June 17, 2011
THERMAL, Calif. - Margarita Gamez stood in the baking heat Friday outside the trailer park where she lives with other farmworker families and begged visiting state lawmakers and environmental regulators to do something about the stench and dust from an abandoned dump across the street.
The trailer park was one of five stops on an "environmental justice" tour organized by community activists in Southern California's eastern Coachella Valley as they fight to clean up abandoned waste dumps, shoddy migrant housing and other hazards that are a fact of life in this poor, unincorporated region.
Story by Associated Press / Washington Post