Oil Trains Pose Threat to Lake Oroville and State’s Water Supply, SOOT Says Butte County supervisors mum on SLO rail expansion

Dave Garcia
Dave Garcia at Chico Certified Farmers Market

by Leslie Layton

Chico, with its state university, valley oaks, coffee shops and bike paths, feels more collegial than industrial, a place that’s far from the contamination and accidents that plague oil country. But the people in bright orange “Stop Toxic Oil Trains” T-shirts – they sometimes appear at Saturday Farmers Market and other events – say that when oil country rolls through Butte County, it brings accident potential here.

No one seems to be sure how many oil trains pass through the Feather River Canyon on Union Pacific’s (UP) Oroville route that snakes above the north fork of the Feather River, but the activists in orange T-shirts want to stop crude-by-rail shipments on that route. That’s because derailment and a spill of oil or another hazardous substance could contaminate Lake Oroville and poison the water supply that serves millions of Californians. read more

Political action committees spend big to oust Chico liberals PAC under state investigation avoids pre-election disclosure requirement

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BCAA flier

By Dave Waddell

A political action committee, under state investigation for its 2014 activities, again produced a slew of negative advertising this election year, flooding the mails with attacks on liberal candidates for Chico City Council.

The PAC, called Butte County Awareness and Accountability, is the subject of an ongoing probe by the Fair Political Practices Commission that resulted from a ChicoSol story that can be read here. Tom Kozik, a member of the Chico Municipal Airport Commission, is the PAC’s founder and treasurer. For years, Kozik was a leader of the Tea Party in Chico. read more

‘Door of Hope’ event opens wall that splits families Divided by an international border, families win a few minutes of respite from separation

by Bianca Quilantan

Laura Avila and her daughter Laura Vera Martinez waited nervously on the United States side of the border with her mother standing inches away from them in Mexico. Rusted pillars and steel mesh divided them. They could hear one another, but not touch.

Avila had driven 140 miles from Los Angeles to San Ysidro, a San Diego district and the last U.S. exit before entering Mexico. Her mother, Maria Socorro Martinez Lopez, had flown 1,821 miles from Puebla, Mexico, to Playas de Tijuana for a chance to see her daughter and granddaughter. read more

An Election That Will Change Lives Trying to breathe again

nataliecharlesworth

by Natalie Charlesworth

Nov. 8, 2016:  I sat in math class, frantically checking the presidential election polls every chance that I got. The numbers were so close. Hillary, Trump, Hillary again, and then back to Trump. Jumbled thoughts like ping-pong balls bounced back and forth in my mind. My palms, sweaty. My anxiety increasingly getting worse. I began to wonder, why I had even decided to attend class that day? I then put my phone down and got back to what I should have been doing –focusing on math. read more

Dakota Access Pipeline protest in Chico news photo of the week

photo by Karen Laslo

On the Nov. 15 #NoDAPL National Day of Action, Chico-area residents demonstrated in front of U.S. Bank, one of a number of American financial institutions said to be funding the Dakota Access Pipeline. According to the environmental advocacy organization Food & Water Watch, U.S. Bank has some $275 million invested. The pipeline would carry fracked oil from North Dakota to Illinois, and the Standing Rock Sioux are leading what is now an international movement to halt construction in order to protect the Missouri River and sacred grounds. read more

Trump presidency alarms immigrant community Advocates say take steps to prepare

photo by Karen Laslo

photo by Karen Laslo

by Leslie Layton

Immigrant rights advocates are bracing for an uphill fight in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential victory and encouraging people who could be harmed by an immigration crackdown to take steps now to protect themselves.

“We definitely have a fight ahead of us,” said Kamal Essaheb, director of policy and advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), “a fight against the criminalization of immigrants and people of color, a fight for true economic justice for a country where everybody, regardless of the color of their skin or immigration status, can seek opportunities to make their lives better. And immigrants, documented or not, will be a critical part of that fight.” read more