We are glad you are here Friday Feed – FERNs (#FFFHere are the stories that made us stop and reflect on this week’s events.
A retired fisherwoman wins against ocean plastic pollution
National Geographic
Three years ago, Diane Wilson and a few others spent hours combing through the Gulf Coast’s marshy grasses in search of tiny plastic pellets known as nurdles. This was almost every day. They found the pieces in lentil-size pieces all over, filled gallon bags full of them, and submerged bottles to collect water contaminated with raw plastic powder. Wilson, a retired shrimp boat captain, and fisherwoman loaded a trailer with 2,400 samples46 million individual pellets. Wilson drove her pickup truck into federal court to face Formosa Plastics. She won the case and it was the largest settlement ever for a Clean Water Act lawsuit.
Wage theft increases as guestworker ranks rise.
The Center for Public Integrity
According to Joe Yerardi and Susan Ferriss, U.S. employers were required to pay back more than $42.5million to 69,000 seasonal low-wage H-2A and H-2B visa holders from 2005 to 2020. Labor advocates are concerned that there are many more workers being cheated. They are also concerned about the fact that the Labor Department’s special oversight of guest workers is not keeping up with a rapid increase in workers. Closed cases involving violations of H-2A and H-2B visas have decreased by only 424 cases between 2011 and 2019, according to a Public Integrity analysis. Over the same period, the total number issued of annual guest worker visas increased by 106,000 to 302,000. Despite Trump’s rise in anti-foreign worker rhetoric, the demand for more visas is growing.
How Russia could use its influence to disrupt the global food supply chain
Politico
Russia was able to control nearly a third the world’s wheat exports after just one day. It also controlled three quarters the world’s sunflower oil exports. The invasion also resulted in substantial amounts of barley and other grain supply chains. Rohini Ralby, David Soud, and Ian Ralby wrote. Ukraine alone is responsible for 16 percent of world corn exports. It has also been one of the fastest-growing corn producers, which is critical for meeting China’s ever-growing demand for corn. Importantly, although hydrocarbon production can be increased in different locations to meet shifting requirements, grain production cannot. Even a major expansion cannot compensate for the immense amount of agricultural output Russia currently controls, either directly or indirectly.
The rise and decline of Oaklands Community Foods
Berkeleyside
Brahm Ahmadi understood that it would be difficult raising the money needed to build the first West Oakland grocery shop in 40 years. Alix Wall reports that even if the funds were raised, it was likely that it would be difficult to find a piece of property within the Bay Area’s competitive realty market. He couldn’t have anticipated that after he had raised the funds and found the site, some food distributors wouldn’t deliver to West Oakland because it wasn’t on their route. Then, a pandemic broke out in the world less than a year after the site opened.He said it will be interesting to see how the history of this event and the reasons we failed, and where the blame is placed. Will people admit that it was primarily bad timing. We opened and were hit by a pandemic. Or will they continue to view these neighborhoods as too risky for them to invest in?
Consultant who advocated irrigation with oil wastewater had ties in Big Oil
Inside Climate News
California’s Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board was under fire for allowing farmers oil field wastewater to be used to irrigate crops. This practice had been allowed for decades. After evidence showed that the testing and treatment of hazardous chemicals found in oil field wastewater for irrigation was not adequate, Liza Gross writes. The board hired GSI to study the issue and used that study to assure the general public that there had been no increased health risks to using water from oil wells to irrigate crops. It turned out that GSI had strong ties to the oil sector. GSI used to list Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Occidental Petroleum among its clients.