EPA Investigates One Town's Public Health Mystery

The term "public health scare" is usually trotted out to refer to disease outbreaks like the recent pandemic of H1N1, or to food-related issues like when E. coli is found in mass-produced foods like spinach or peanut butter. But one small town in California is seeing a public health scare manifest itself in a much different, perhaps scarier way: a spate of birth defects. The small town of about 1,500 residents has had at least six children born between 2007 and 2008 with facial deformities, and other birth defects, including brain damage. About half of those children have died.

Recently, the federal Environmental Protection Agency waded into the issue, touring the town and hoping to determine what is causing the problems - and taking a look in particular at a nearby landfill that is one of the largest toxic waste dumping sites west of the Mississippi. Officials were urged to act on the public health crisis after California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and other health agencies called on the government to investigate.

The incident has re-introduced the concept of environmental justice, and how race and income factor into public health. Kettleman City is an overwhelmingly Hispanic community, and that fact has many activists wondering whether a mostly white city would ever have to deal with the health threats posed by the waste facility. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has made promoting environmental justice one of her key priorities. Now, the appointee to head the organization's efforts in the Pacific Southwest, which includes Kettleman City, is not only echoing that priority, but has spoken out about the town specifically. According the EPA:

Blumenfeld highlighted the Central California community of Kettleman City, which has suffered distressing incidents of birth defects and infant deaths. Blumenfeld confirmed EPA's commitment to working with state, federal and local partners to assess all of the environmental stressors affecting this rural community.

"These families are looking for answers, and collectively as public agencies it is our responsibility to help come up with those answers," said Blumenfeld. "We are engaging with those agencies and community members in order to understand and address public health and environmental issues in Kettleman City."

Blumenfeld announced he will take progressive strides forward and place special emphasis on EPA's environmental efforts in historically underserved and vulnerable communities. He also vigorously addressed the inequitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens throughout the region. The presidential appointee promised to renew environmental efforts in the Pacific Southwest.