For Laura Ornelas and thousands of other South Stockton residents, harmful air pollution is a fact of life.
Hemmed in by freeways and rail lines and bordered by heavy industry and the Port of Stockton, the area has been dubbed an “Asthma Capital” by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.
Ornelas, who rents a house in the Boggs Tract neighborhood, says she has to wear a mask just to work outside, or to clean the soot off her car every few days. She said her 91-year-old mother’s mysterious cough worsened after they moved in at the start of the year.
“We just need to get out of here,” she said.
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Boggs Tract resident Laura Ornelas reads a flier posted in the neighborhood advertising a public meeting to discuss the GSNR wood pellet project. (Noah Haggerty / Los Angeles Times)
For Ornelas and her neighbors, local air pollution could get even worse if officials approve plans for a massive forest management and biofuel project that would harvest trees across California through wildfire mitigation work, process them into wood pellets at facilities in Lassen and Tuolumne counties and ship them off to Europe and Asia to burn for electricity.
All of the wood — more than 1 million tons of it every year — would converge at storage facilities at the Port of Stockton.
The proposal has alarmed local groups that say the community has suffered poor health and government neglect for far too long. They question whether the proposal will actually reduce the threat of wildfire, and wonder why South Stockton should shoulder the burden of increased truck and shipping pollution.
Read more: The Mountain fire was the third most destructive wildfire in a decade. These maps show why
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Environmental advocates also worry that the forest thinning portion of the project will focus more on biofuel companies’ bottom lines than forest health, doing little to prevent wildfires.
The enormous project has been proposed by Golden State Natural Resources, a nonprofit created by a coalition of rural county governments.
Heavy machinery transports logs at a Tuolumne County property where GSNR hopes to build a pellet processing plant. (Noah Haggerty / Los Angeles Times)
GSNR’s leaders — as well as many residents from Stockton to the Sierra foothills — view the project as a bold and much-needed step toward protecting California’s people and forests from wildfires, creating a renewable energy source and generating jobs.
GSNR claims that, although the project will release a significant amount of carbon into the air through operations and the trees that are burned for energy, the project could ultimately be carbon neutral — or even carbon negative — through the wildfires it prevents and the carbon re-absorbed by forests after they’re treated.
However, scientific studies have found that biofuel projects often fail to meet this benchmark, and sometimes even perform worse than coal. But researchers note that using more sustainable harvest practices, such as the wildfire mitigation work GSNR says it will perform, can result in lower carbon emissions.
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“I think what differentiates us is that we’re coming from this from a public agency ethos,” said Patrick Blacklock, president of GSNR. “We’re here to help our communities and invest in our communities.”
Megan Fiske, an environmental advocate with Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch, photographs a dogwood tree in Stanislaus National Forest. (Noah Haggerty / Los Angeles Times)
Sixty miles inland from Stockton, Megan Fiske, an environmental advocate with Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch, drove through the winding dirt roads of Stanislaus National Forest in her black Tacoma pickup. The understory of the ponderosa and sugar pine forest was speckled with manzanita, oak trees and dogwoods with yellow leaves, marking the start of fall.
Piles of twigs, pine needles and larger logs are scattered through the forest. The bases of many pine trunks were charred black — but the culprits weren’t a logging company or a wildfire. It was the U.S. Forest Service.
The agency’s SERAL project is one of the Forest Service’s 10 initial projects trailblazing an ambitious national, interagency plan to confront the crisis of worsening wildfires and protect vulnerable communities. (SERAL is short for Social and Ecological Resilience Across the Landscape.)
GSNR hopes to use leftover wood from projects like these to produce more than 1 million tons of pellets annually.
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Many forest health experts view prescribed burns as the golden standard of forest health management tools. But in many places where fire has been suppressed for decades — if not centuries — there’s often so much vegetation that even controlled burns run the risk of exploding into a megafire.
When the Forest Service performs mechanical thinning, it often leaves piles of logs that cannot be sold. The GSNR project hopes to use such logs in its biofuel business. (Noah Haggerty / Los Angeles Times)
So, forest experts must turn to another tool.
Mechanical thinning does much of the work of prescribed burning methodically by hand: cutting down small trees, removing brush, pruning the lower limbs of larger trees so fire can’t climb up into the canopy.
Once all this vegetation is chopped, it’s typically thrown into piles in the forest, which are then burned.
GSNR wants to process this wood instead, and also conduct its own mechanical thinning work.
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In 2021, a task force created by Gov. Gavin Newsom found that California needs to treat roughly 1 million acres of forest with mechanical thinning and prescribed burns every year to prevent the dangerous buildup of flammable vegetation that can fuel devastating wildfires, but in the 2023-24 fiscal year, California treated just over 130,000 acres.
Megan Fiske stands in a clear-cut logging site. She and other forest advocates fear that the GSNR biofuel project would open the door to similar practices. (Noah Haggerty / Los Angeles Times)
GSNR plans to thin up to 85,000 acres every year. But whereas mechanical thinning projects like SERAL are backed by decades of forest science, some activists and forest watchers worry financial pressures could push GSNR to go too far.
Most forest health experts agree that trees with a diameter at chest height of around 16 inches are fair game for mechanical thinning work. But while GSNR’s draft environmental impact report guides its projects to follow this consensus, it leaves the door open for the nonprofit to chop down trees with a diameter of up to 30 inches.
GSNR says that it will do its best to stick to 16 inches and under, but that some situations may warrant larger trees to get the chop. It has yet to explicitly define which situations would allow for this exception.
Activists worry that, if GSNR is struggling to meet its production goals, it could abuse this ambiguity to cut larger trees in a wide range of circumstances.
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“That’s why we’re going through this process — to get that feedback, to get the recommendations,” Blacklock said of concerns about the size of trees allowed to be taken. “Are there ways to tighten it up, to alleviate those concerns? … If so, then we would absolutely consider it and build it into the final” environmental impact report.
Parts of South Stockton already have worse air quality than 99% of the state.
In the most affected neighborhoods, residents have a life expectancy 13 years lower than the state’s average. They are also 60% more likely to die of a respiratory disease and almost twice as likely to die of heart disease.
“Asthma is so accepted in our community that it’s like getting glasses,” said Dillon Delvo, co-founder of Little Manila Rising, a group that was created to protect the city’s Filipino neighborhood — once the largest population of Filipinos outside the Philippines — from getting bulldozed.
The air near the Port of Stockton already fails to meet state and federal regulations on particulate matter made up of soot, metals, construction dust and smoke. A draft of GSNR’s environmental impact report found that the project would worsen the pollution by roughly 2%.
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The pellet facility operations would also exacerbate nitrous oxide air pollution — which can cause eye irritation, nausea and respiratory issues — by roughly 18%, in violation of local air standards, according to the report.
“It’s not just the fact that they’re trying to bring these industries in,” Delvo said, “but they’ve come at a cost specifically to the health of South Stockton residents.”
In 2015, a San Joaquin County grand jury found that South Stockton — cut off from the north by a cross-town freeway — had been largely neglected by City Hall for years.
Through the early 2000s, Delvo and Little Manila Rising co-founder Dawn Mabalon successfully got the city to designate the Filipino neighborhood within South Stockton, just a few miles southeast of Boggs Tract, as a historic site and fended off an eight-square-block project to demolish homes and replace them with a strip mall. But they struggled to get environmental justice programs off the ground.
Gloria Estefani Alonso Cruz, environmental justice advocacy coordinator at Little Manila Rising, reflects at an altar for co-founder Dawn Mabalon, who died of an asthma attack in 2018. (Noah Haggerty / Los Angeles Times)
“The city refused to partner with us, which is insane,” Delvo said. “All the data shows — obviously, it’s in the 100% percentile for asthma-related issues. You built a freeway next to places where there are families and children and schools. They’re all breathing that air.”
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Then, in 2018, Mabalon suddenly died of an asthma attack at age 46.
“I didn’t really understand that a diagnosis at the age of 11 could mean a death sentence at the age of 46,” Delvo said. “It took Dawn’s death for me to understand that.”
In the years since, Little Manila Rising has seen significant progress. It started a program — Decreasing Asthma Within Neighborhoods (DAWN), named after Mabalon — aimed at helping residents manage their asthma.
The city is also starting to see millions from investments announced in 2017 to clean up its air and address environmental inequities.
Delvo and Gloria Estefani Alonso Cruz, Little Manila’s environmental justice advocacy coordinator, view the GSNR project as a betrayal of these promises.
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Although GSNR’s environmental review found that an increase in pollution in violation of current standards is unavoidable, Blacklock said GSNR hopes to support efforts to electrify port operations to reduce pollution. In October, the port won a $110-million federal grant to do so.
GSNR also claims the pollution from the port would pale in comparison with pollution created from wildfires — including in the Stockton area.
Particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in size, PM2.5, sits at a concentration around 40 micrograms per cubic meter in Stockton, but the 2020 August Complex fires raised that level to more than 70 for multiple days. GSNR’s project would raise pollution levels by roughly 1 microgram per cubic meter for the duration of its operations in the port area.
Industrial buildings stand at the Port of Stockton. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
In general, chronic exposure to PM2.5 can result in health outcomes eight times worse than short-term exposures from sources such as wildfires, according to Joel Schwartz, a professor of environmental epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
However, he noted, GSNR’s project could potentially reduce short-term exposures for many more people than the number for whom it would worsen chronic exposures, likely resulting in a net positive.
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That’s a troubling prospect for area residents.
“I want prosperity in our community, “ Delvo said. “I am not against economic development. I want more of our young people to be able to go off to college and come back and have jobs here. … We’re just concerned about — why is the cost always the health of our community?”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A California man was charged Tuesday after authorities say he brought an explosive device and other weapons through a security checkpoint at Sacramento International Airport.
Kimani Osayande Jones, who also uses the last name Jackson,attempted to bring an improvised explosive device, a knife and other bladed weapons, a torch lighter and zip ties through a TSA security checkpoint on May 30, according to court documents filed Tuesday in the Eastern District of California.
Officials believe Jones, 49, repeatedly called the FBI tip line to report he was being threatened and intimidated in the months leading up to the incident.
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office bomb technicians safely removed the explosive device and tested its powder and fuse, both of which were determined to be “viable and energetic,”officials say.
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Investigators said the device had the potential to damage an aircraft and cause a loss of cabin pressure.
Jones’ other luggage, which had already been through security and loaded onto an American Airlines flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, was hand-searched and examined by a canine unit upon arrival, and investigators said nothing “illegal or concerning” was found.
Jones has been chargedin federal courtwith unlawful possession of explosive material at an airport. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
His attorney, Meghan McLoughlin, told CNN in a statement: “There is often more to these cases than the government’s allegations, and that the criminal process will reveal Mr. Jones’ story as well.”
Multiple cell phones and repeated FBI tip line calls
The Sacramento resident went through security on May 30 wearing a face covering and blue latex gloves, court documents say.
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When officers found the explosive device and other items in Jones’ carry-on bag, he told them he was unaware the items were in his possession and said “he would be okay with just discarding them.”When authorities informed him that explosive material could not simply be thrown away, he denied ownership of the backpack.
Jones also had five mobile phones in his possession. The cameras on each phone had been covered with painter’s tape, which authorities believe was intended to prevent his surroundings from being recorded.
One phone contained a 15-minute timer ready to start and another had a message from an unknown number on the screen stating, “we will be awaiting your call,” according to court documents.
An individual police believe to be Jones made approximately 13 calls to the FBI tip line leading up to the incident,beginning in March.
On May 24, the caller reported being followed to and from a doctor’s appointment and described what he said were threats and intimidation by another individual.
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He said he was “being coerced in sleep to say certain phrases through digital media” and described “hearing sounds coming through walls, window panes, or even outside, attributing the outside sounds to drones,” court documents say. The call was ultimately terminated because of its “nonsensical nature.”
On the day of the incident, the same caller again contacted the FBI tip line, alleging that several individuals were threatening him throughout the past year through “cyber means.” He also referenced exercising his Second Amendment rights while denying any intention to harm others.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office also noted it had prior contact with Jones, “wherein he had a history of being paranoid.”
Hilton, Becerra lead California governor primary results
Vote counting continued after California’s primary election for governor with just over half of the results in.
Although results from California’s primary election began rolling in on Tuesday, June 2, it could take days or even weeks before the final counts are certified.
“This is normal … We have a process that by law ensures both voting rights and the integrity of elections, so I would call on all Californians to be patient,” Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber said in a June 2 news release.
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The Golden State’s lengthy vote-counting process has “become a national narrative about California elections,” according to Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego.
“In California, it takes a long time to certify votes, to verify the signatures, to then count the ballots; all of that process takes a while,” Kousser said in an interview last week. “It may take a while for us to learn who the top candidates who emerge are.”
Here are some factors behind California’s lengthy vote-counting process.
Mail-in ballots come with added verification step
With each mail-in ballot cast, elections officials must compare the signature on a returned vote-by-mail envelope to the voter’s signature on their voter registration card. Various factors go into determining whether the signatures match, including the slant of the signature, whether it is printed or written in cursive, and the size, proportions, or scale.
Vote-by-mail ballots were Californians’ preferred voting method in both the 2024 primary and general elections, with drop-off locations — such as ballot drop boxes and voting centers — the most popular way to return mail-in ballots.
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During California’s 2024 primary, more than 7.7 million votes were cast statewide, and 90 percent of those were mail-in ballots. This means election officials had to verify the signatures on more than 6.8 million ballots before they could be counted. For the November 2024 general election, 80% of cast ballots, or about 13 million, were vote-by-mail.
Reviewing conditional voter and provisional ballots
California also allows for same-day voter registration, also known as conditional voter registration. Voters who need to register, or re-register, within 14 days of an election can do so at their county elections office, polling place, or vote center. These ballots will be processed and counted after the county elections office has completed the voter registration process.
In addition to conditional voter ballots, there are provisional ballots that must be verified before they are counted. Voters cast provisional ballots for a wide array of reasons, including if their name does not appear at a polling place or if they’ve made a mistake on their ballot. After a voter casts a provisional ballot, it will not be counted until election officials have confirmed that the voter is registered to vote in that county and has not already voted in that election.
Vote-by-mail ballots can be sent on Election Day
Though state officials recommend voters mail their ballots sooner rather than later, state law allows vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive within a specified window afterward, thereby extending the tallying process.
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For the primary, ballots needed to be postmarked on or before June 2 and received by county elections office no later than June 10.
California is, well, big
California is the most populous state in the nation. And, as of May 18, a record total of 23,155,447 Californians were registered to vote.
While not all registered voters are expected to have voted, county election officials estimate that more than 5 million ballots were cast statewide.
When to expect final results
Under state law, county elections officials are required to report the results for most ballots by June 15, or 13 days after the election, according to Weber. However, some ballots can take counties up to 30 days to count every ballot and then conduct a post-election audit.
State law requires county elections officials to report final official results to state officials July 3. State officials then have until July 10 to certify the results of the election.
California’s crowded, protracted gubernatorial primary is going to take a little more time to settle.
The race remained too early to call Wednesday morning with 50% of the expected vote counted, according to NBC News’ Decision Desk. Three main candidates — former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican, and two Democrats, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and billionaire activist Tom Steyer — are competing for two spots in the general election, with the candidate in fourth place, Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, running well behind.
Hilton had 27% support in the all-party primary with about half of votes still left to count, while Becerra had 26% and Steyer had 20%. Bianco was the only other candidate in double digits, at 11%.
In California, all candidates run on the same primary ballot in the primary and the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, move on to the general election.
It’s difficult to say when it will be clear which two candidates advance to the November general election, however, due to the state’s protracted vote counting.
And with millions of ballots left to count, other key races in California remain uncalled as well, including the second runoff spot to face Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass one on one in November, several House races that could help determine the majority next year, and more.
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In the governor’s race, all three candidates rallied supporters around the state as the evening drew on.
“We’re not there yet, but it’s looking good,” Hilton told allies. “It looks very much as if Californians really will have the chance to vote for change in November and take our state in a new direction, a fresh start for our state, which is long overdue.”
But while Hilton was narrowly in first place when he spoke, Democratic candidates were capturing the majority of the votes.
Becerra looked back at his own “underdog story,” from his immigrant relatives to his bid for governor, which took some time to catch fire.
“Almost immediately, he’s counted out, an afterthought, overlooked by many, outspent by a ton, even called along the way to drop out and save us the trouble,” Becerra recounted to his supporters. “Well, guess what? The underdog stayed in the fight. Like my parents, I never gave up.”
Steyer struck a hopeful note in his election night speech despite a deficit in the vote count.
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“It might take some time to figure out where this is going, we’re going to wait till every ballot is counted, we’re going to give democracy a time to work, and we know we finished really strong,” Steyer said.
Major battleground districts
GOP Rep. David Valadao’s district has been one of Democrats’ top targets for years, but two Democrats are locked in a close race for the second spot in the November general election against the incumbent.
School board member Randy Villegas, who won support from national progressives, has a slight lead over state legislator Jasmeet Bains, 30% to 26%, with less than half of the expected vote tallied in the 22nd District. Valadao is comfortably in first place.
And in Northern California’s 6th District, Rep. Kevin Kiley — who was elected as a Republican and switched to become an independent this election cycle, as he runs in another newly redrawn district — is bunched up in a tight race that includes Democrat Richard Pan, a former state legislator, and Republican Michael Stansfield. Currently, Stansfield is running ahead of Pan; they spent much of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning trading the lead, which could have significant general election implications.
Meanwhile, outside California, Democrats think they might be able to challenge for one of Montana’s red-tinted congressional districts this fall, after Rep. Ryan Zinke decided to retire. But less than 2 percentage points separate Democrats Sam Forstag and Ryan Busse with more than 85% of the expected vote tallied in their primary in Montana’s 1st District.
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Read more about Tuesday’s House primaries here.
A safe seat battle to watch
Plenty of other House districts in California — and a few elsewhere — still have unsettled primaries, but one attracted particular attention due to how nasty the campaign got.
In Southern California, where two Republican incumbents are facing off in one district due to redistricting, Rep. Ken Calvert has advanced to the general election, but Rep. Young Kim is still battling for the second spot. She leads Democrat Esther Kim-Varet in the race for second, 22% to 16%, with about half of the vote in.
Who will face Bass in Los Angeles?
While Bass is projected to advance to a November runoff in Los Angeles, it’s not yet clear whether she’ll face Republican Spencer Pratt or Democrat Nithya Raman.
Bass has about 37% of the vote to 29% for Pratt and 21% for Raman so far, with approximately half of the expected vote tallied.
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Speaking to supporters on election night, Raman, a member of the Los Angeles City Council, said that “tonight may not give us a final answer on this race.”
“Many thousands of votes will be counted in the days ahead, and we may not get an answer we like, but regardless of what happens next, nobody, nobody can take away what all of us have built together,” she continued.
Pratt, meanwhile, was looking ahead to a potential matchup with Bass when he spoke to reporters.
“Now I have five months to get deep into every community that hasn’t heard my message to make them safe,” said Pratt, a former reality TV star. “So I’m actually very excited, because I felt very rushed. It’s a big city, and I was not able to talk to as many people as I look forward to talking to.”
Bass also projected optimism, telling her backers, “We got a lot more to go, but so far it’s looking good.”
