In a first for Lompoc, the city now has an environmental justice element.
City staff may have swung this one through the council in the nick of time!
Mayor Jenelle Osborne is on the way out and Mayor Elect Jim Mosby is on his way in. I can’t imagine any sort of environmental justice anything happening under his watch. But this little element isn’t really going to do much anyway.
As Osborne said, “Identifying current issues that impact the least among us the hardest is one of those ways we lift the community up.”
I guess.
As part of the groundwork for the element, city staff conducted a study where it found that five areas of the city are severely impacted by pesticides—not surprising at all. Pesticide exposure risk in those segments of Lompoc are 83 to 85 percent higher than in other areas of the state! These census tracts have low-income residents and disproportionate pollution burdens, health impacts, and socioeconomic barriers.
So what’s the solution? Mitigate pesticide exposure by prioritizing health and safety impacts when it makes future land use decisions.
Slow clap. How is that not already a thing?
Oh, and also to encourage the Santa Barbara County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office to educate the community about the health impacts of pesticide use. Another slow clap. Again, why isn’t that happening already?
Shouldn’t we build a wall or something? Isn’t that the answer to all problems?
Seriously, though. A wall between these areas of the city impacted by pesticide exposure and the fields those pesticides drift in from might help at least a little bit.
We should know where pesticide exposure risks are higher than they should be. Everyone in Lompoc, Santa Maria, Guadalupe, Orcutt, Los Alamos, and the Santa Ynez Valley should know what they’re being exposed to already. All this agriculture doesn’t come without consequences.
Someone should talk to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors about it. That body is action-oriented! Well, mostly. The county recently extended its moratorium on switching senior mobile home parks to all-ages parks, even after it was sued over the issue in November!
Apparently, 21 parks could potentially be impacted by that decision and any future ones the county may make. Del Cielo Mobile Estates—the park that started this chapter in the county’s policy history—is one such park. Its owners allege that the moratorium prevents Del Cielo from complying with federal law prohibiting discrimination.
“County efforts to require parks to engage in familial, racial, and ethnic discrimination of housing are unlawful,” according to a letter from the park owner’s attorney.
The moratorium isn’t encouraging discrimination—even familial discrimination. As long as there’s a senior in the residence, families with children are welcome to live in these homes. But what do I know?
Steve Wagner, the associate manager for the North Santa Barbara County Golden State Manufactured Homeowners League, said he was impressed with how fast the county moved.
“I didn’t have any faith that you folks would do what you did or the speed with which you did it,” he said.
The Canary has faith in government—sometimes. Send questions to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 12-22, 2024.