Significant pesticide usage from industrial agriculture:
Runoff from agriculture (even if it contains just sediments and no pesticides) is harmful to coral reefs
Sources:
https://grist.org/agriculture/the-farmers-restoring-hawaiis-ancient-food...
https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2017/03/02/cooperation-is-key-to-reduce-sedi...
August 2023 Update:
October 2023 Update:
Hazardous Waste after the Lahain fires: After the Lahaina fires, chemical pollutants in the air and water present a hazardous health issue. Chemicals include benzene, polcyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, lead, asbestos. Half the buildings in Lahaina predated the 1978 federal health ban. Symptoms from this chemical exposure can include nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite. Apart form these predictable materials, the debris contains combustion by-products of a unique construction material--caneck, made from sugarcane fibers and treated with arsenic as a termite repellant.
Sources:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/maui-residents-face-lingering-toxic-...
https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/toxic-debris-from-the-lahaina-fire-wil...
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.”
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.
Mold, plumbing issues, rodent and cockroach infestations, leaking roofs, broken windows and doors, broken heaters, missing smoke or carbon dioxide detectors, damaged carpets, no hot water
percolation and evaporation pond operation accepting oilfield produced water, which is a highly saline byproduct of local oil production that contains small concentrations of cancer-causing chemicals.
The wastewater allegedly contained arsenic, benzene, ethylbenzene, naphthalene, radionuclides and toluene.Clean Water Fund and AIR alleged the practice has created an underground plume that has spread more than two miles since monitoring wells were established in the area in 2004, and that the contamination may eventually reach Buttonwillow's drinking water supply.
11 wastewater treatment plants in LA County produce half a million tons of treated sewage sludge from human waste per year. Sludge is sent to a lnadfill in Kern County, the Westlake Facility, and some to Arizona
water pollution from sewage sludge
air pollution from sewage sludge and from trucks hauling the sludge to the farm - 55 trucks per day/20,000 per year at full capacity
Closures of biomass energy plants have forced SJVAPCD to allow more open burning of agricultural waste, which produces particulate matter and contributes to already severe air quality in the Central Valley
the floor of the valley has dropped in recent decades with increased groundwater pumping by farms, meaning more land might be subject to inundation,