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SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE
Introducing the Sustainable Environment Institute West LA College Offers Nation's First AA Degree in Climate and Environmental Studies Valley EcoAdvocates Working through the Summer The Revitalization of the LA River LA Harbor Opportunity for LACCD Students News Briefs |
Valley Student Activists Expand Their Efforts
Left: Students in the San Fernando Valley, including LAVC's EcoAdvocates, protest the LADWP gas fired power plant in Sun Valley. The Valley Sierra Club helped organize the protest. Eco Advocates, the Valley College environmental group, has been very busy this past year and through the summer. The ten-year-old club has been revitalized under the leadership of Eddie Kaufman-Morrow and Anahí Rizo, working closely with the Sierra Club’s Katya English. They have organized events ranging from Arbor Day (where they planted trees in honor of Armenians killed in the genocide) to a recent campus cleanup. EcoAdvocates also worked with the Valley Facilities Department to get refillable drinking water bottle stations installed in some buildings as a way to reduce the large quantity of plastic thrown into the waste on campus. Off campus, EcoAdvocates has been active in the Valley, especially in joining the fight against the Dept. of Water and Power’s renewal of its gas-fired plant in Sun Valley. This is one of four such plants the DWP currently operates. The giant utility recently announced that three will be closed in the next few years, but that the Sun Valley plant will remain open. This has met with considerable opposition from elected officials and neighborhood councils in the Valley. Students in the club have also helped the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy as it works to revitalize the tributaries of the Upper Los Angeles River system (see related article). The EcoAdvocates are one of the longest-running clubs at Valley College. They meet once a week during the school year and have an ambitious agenda for the fall, with a major recruitment drive planned. Recently they launched their first online newsletter, so we can all follow them.
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