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Tuesday, 22 July 2008 14:12 |
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Yesterday, the Barstow City Council approved plans for a new Wal-Mart distribution center dedicated solely to food distribution.The warehouse, located approximately 45 minutes from Wal-Mart's Apple Valley distribution center, will contain over 520,000 square feet in refrigerated storage. According to the project's Environmental Impact Report, diesel trucks using the warehouse will generate a shocking amount of toxic air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. From the air quality chapter in the Barstow EIR: - In total, every year the distribution center's diesel trucks will generate over 550 tons of Nitrogen Oxide (NOx), including over 350 tons of NOx dumped into the Mojave Desert Air Basin. NOx forms ground-level ozone and fine particulate, which trigger asthma attacks and cause heart, lung and brain damage and premature death.
- The Barstow distribution center's diesel trucks will generate 556 tons of particulate every year, including 310 tons per year into the Mojave Desert Air Basin. The California Air Resources Board recently found that exposure to particulate (soot) causes nearly 3,000 Valley residents to die prematurely every year.
Concentrating that much pollution in the San Joaquin Valley and Southeast Merced amounts to a potential death sentence for our children and elders.
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Tuesday, 01 July 2008 15:07 |
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According to a decision by a Minnesota judge released Monday, June 30, Wal-Mart "violated state laws on rest breaks and other wage matters more than 2 million times and as a result could face more than $2 billion in fines" (New York Times). |
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Wednesday, 11 June 2008 08:28 |
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Here's an article from the Schenectady, NY Daily Gazette about the impact of Wal-Mart distribution center truck traffic on their local roads. Best line: The fact of the matter is, someone should have taken as serious look at this route when the center was first proposed and either passed on the project (an unlikely case since economic development officials are like a pack of mad dogs on a piece of meat when it comes to projects like this) or come up with that multi-million dollar plan to avoid the problems plaguing the village of Fonda now. |
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Monday, 24 March 2008 18:39 |
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Watch the video from CNN here. Brain-damaged ex-worker must pay $470,000 to Wal-Mart
By Jonathan J. Cooper
POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU
03/18/2008
WASHINGTON — The family of a Missouri woman must reimburse Wal-Mart for nearly a half-million dollars in medical expenses now that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review her case.
The court on Monday let stand a ruling by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis requiring Debbie Shank of Cape Girardeau County to pay nearly $470,000 to Wal-Mart.
The appeal was the last legal recourse for the family of the 52-year-old Shank, a mother of three who was critically injured in a car accident eight years ago. She suffered a brain injury that took her memory and left her with very little ability to move or communicate. She has lived in a nursing home since she was released from the hospital.
Read more from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch |
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