Community Stops Dirty Power Plant in Southeast Los Angeles

Shout out to my folks at Communities for a Better Environment!!




A Victory For LA's Air And A Victory for the Planet!

Move over Al Gore, make room for some new environmental leaders - working class Latina mothers and high school youth from South East Los Angeles!

After 3 years of organizing, mobilizing, advocacy and lawsuits, CBE members in Southeast Los Angeles stopped a 943 megawatt fossil fuel power plant that would have emitted over 1.7 million pounds of toxic pollution per year as well as 2.8 million tons of greenhouse gases.

The strength of this exciting grassroots effort compelled the City of Vernon to withdraw their application for the power plant on September 28th, 2009. The was a life-and-death struggle since the power plant emissions could have caused as many as one dozen deaths every year. Since these facilities usually operate for fity years, literally hundreds of lives have been saved.

This was not only a local victory. By preventing the emission of more than 200 million tons of greenhouse gasses, the mujeres and youth made a major contrubution to the flight against global warming. They have also created a community empowerment model for teh other 22 California communities facing a similar threat of fossil fuel power plants.

In the immortal words of Cesar Chavez: Si Se Puede!