of protection for farmworkers: "His mother, Alba Luz Calderon de Cerda, handled citrus fruits and lettuce sprayed with chlorpyrifos as a packing house worker during her pregnancy. His father, Rafael Cerda Martinez, was a pesticide sprayer in agricultural fields, who often brought the chemical home, the lawsuit alleges.. The child and his parents were also exposed to the chemicals through the air in their home, the fields and packing houses where they worked, as well as in the water they drank, which was “loaded with chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos oxon,” according to the lawsuit."

17-year old Avenal resident Rafael Cerda Calderon suffers from severe seizures, autism, and a developmental disability. He was exposed in-utero and during infancy to the pesticide Chlorpyrifos, a neurotoxin that has been compared to Sarin for the health hazard that it imposes. The pesticide was developed by Dow Chemicals, now Delware-based Corteva Inc., in the 1960s as a substitute for DDT, and has been banned for nationwide use since 2001. 

"the pesticide becomes a deadly neurotoxin when it comes into contact with water or sunshine or treated with chlorine, which is typically added to tap water. Chlorpyrifos oxon is 1,000 times more toxic than the original pesticide and was never registered with the EPA because it is so deadly."

“We found the stuff in cars; it gets in the dashboard, it goes anywhere the wind goes,” Calwell said. “We even sampled a teddy bear and even found it there. So for a child living there, with every breath he takes, he’s getting a little dose. It’s very insidious.”

The setting is the city of Avenal in the San Joaquin Valley in the Central Valley in California. 

“...Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty (Bullard et al., 2007) revealed that communities of colour and poor communities were still being used as dumping grounds for all kinds of toxic contaminants. The authors discovered evidence that the clustering of environmental hazards, in addition to single sources of pollution, presented significant threats to communities of colour. Furthermore, the research showed that polluting industries frequently singled out communities of colour in siting decisions, countering the “minority move-in hypothesis”: the claim that people of colour voluntarily move into contaminated communities rather than being targeted in situ by dirty industries.” (122)

“Bullard (1990) has highlighted the problem of “Black Love Canals” throughout the United States, where issues of environmental injustice are deeply connected with environ- mental racism. For example, Bullard highlights the case of toxic DDT water contamination in the African American community of Triana, Alabama. In 1978, in the midst of the national media attention focused on Love Canal, residents in Triana raised complaints over ill-health effects and contaminated fish and waterfowl. Lawsuits in Triana against the Olin Corporation continued throughout the 1980s. Although the case is noted within environ- mental justice histories (see Taylor, 2014), it is not widely recognized or commemorated.” (126)

“Underpinning the slow, structural violence (see Galtung, 1969; Davies, 2019) of unequal and unjust toxic exposures is the problem of “expendability” … Pellow (2018) proposes that indispensability is a key pillar of critical environmental justice studies (alongside intersectionality, scale, and state power). This idea builds on the work of critical race and ethnic studies scholar John Marquez (2014) on “racial expendability” to argue that, within a white-dominated society, people of colour are typically viewed as expendable.” (127)

“National and international media headlines followed the Flint water crisis story as it unfolded, but, after the initial shock, Flint faded from media attention. It shifted from being a spectacular disaster to a case of slow violence. This paral- lels the dynamics of public memory surrounding many toxic disasters, struggles, and legacies.” (128)

The author’s main argument is two-fold. Acute environmental disasters (e.g., Chernobyl, BP Horizon Spill, Hurricane Katrina) that garnered public attention leave behind legacies of increased support for environmental action and legislation, although the public attention span is often too short for lasting change. At the same time, these disasters have received a disproportionate amount of public attention compared to the many more slow-moving toxicity disasters that affect people in more systematic but often less visible ways. Examples of this disparity include the contrast between the 1984 Bhopal disaster coverage, and the persistent toxicity in the area in the time since then in the form of industrial waste and infrastructure that is not maintained. It is additionally important to note that the cases that don’t receive much attention often affect marginalized groups (by race, socioeconomics) disproportionately.