Spring 2023 - to continue to learn, build, create experimental collaborative research methodologies with EcoGovLab participants.
To write (collaboratively) an article on collaborative methodology practiced within our lab.
To learn to negotiate incommensurabilities better while also developing ways to bridge difference, first in lab practices and second in engagements with other ej practitiones.
Stakeholders:
Children and families vulnerable to asthma
Cattle ranchers
CALTrans
Almond farmers
NOAA
EPA
SJV Air Pollution Control
Kern River Oil Field
Central California Asthma Collaborative
Teve Brown of NOAA said the valley suffers from cows + cards. At Harris Ranch a large industrial cattle farm trucks drive 6,000miles/day for 60 loads of feed producing nitrogen oxides (NOx). NOx combines with the ammonia from cow manure and urine to from ammonium nitrate which accounts for more that 1/2 of the areas most polluted days of PM2.5.
In addition, Interstate is a major thorough bringing more traffic pollution and farming practices including nitrogen fertilizer contributes 1/3 of NOx in California air. The SJV also holds 9000 oil wells and because all the light oil has been drilled, the current production is described as the "thickest, dirtiest petroleum" in the nation.
Intersecting factors: landscape (bowl shape of the Valley); economic (agriculture that contributes to PM2.5); transportation corridor that add more traffic pollution; and state-wide wildfires that bring more particulate pollution which is trapped; and political environment in which area elects representatives (ex: Devin Nunes) who deny global warming and reject environmental protection.
Air pollution--the result of cows+cars--is the focus of this multimedia article. One in six children in the SJV suggest from asthma. It is estimated that air pollution costs SJV as much as $11 billion annually the result of emergency room visits, lost school days, and other public health impacts.
The setting for this article is the San Joaquin Valley which encompasses 2/3rds of the Central Valley CA. Because of it's fertle farmland, it supplies 1/4 of the food to "American plates."
In terms of setting, like other valley's in CA (ex: San Gabriel Valley) and the whole LA Basin, the SJV's bowl-like landscape (mountain ranges on 3-sides) results in temperature inversion that traps smo closer to the ground during Wintertime.
EEC is the writing team for 10Strands, CCEJ project for 8th grade curriculum.
EEC is organized as a collaborative (initially they were made up of over 75 organizations that include School District representation) with a board of trustees (13 members). Mary Walls, who is on a 10S writing team, is the chair of this org. In addition they have an Advisory Board. Their website lists 13 sponsors and 3 "grantors' including SoCal Edison. They describe themselves as a grassroots alliance.
The EEC seems to have officially started in Feb 2015 with their first EEC Symposium although planning meetings began in 2014 following the Stanford University Collaborative Impact Model.
On their website the EEC thanks the iecf Inland Empire Community Foundation a non-profit, public charity
The EEC offers piad workshops--their most recent on in Winter 2022 features Mary V and Mary Walls (Board Chair of EEC) as Workshop leaders on Land Acknowledgements and Decolonializing educaiton.
The EEC's websites lists many resources (organizations, guides) focused on Environmental; Agricultural, Professional development
In addition, they sponsor a bilingual art/writing and video contest annually seemingly for school age children. Recent topics include: Air and Justice (2021); Water & Water Justice (2022)
Mission statement: Creating a sustainable and just future through environmental learning experiences for all.
They execute their mission through funding, policy and program resources In Riverside and San Bernardino Counties
In addition they envision communities where a) every person can experience nature everyday; b) teachers and envied providers have resources; c) enviro literacy is an essential component of child development
Ernesto Yerena Montejano, currently a Boyle Heights resident and originally from Imperial County, and his team of fellow artists Arlene Mejorado and Ayerim Leon — complete with friends and families" painted the mura.
It belongs to the Imperial Valley, but was one of 14 California commissions art projects as part of a collaboration between the Governor's Office, CA Dept of Public Health and The Center at Sierra Health Foundation. The commissioning program aimed to raise awareness about Covid19 within the State's hardest hit areas. Each an governmental agency stakeholder in the project along with curators who selected the artist for this mural.
The building's owner, which appears to be a someone poised to sell it soon is also a stakeholder and most importantly, local resident are active stakeholders as they began adding names of family members who died because of Covid on the western corner of the mural unprompted and without explicit instruction or permission.