CRLA Latest News
CRLA leads in fight against dangerous environmental toxins
Groups advocating against methyl iodide gathered in Salinas Wednesday, urging action against the pesticide within Monterey County and drawing attention to today's court hearing challenging state approval of the soil fumigant. CRLA, along with Earthjustice, filed a December 2010 suit against the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and its director.
"In short there is not substantial evidence that the product should have been registered," Michael Marsh, the directing attorney for CRLA, said Wednesday afternoon at the Monterey County Government Center.
Read full story by The Californian >>
Safe Drinking Water Plan in California
In the wake of CRLA's recent win for clients in the San Joaquin Valley who have limited or no access to safe drinking water, Governor Brown has signed seven bills aimed at improving water quality and access throughout California. In the case, Newton-Enloe and the A.G.U.A. Coalition v. Horton and California Department of Public Health, CRLA represented local residents and coalition members seeking to force the State to complete the Safe Drinking Water Plan. After a ruling in the Fifth District Court of appeals that supported CRLA's claims that the State was mandated to complete a Drinking Water Plan, the State of California and CRLA's clients agreed to a settlement whereby a high quality Plan will be completed.
Read on for some of the great recent press coverage about the case and its potential impact on CRLA client communities across California. >>
Coachella Valley Communities to Tackle Systematic Housing Inequities
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN/SFGATE/October 25, 2011
On edge of a desert paradise, Coachella farm workers live in putrid conditions
THERMAL, Calif. - At one end of Avenue 54, a road slicing through some of the most fertile land in the United States, resides the California of the popular imagination: a place of Bermuda shorts, putting greens and picture-window champagne dinners overlooking the infinity pool.
But there is another Avenue 54 concealed behind tumbleweeds and dust. It is the 54 of arsenic-tainted water, frequent blackouts and raw sewage that backs up into the shower. It is a place of grim housekeeping, where the residents of the Eastern Coachella Valley's roughly 125 illegal mobile home parks struggle to make 720 square feet of deteriorating metal and plywood a safe and habitable home.
Gov. Brown Signs Clean-Water Bills
By Russell Clemings / The Fresno Bee
Laws come on heels of plan to improve small water systems
Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday signed seven bills aimed at improving drinking water quality.
It was the second round of good news this week for people in poor Valley towns with poor drinking water, following the state agreeing to update a plan for improving small water systems.
Most of the bills signed Friday were part of a package introduced this year to help rural residents deal with bad tap water.
