Badlands Journal

The Merced City Council is to be commended for holding two lengthy public hearings on the WalMart distribution center project including citizens with sharply opposed views on health, human safety and economic growth, who spoke their mind in an orderly, safe process. This begs the lie of Rep. Dennis Cardoza, the Pimlico Kid, that citizens in his district could not meet together in town hall meetings to discuss health care reform. In fact, on another contentious issue, Riverside Motorsports Park, a large number of town hall meetings were held, some by proponents, some by opponents. We observed several moments of tension and name calling in those meetings, held without security, but only feelings were bruised.

However, questions remain about the WalMart project. First, who will pay for the increase in respiratory disease in the community? The answer is clear: the public will pay; the corporation will not pay. The corporation was praised for voluntary donations to various medical facilities in town. Voluntary contributions are all well and good, but they aren’t reliable – witness the decrease in charitable foundation spending since the recession began.

Second, where were UC Merced’s experts in air pollution at the public comment periods? Perhaps they have submitted a letter. But, if this is true, it raises another question: why weren’t people directly involved in air pollution research at UC Merced willing to speak publicly to support opponents of the project, their closest neighbors? Has WalMart already bought off the campus, with perhaps a promise or more for funds for research into respiratory disease? Respiratory disease has increased in Merced as a result of UC Merced’s stimulus to growth. It will be increased more by the WalMart distribution center, with its 900 diesel-truck trips a day, 18-24 hours a day seven days a week. WalMart is another beneficiary of UC Merced’s arrival, in the form of the Mission Interchange off Highway 99 and the Campus Parkway, which its trucks will use. The EIR says that trucks using the facility would dump 72 tons per year of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides and 33 tons per year of particulates. Surely UC Merced’s scientists could calculate what that will mean for the health of the Merced community, including its own students. We would be interested in why professors. Elliott Campbell, Shawn Newsam,  Roger Bales,  Henry Forman (member of the Valley air board), Yihsu Chen, Qinghua Guo,  Thomas Harmon, Martha Conklin, Valerie Leppert, Wolfgang Rogge, Samuel Traina, or Anthony Westerling, -- all of whom do research in different aspects of environmental engineering – could not have offered their expert opinions to the city council on the subject of the cumulative impacts of increases in air pollution on the public health of this community.

But, that’s how the system does not work for the public benefit. UC Merced gets grants for developing technological “black boxes” to “fix” air pollution. There are no grant funds for social and political pressure to prevent increases in air pollution. Possibly, WalMart will provide such a grant for UC Merced environmental engineers to work on the perfect black box to suppress diesel fumes. Possibly, the city made it clear to UC Merced that it did not want to hear from any air pollution experts from its faculty on this issue, period.

A number of citizens and neighbors testified in opposition to the project and made important, reasonable points against it, very few of them with any particular expertise in the subject. Tom Grave, head of Merced Alliance for Responsible Growth, testified as a member of the Merced/Mariposa County Asthma Coalition and was, in our view, one of the less effective opposition speakers. Mary-Michal Rawling, the coalition program manager, did not testify, probably because she is running for a seat on the city council. This is another example of how the system does not work for the public benefit.

Overall, opponents did a good job of presenting arguments that drove diesel trucks through the usual real estate boosters’ usual arguments. The best of them were simple, powerful moral statements, telling the council to protect its citizens, especially the young and the elderly. One woman asked if the health of the 80 percent of the community that is employed mattered, too, since everyone was talking about unemployment and WalMart’s promise of hundreds of jobs. The boosters never saw a project that promised big profits to outside corporations while degrading our local environment and public-health outlook that they didn’t like.

One project proponent, a WalMart employee, however, plunged us into the depths of mystery when she thanked God for her (WalMart) vacation benefits. WalMart provided the lady her vacation benefits, not God. WalMart is not God. It may be time to refresh our understanding of these elementary distinctions