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In the interview with Emily Roehl, artist Steve Rowell describes his style in contrast to the more "didactic" approach of land use and documentary photography. Instead, he has come to combine his visual works with sound installations that are meant to unsettle. These sounds are often generated based on air pollution data that he has collected (Roehl and Rowell, 2022, p. 137). Rowell further describes how changes in the development of aerial video and photography technology have shaped his work. In the past, Rowell would rent expensive camera equipment and attach them to a helicopter to generate fly-over images (Roehl and Rowell, 2022, p. 140). Though commercial drones have become available, Rowell says that he soon got dissatisfied with the "slick" images they produce. When using drones, Rowell relies on an angle that faces down or is close-up, creating feelings of uncanniness. These unusual perspectives are combined with split imagery and mirroring to achieve a specific effect: “There’s a value in giving the viewer/listener a chance to distrust the work in the same way there’s value in giving them room to question the work. The landscapes I feature are all altered. What landscape isn’t now? That’s the point.” (Roehl and Rowell, 2022, p. 140).

Steve Rowell is an educator and research artist, currently working on “long-term projects that use image, sound, and archival practice to interrogate the relationship between humans, industry, and the environment” (Roehl and Rowell, 2022, p. 136). Rowell has worked extensively with the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) in Los Angeles, including a comissioned project for which he photographed every petrochemical plant in Texas (ibid, p. 137). In subsequent projects, he has focused on tracing pipelines going from the Alberta Tar Sands to petrochemical communities in Long Beach, California and Port Arthur, Texas. Another recent project focuses on the industrial ecology of Houston's Buffalo Bayou. 

Permitted Facilities: Through the CalEPA Regulated Site Portal we can easily identify regulated facilities from five state databases and two federal databases. Data collected from agencies such as: U.S. EPA, State Water Boards, CalEPA, and Department of Toxic Substances Control. These sites are regulated due to their potential hazard to local communities. Health impact depends on the facility. 1,957 regulated facilities in Santa Ana according to databases listed above.

RMP Facilities: RMP (Risk Management Plan) facilities are managed by the CalARP program. These sites contain large amounts of extremely hazardous state regulated chemicals. These chemicals are regulated by the state due to their potential risk to the public. Gallade’s three sites in Santa Ana have high quantities of regulated chemicals. 2 RMPs in Santa Ana, Gallade Chemical Inc. is an RMP half a mile from Madison Park. Has not been inspected in three years. The BEHR Standard facility is the second RMP facility.

Metal Plating Facilities: Metal plating facilities use hexavalent chromium through the electroplating process and stainless steel production. Hexavalent Chromium can be released as an aerosol through chrome plating processes. “…hexavalent chromium should be considered a human carcinogen for which there is no safe threshold exposure level.”(California Air resources Board. 2022). There 112 metal plating facilities in Santa Ana that are regulated by the state. Majority of these regulated facilities are located in South East Santa Ana.

 Hexavalent Chromium Info links:

• Hexavalent Chromium - Overview | Occupational Safety and Health Administration (osha.gov)

• Hexavalent Chromium Factsheet (nih.gov)

Homeless shelter and support center: https://www.ocregister.com/2022/07/22/motorcycle-club-brings-hope-and-harleys-to-homeless-shelter. 

Is this center considered an asset by residents, or -- as in many places -- did they contest its presence in Santa Ana given so many other stresses there? 

From my notes taken during the MPNA-GREEN and UCI EcoGov Lab event on June 4, 2022

• Downtown Santa Ana (DTSA) Art Walk: "community-based arts showcase across downtown Santa Ana from 6pm-10pm on the First Saturday of each month." The showcase exhibits artists from the Santa Ana and wider OC community 
• Comunidad Unida Aire Limpio (Comité CUAL): One of the first of its kind in Southern California, this community monitoring air network in Santa Ana established as a grant by the California Air Resources Board has a network of over twenty Dylos air monitors which offer air quality data to residents for environmental justice characterization. 
• Community Resource Fairs & Walkathons: MPNA has hosted community resource fairs and walkathons, such as the 15th Annual Madison Park Neighborhood Association Walk-A-Thon in 2017. According to the resident who shared picture of a community resource fair, these events offer opportunities for entire families to exercise, bike, and walk, and overall having a festive time. 
• The Frida Cinema: Orange County's only non-profit arthouse and independent theater. The Cinema has a long history of partnering with social and environmental justice organizing for community mobilization. 
• Santa Ana Movies in the Park: "The Santa Ana Movies in the Park series will take place every Wednesday, beginning June 8 through August 31, 2022 at various City parks throughout Santa Ana. Pre-movie festivities will begin at 5:30 p.m. and will include exhibitors, jumpers, and arts and crafts for kids. Movie screenings will begin promptly at dusk. Free popcorn will be provided to the first 500 guests each night, while supplies last. Food vendors will also be offering affordable and delicious dinner and dessert options. The series is free to attend."
• ALMA Science Academy: "Aspire, Learn, Mentor & Achieve (ALMA) Science Academy is a STEM education and mentorship program for under-resourced Santa Ana youth grades 4-6". 
• Santa Ana College: Opened in 1915 for students from Santa Ana High School, this fourth oldest community college in California serves over 18,000 undergraduate students. 

Linked below is a data analysis on the CalEPA Regulated Facilities Portal, click on my annotation to view full analysis.

CalEPA Regulated Facilities Portal: Data Analysis | Disaster STS Network (disaster-sts-network.org)

St. Louis: Award winning (US Society of Environmental Journalists)  2001 journalism on health hazards in Weldon Springs.

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/the-right-to-answers/Content?oi…

I'm interested in better understanding the ongoing geological processes that shape St. Louis and the Mississippi Valley region. So far, I've been looking into the history of seismicity in the region, focusing on the fascinating but little known history of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 -- the most devastating earthquakes to have hit the US east of the Rockies. I've also been exploring how St. Louis and surrounding areas are dealing with the possibility of another earthquake occurring in the future. According to one article I read, one of the biggest uncertainties is what would happen to the heavily engineered Mississippi River in the case of another major tremblor. The shaking could break the levees, flooding wide areas along the river and creating cascading effects. The flow of the river might also reverse completely, as occurred during the New Madrid earthquakes.

On these possibilities and the lack of scientific consensus surrounding intraplate seismicity in this zone, see this article in The Atlantic.

On current efforts to create earthquake hazard maps in St. Louis, see this overview on the US Geological Survey site.

For a deeper dive into the history of the New Madrid earthquakes, see this book by historian of science Conevery Bolton Valencius. 

A brief essay about St. Louis' notorious eminent domain history--

--along with 2 recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch articles about "urban renewal" projects that are scheduled to reoccupy the Mill Flats area, which hosted the most notorious episode of displacement of African-American communities: the Chouteau Greenway project (will it serve or displace low-income St. Louisans?); and SLU's Mill Creek Flats high-rise project, which certainly will, and whose name seems to me an especially tone-deaf if gutsy move...

https://humanities.wustl.edu/features/Margaret-Garb-St-Louis-Eminent-Domain

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/steelcote-developer-plans-more-apartments-brewery-space-in-million-midtown/article_811eaf96-76e1-5c20-a870-1e79abd3f06e.html

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/chouteau-greenway-project-aims-to-knit-st-louis-neighborhoods-together/article_55fea4e6-6829-5c80-9168-313305b4e3bb.html

Contextual Articles
Landscapes with Purpose
One STL
Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District
EPA - Green Infrastructure
Green City Coalition

Green Stormwater Infrastructure
Prior to the 1970's, many US cities managed stormwater through piped conveyance systems. Flooding was once considered the most significant risk associated with rainfall. System builders built water infrastructure to accommodate volume. Most cities in the US have what is called a combined sewer system (CSS). This system pipes stormwater and municipal wastewater together. The water is then treated and then released into receiving bodies. St. Louis is one of the rare cities (Baltimore, where my research is based is another) that has a municipal separated stormwater system (MS4). In a separated system, a system of pipes keeps stormwater separate from other wastewaters. 

In the 1970's ecological research, some of which came from the EPA's National Urban Research Program, began to demonstrate that nutrients in runoff were responsible for environmental pollution. In turn, municipal engineers transitioned to thinking about tools and techniques for decreasing this nutrient load. In St. Louis, the separated system operates under a federal consent decree with the EPA where the city must reduce the overall percentage of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) carried through runoff. The most recent strategy for managing this problem is Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI). Although the problems associated with GSI are of local relevance, they are managed through state and federal governance strategies.

While GSI is difficult to define, many times installations feature landscaped elements that aim to mimic the pre-development hydrological processes of a given site. In urban areas, these projects often utilize vacant lands or reduce existing impervious surface cover. Many planners and community groups also suggest that GSI provides additional social benefits through an increase in community green space, reduction in urban heat island, and improved property values. 

This image from Missouri Coalition for the environment brings together the many suggested benefits of implementing these technologies. The diagram also provokes some questions that may interest us in our project; Does GSI represent a paradigmatic shift in techniques of stormwater management? Does natural or environmental mimicry in engineering projects act as a corrective to the anthropocene, or are these technologies merely a response? How are the social, economic, and technical benefits of GSI calculated and have attendent burdens been considered as well?