Deadly Chemicals in the Beauty Industry

California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative

By Chella Strong and Samantha Kanofsky

If you are one of the millions of Americans who have received a salon manicure, pedicure or if you have even walked by a nail salon on the street you are surely familiar with the powerful noxious odor that wafts through the air. It is an odor that can cause lightheadedness and headaches for the recipient of a brief 20-minute manicure. For nail salon workers, the unpleasant odor is far more than a simple workplace annoyance. It is the byproduct of a deadly cocktail of chemicals emitted by solvents, glues and nail care products. These chemicals, with long-term exposure, have deadly effects. Many of these nail salon workers are young women of child-bearing age, and immigrants who do not have adequate access to healthcare. This exacerbates the risk of serious health problems—including cancer, respiratory illness, and reproductive harm—triggered by the toxic chemicals commonly found in salon products.

The California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative (CHNSC) is a group of environmental and community-based advocates who united in 2005 to address the urgent health and safety concerns of nail salon workers, owners and consumers. They demand the advancement of a preventative environmental health agenda for the nail salon sector in California. The Collaborative joined forces with allied groups to present a powerful and persuasive case to policymakers for the protection of nail salon workers, owners, and consumers.

They first helped to coordinate face-to-face meetings between members and allied groups for collective strategizing around the CHNSC mission. Over 100 nail salon community-members in Oakland, and more than 200 in Orange County, participated in these community forums to tell their stories and express their concerns. These allied groups were then able to dialogue directly with regulatory agencies about their needs, demanding change with a strong, unified voice. Not only did the Collaborative’s expanded outreach help to establish crucial relationships with powerful state agencies like the Board of Barbering & Cosmetology, CalOSHA and the Department of Toxic Substance Control, but the Collaborative’s work also led to empowerment within the coalition by revitalizing and expanding membership.

By spreading the word about the toxic chemicals threatening the health and safety of nail salon and beauty communities in California, the Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative is helping to blaze a trail toward a strong environmental agenda for worker health and justice and safe beauty products in California.

Paying for Poisoned Drinking Water?

Committee for a Better Alpaugh

By Chella Strong and Samantha Kanofsky

If your drinking water contained sand, a strong odor, high levels of chlorine, and at least 8.5 times the legal limit of arsenic, would you accept a rate increase of $20 per month? Neither would the residents of Alpaugh, an unincorporated town in Tulare County, California. When the residents of Alpaugh, the majority of who are low income agricultural or prison workers, found out that there were dangerously high levels of arsenic in their drinking water due to contaminated groundwater and dilapidated infrastructure, they decided to make their voices heard.

The Committee for a Better Alpaugh (CBA) is a grassroots, community-based organization that works to improve the environment, health, safety, and community welfare of all residents of Alpaugh. When the Alpaugh water board proposed a rate increase that would put a strain on low-income residents without taking care of the problem of toxic water, the community of Alpaugh loudly voiced its opposition. Through CBA’s organized advocacy and resistance, residents convinced the water board to increase rates only by $10 instead of the proposed $20 increase.

CBA was also instrumental in persuading the board to work with the community to develop a more just pricing structure through the use of tiered rates. This exciting landmark compromise represents the first time in recent history that the notoriously conservative water board was willing to alter its actions in response to the organized voicing of community concerns.

CBA increased education and awareness about the various health and justice issues impacting the lives of Alpaugh residents by focusing on achieving four major goals. These include continuing education and community outreach, building new leadership within people of color residents in the community, strengthening existing alliances and coalition building with other environmental justice organizations, and improving internal organizational capacity within CBA.

While there remains a great deal to be done to achieve healthy, clean water in Alpaugh, the CBA was able to help create a strategic plan for the Committee’s continued growth, ensuring sustained, vocal opposition to environmental injustices in Alpaugh.

Holding Chevron Accountable for Pollution Worldwide

FACES (Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity)

By Chella Strong and Samantha Kanofsky

Next to a quiet park where children play looms a landscape of giant Chevron oil storage tanks. At first glance, the two seem to coexist as unrelated entities. Upon closer investigation you’ll see that the sewage drains contain oil slicks, the trees are dying, the children suffer from asthma, the air is heavy with pollution. Aside from what is immediately visible is the fact that the refinery is a time bomb waiting to explode in the form of spills, leaks, toxic gas releases and air contamination. This scene is not one of a kind. It could be Richmond CA, Pandacan, Phlippines or one of the many other communities worldwide whose health, environment and livelihood Chevron has ravaged. The Chevron Corporation undoubtedly has a formidable team of lawyers protecting its interests around the globe. So who is there to demand Chevron’s accountability?

FACES, or the Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity has stepped up to the plate. Formed in February 2000, FACES is an intergenerational organization that works for environmental justice within communities in the United States and in the Philippines, and builds partnerships through advocacy, education, service, and organizing.

FACES organized and developed the multifaceted CAREnow! Campaign in 2008 to demand reparations and accountability for the actions of the Chevron Oil Company that endanger human health and the environment. FACES began to facilitate CAREnow! Workshops using a transnational environmental justice lens to draw parallels between Chevron’s environmentally-destructive activities in Pandacan, Philippines, and the toxic burden it dumps on local communities in California’s Bay Area. In March of 2009, FACES launched a letter-writing drive asking Chevron to “Go Green” for St. Patrick’s Day, and in April 2009, it joined a peaceful march at the Richmond Chevron refinery to protest Chevron’s planned refinery expansion that would increase toxic pollution in Bay Area communities.

At the annual Chevron shareholders meeting, FACES showed up at the gates of the Chevron World Headquarters in San Ramon, CA to advocate for global communities from Ecuador, Burma, Nigeria, and Richmond, CA,. In October, FACES representatives spoke at a series of events and press conferences during a landmark jury trial of Chevron in San Francisco, supporting the proceedings brought by the Nigerian plaintiffs against Chevron’s human rights abuses in Nigeria.

Aside from advocacy work, FACES has also coordinated and lead a Face2Face trip for young Filipino/Americans to travel to the Philippines and meet with grassroots environmental justice organizations and communities.