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City Council hearing dates announced |
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Sunday, 06 September 2009 22:21 |
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From the City of Merced's web site: City Council Public Hearings: A public hearing will now be scheduled regarding the project before the City Council. The dates for the hearing are tentatively as follows, all in the City Council Chambers of the Merced Civic Center at 678 West 18th St.:
- Monday, September 21, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.--This is a regular City Council meeting and the project will be introduced, a staff presentation will be heard, and the applicants and the representatives of the organized opposition will be allowed to open the public testimony portion of the hearing. The hearing will then be continued to...
- Wednesday, September 23, 2009 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.--Public testimony will be accepted on the project and then the hearing will be continued to...
- Saturday, September 26, 2009 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and (if needed) 1:00 to 5:00 pm--Public testimony will be accepted on the project from 9:00 a.m. until at least 12:00 p.m. If additional individuals are still waiting to speak, testimony will be continued at 1:00 p.m. until all testimony has concluded, including rebuttal, but no later than 5:00 p.m. The public comment portion of the hearing will then be closed and the hearing will then be continued to...
- Monday, September 28, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.--It is the intent that the City Council will deliberate and take their final action on the Project tonight. Public testimony will only be taken if there are additional speakers who have not yet spoken on previous days.
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Make your voice heard! Final Wal-Mart votes coming soon |
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Sunday, 16 August 2009 14:50 |
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Make your voice heard! Wal-Mart distribution center final votes coming soon City of Merced Planning Commission hearing 6 p.m. Monday, August 24 678 W. 18th Street, Merced, CA The City has decided only to allow people who submitted a "request to speak" card on Wednesday to speak on Monday. Following the remianing public comment, the Commission will vote on whether to recommend approval of the project to the Merced City Council, who will hold hearings starting September 21, 2009.
Since 2006, members of the Stop Wal-Mart Action Team and Southeast Merced residents have repeatedly demonstrated our concern over this project's impacts. The future of Southeast Merced is at stake! Some points to remember: - The Final Environmental Impact Report dismisses letters from CalTrans and the Valley Air District warning that the traffic studies and Health Risk Assessment were performed incompetently and should be re-done. The Planning Commission can't decide to recommend a project unless its decision is based on accurate studies.
- If the Planning Commission and City Council choose, they can modify the site plan and add conditions to the project that benefit Merced residents. A Planning Commission with backbone would stick up for our interests, not just Wal-Mart's promises and bullying tactics.
- It's unacceptable that this project, as proposed, will disproportionately impact current and future generations of Southeast Merced residents.
If you're thinking about speaking: - Speak from the heart.
- Relate your own experiences and concerns to the project's impacts.
- Don't let Wal-Mart supporters and local special interests intimidate you!
- To read more about the project, including comments on the environmental studies and the consultants' responses to those comments, click here.
For updates, visit our web site. We'll see you there! |
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SWAT comments on the proposed Wal-Mart Distribution Center Draft Environmental Impact Report |
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Tuesday, 28 April 2009 11:20 |
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Click here to read comments submitted by the Merced Stop Wal-Mart Action Team on April 27 regarding the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the proposed Wal-Mart distribution center. |
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EPA releases cancer risk data from air pollution |
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Tuesday, 23 June 2009 23:58 |
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EPA recently released a huge amount of detailed data about baseline cancer risk from carcinogenic air pollution. According to USA Today: The results, compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency, represent the most sweeping analysis to date of the state of the nation's air. The analysis is based on emissions from 2002, the latest year for which the EPA had detailed estimates of pollution from across the nation. Called the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, or NATA, the study is used by the EPA to identify parts of the country where residents could face the greatest health threats from air pollution... Almost 2.2 million people lived in neighborhoods where pollution raised the risk of developing cancer to levels the government generally considers to be unacceptable. There, toxic chemicals were significant enough that people who breathed the air throughout their lives faced an extra 100-in-1 million risk of getting cancer...
Pollution threats are still less pronounced than risks such as smoking, says John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Even so, the assessment "shows we have a problem we should expect government to solve by reducing toxic air pollution, because it makes a lot of people sick."
For the Southeast Merced census tract, the baseline cancer risk in 2002 was 29 in one million. The Air District says that local cancer risk generated by the distribution center alone "could be well over 10 in a million" - that is, if the health risk assessment in the Environmental Impact Report was performed competently. This means that in Southeast Merced, it's likely that 29 people out of one million equally exposed people would contract cancer if exposed continuously (24 hours per day) to the specific concentration over 70 years (an assumed lifetime). This would be an excess cancer risk that is in addition to those cancer cases that would normally occur in an unexposed population of one million people. The distribution center would dramatically increase cancer risk in Southeast Merced, especially for homes and schools near its truck route. |
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Ask the Air District to protect Southeast Merced's health! |
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Sunday, 12 April 2009 19:27 |
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Take action to support Southeast Merced residents! Ask the Air District to conduct a full health risk assessment and protect us from the distribution center's local air quality impacts! Click here to send an e-mail to Air District head Seyed Sadredin Background: The Draft Environmental Impact Report for the proposed Wal-Mart distribution center was released on February 25, over three years after it was first announced. The EIR says that if operational, trucks using the facility would dump 72 tons per year of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides and 33 tons per year of particulate (soot). Both can make respiratory problems and asthma worse, but local exposure to diesel soot can cause respiratory problems, heart disease, cancer and early death. It's serious. Before issuing Wal-Mart a permit to pollute, the Air District will decide whether Wal-Mart will reduce their actual emissions, or pay a fee to fund Air District programs in other parts of the Valley. This voluntary agreement between the Air District and Wal-Mart to reduce these emissions to a less than significant level must be in place before the Merced City Council can vote on the project. We're asking that: - The Air District conduct a full Health Risk Assessment so we understand the real cancer and health risks that the project will cause.
- The Air District do everything in its power in this agreement to protect the health of southeast Merced residents directly affected by this project.
Sound reasonable? The Air District needs to know you care! Click here to send an e-mail to Air District head Seyed Sadredin |
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