Latino Conservation Week kicks off this weekend with dozens of events in California and almost 300 meetups across the nation. The program started ten years ago with just 16 events, meant to get the Hispanic community outdoors and motivated to protect the environment.

Juan Rosas, conservation program associate with the Hispanic Access Foundation, said hard-working Californians need to enjoy the state's beautiful parks, mountains, desert and beaches.

"In a generation where technology is winning, and everyone's indoors under fluorescent lights, we're seeing depression rise," he said. "There is a lot of healing when we go outside and get some vitamin D from the sun, breathe fresh air, put our toes in the sand, be able to sit under a tree."

The organizers are pressing President Joe Biden to establish a new Chumash National Marine Sanctuary along the central coast, and to expand the San Gabriel National Monument near L.A. and the Berryessa Snow National Monument up north. People can find out more about the festivities on the website LatinoConservationWeek.com.

Rosas added California's heavily Latino inner cities need more local parks where people can unwind.

"When someone lives up in the hills and has a lot of the money, I mean, they can go walk their dog outside, and they're in it," he explained. "But when you're living in the middle of el barrio in East L.A., we definitely need to see more safe, clean, green spaces for our recreation for the public, for mental, spiritual, emotional and physical health."

Next month, the Hispanic Access Foundation will launch an air-quality monitoring program called "El Aire que Respiramos", which means "The air we breathe." It is a collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency that will place air-monitoring equipment in Los Angeles, La Mirada, San Bernardino and Thermal.


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Nearly 100 probationary workers for the Environmental Protection Agency in Chicago have had their jobs cut and then reinstated in the last month. They have also been ordered to close all environmental justice offices in the agency, affecting another 30 employees in the region.

The latest threat is the possible closure of the EPA's Office of Research and Development, which could mean firing more than 1,000 scientists and support staff.

Nicole Cantello, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704, which represents workers in the six Great Lakes area states, said the changes have put public safety and the environment at risk.

"There really is a connection between EPA and saving lives," Cantello pointed out. "No one knows what we do until we stop doing it, and then they feel the effects. But there are EPA employees here in Chicago that are protecting you every single day."

Issues they cover include dangerous pollution in air and drinking water, and the environmental aftermath of disasters like train derailments or oil spills. The EPA is calling Tuesday a National Day of Action, with demonstrations planned in at least eight cities across the country.

Cantello noted the agency uses the rules set by its scientific research teams to monitor for air quality and water quality problems and alert the public.

"When the Trump administration takes away the scientists, they take away EPA's ability to address emerging environmental problems that haven't yet been studied but we use our scientists to tell us how to address," Cantello explained.

Cantello added proposed cuts could also affect the BEACH Act, which for more than two decades has covered EPA monitoring of coastal recreation waters. She stressed it would put the Great Lakes at risk.

"If we don't implement the BEACH Act anymore, then we won't be able to tell whether or not our beaches are safe," Cantello emphasized. "Especially from things like E. coli, which, lots of times, there's beaches shut down because of that."

The Trump administration called the cuts necessary to curb government waste and spending.


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Michigan environmental groups are pushing back as Enbridge's Line 5 tunnel faces "emergency" review, potentially bypassing full scrutiny and public input.

The move comes after President Donald Trump's executive order declared a national energy emergency to fast-track infrastructure projects. Environmental groups warn a Line 5 tunnel leak threatens the Great Lakes.

Sean McBrearty, campaign coordinator for the advocacy group Oil and Water Don't Mix, believes public outcry over the past week, led the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to remove 600 emergency-designated projects, including Line 5, from its website.

"Now we don't know whether they've changed the status of those projects or the proposed status of those projects," McBrearty pointed out. "Or whether they're still doing the same thing and just attempting to hide it from the public."

The tunnel would replace lake bed pipelines beneath the Straits of Mackinac with a concrete-lined enclosure for Line 5. In a recent statement Enbridge said, in part, Michigan approved environmental permits and tunnel placement for Line 5, but after nearly five years, the project still awaits a U.S. Army Corps decision on its environmental impact.

Meanwhile, the Michigan Court of Appeals recently upheld state permits for the tunnel, allowing Enbridge to move forward. McBrearty argued Enbridge lacks tunnel-building experience, calling them "ditch diggers" and labeling Line 5 a high-risk, low-reward venture.

"This tunnel would be actually the highest pressurized tunnel in the world, if it's built," McBrearty noted. "Pressure down there is measured at seventeen atmospheres - five atmospheres is enough to kill somebody. That shouldn't be rushed through as an emergency under any circumstances."

Enbridge maintains the Line 5 tunnel enhances pipeline safety, ensures energy reliability, supports jobs, and has 70% of Michiganders' support.

The Trump administration has begun to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency's office dealing with reducing environmental harms to minority and low-income communities who have faced the brunt of climate change and pollution.

More than 160 staffers in the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights were put on paid administrative leave last week. Combined with two other offices in 2022, more than 200 staffers work for the office.

Adrienne Hollis, vice president of environmental justice, health and community resilience and revitalization for the National Wildlife Federation, said the office has an important role in making sure environmental health efforts are distributed equitably.

"The Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights focuses on issues that affect communities and groups of people that are disproportionately impacted by environmental issues, or disproportionately impacted when rules and regulations are not followed," Hollis explained. "Or even when there are issues around site cleanup."

The office was first created by former President George H.W. Bush in 1992. Since 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency has conducted more than 300 reviews of civil rights compliance, including eight in the Commonwealth.

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order working to disband environmental justice offices across the federal government. The administration has taken down a decades-old tool to track environmental burdens across the country.

Hollis noted some of the Commonwealth's most vulnerable communities will be the most negatively affected by these major rollbacks - and potential shutterings.

"It's going to affect the ability of communities and advocates and activists to really focus on these specific environmental outcomes that are related to systemic racism," Hollis emphasized. "They're place-based, they're based on race, and they're exacerbated by climate change."

The administration has begun to break up the Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division. The cuts are part of the government cuts Trump promised during his campaign.