Also posted on sdnn.com, San Diego News Network.

Hope Goodwin moved to Valley Center to retire with her mother, Joye, two decades ago.

Together, the two raised championship horses and Great Danes, grew dozens of organic fruits and vegetables and were about to go into the business of farming organic garlic and Sea-buckthorn.

It was a return to a life of farming but a break from Joye’s previous life — a nurse for more than four decades, and founder of Children Having Children, a southeast San Diego non-profit that supports teen parents and works to prevent teen pregnancy.

But the Goodwins’ lives would forever change on Nov. 16, 2006, when an EDCO garbage truck lifting a dumpster in their back yard ruptured a hydraulic line, spraying fluid on to the ground, into the air and across the property.

Joye, who was gardening outside and already had trouble breathing, may have inhaled some of the fluid.

“We could smell the fumes in the house for weeks,” Hope Goodwin said.

The mature cottonwood trees near the spill would eventually die, as well as fruit trees and crops planted in the ground farther away. The Ice Man, a 23-year-old Irish-bred thoroughbred, had to be put down. Another horse lost 300 lbs. Alraune, a German-bred Holsteiner, may have had cancer.

Finally Joye’s health deteriorated. She died in the morning hours of March 20, 2009, the first day of spring.

“All we wanted them to do in the beginning was to clean up and put things back the way they were,” Goodwin said.

She wants to leave the property but claims no real estate agent will list it. Her lawsuit against EDCO — for the depletion in property value and emotional damages for the waste collection company allegedly failing to finish necessary cleanups — is set to go to trial in March.

Goodwin still doesn’t know exactly what was in the potentially toxic hydraulic fluid she, her mother, the plants and animals were exposed to. Anywhere from 15 to 36 gallons of hydraulic fluid was spilled; the actual amount is disputed by both sides.

Cleaning up the mess

After the spill occurred, an EDCO cleanup crew came to the house and worked two hours that afternoon and six the next day.

In all, 400 pounds of contaminated soil was removed from the property, EDCO vice president Jeff Ritchie said in an e-mail. He added that EDCO contends the alleged change in property value to be without merit.

Soil was removed within a 20-foot radius of the spill and oil absorbent rags were placed on the brick patio, said EDCO director of fleet maintenance Garth Nogalez.

Arrangements were made for an additional cleanup the morning of Nov. 22, 2006, but EDCO employees claim Hope wasn’t cooperative.

Goodwin said she had a doctor’s appointment that day and needed to bring the dogs to the veterinarian and didn’t want a cleanup done without either she or her mother there to see it. But she canceled her appointments and called the Valley Center Fire Department to supervise a third cleanup.

“My impression was that (the EDCO employees) went above and beyond as far as clean up is concerned,” Captain Saul Villa Gomez stated in a deposition.

Though a report was filed by the department, neither Gomez nor anyone else at the scene had any particular experience with hydraulic fluid or petroleum hydrocarbons, said Goodwin’s attorney Mark Plummer.

“He wouldn’t know a toxic chemical if he fell over it so his opinion is meaningless due to a complete lack of training in the field,” he said.

An offer was made for remaining cleanup to be done by an EDCO employee but Goodwin and her mother declined.

“It seemed as though as soon as I told her a professional was coming out there, she did not want us to do the cleanup,” said Kelly Roe, an EDCO interim safety director. Especially after a worker told them he “had been up all night doing his homework,” they didn’t trust his qualifications and wanted a neutral professional to finish cleanups, according to the lawsuit.

Soil analysis ordered by EDCO and performed by Bryant Geoenvironmental in Spring 2007 said further investigation was needed, but recommended additional removal and testing. EDCO contends it attempted to do this but their efforts were rejected by Hope Goodwin, a claim she denies.

An estimate requested by the Goodwins and carried out by Advanced Cleanup Technologies in October 2008 said a more extensive cleanup, including the removal of the brick patio and allegedly impacted portions of roof tiles and windows, would cost more than $175,000.

Goodwin claims that because EDCO employees had no specific knowledge or training on how to properly clean up hydraulic fluid, no consideration was made of oil which may have seeped underneath the brick patio or spread further from the direct site of the spill.

From square dancing to paranoia

As the back and forth continued, Joye Goodwin’s health got worse. Dr. Karen Ziolo, a pulmonary specialist and one of several doctors she went to see after the accident, suggested the women leave their home for a hotel, which they did for the two weeks they could afford it.

“Within a week or so of being back, she couldn’t breathe again. She was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital,” Hope said.

According to Dr. Dan Harper, another doctor Joye visited after the accident, her pre-existing conditions included chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD from smoking cigarettes, colon cancer 10 years prior, a heart attack and reactive airways disease as a child.

Harper is certified by nationally recognized boards to practice holistic and family medicine, eligible for certification from the American Academy of Environmental Medicine and has 35,000 hours of emergency room experience. He examined Joye five times, most recently less than six months before her death.

The Goodwins are chemically sensitive, said Harper, meaning they have a genetic predisposition that makes them especially sensitive to chemicals. People can be chemically sensitive just like they can have allergies, he said.

“Eighty percent of the world could handle it just fine. You expose them to this harsh a chemical and they’re doomed,” Harper said.”If you take a detailed history and how they were before and after, that’s how you start building a case for chemical sensitivity.

“This lady was square dancing a month before the accident,” he said. Afterward “she could not finish a complete sentence at times, she was afraid, very paranoid. She wasn’t crazy. The paranoia she was having was coming from the chemical exposure,” he said.

Over the duration he saw her, Harper said Joye had a stroke and several mini strokes, an abdominal aneurysm, a drop in her white blood cell count, declining liver function, blood clots in her legs which had never happened before, a lung infection and chronic bronchitis.

“When you get to be 84, 85 years old, there’s a lot of water under the bridge” he said. “But here was a lady that was functioning and taking care of her sick daughter when this happened.”

At the time of the accident, Hope was bedridden, after surgery for a hernia.

Following the spill, Hope had dermatitis as well as brain fog or short-term memory loss, Harper said.

“I’ve had parts of my body that haven’t stopped itching since the spill,” Goodwin said.

Her mother’s symptoms were consistent with exposure to neurotoxins but also to old age, Plummer said. With pre-existing conditions and without knowing what is in the mixture, it can’t be conclusively proven the oil had anything to do with her death.

“Hydraulic fluid doesn’t generally make the grade for toxic things but can be especially bad when you’re already a mess,” Plummer said.

What was in the fluid?

All hydraulic fluids are not created equal, Plummer said. Ingredients depend on where and when it was manufactured.

“If they had barrel numbers, Chevron could tell us,” Plummer said. But “EDCO refused to give us an example and now claim they don’t have a viable sample.”

“It’s a legal inference that when someone has control of evidence and loses or destroys it,” there’s something to hide, he added.

A 1989 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) document listed the fluid as made up of 11 different hydrocarbons, two deemed toxic: paraffinic, which may cause cancer, and napthenic, which may be poisonous to the nervous system or cause brain damage. Any part of those 11 ingredients make up 99 percent of the fluid, the document stated.

The presence of these two hydrocarbons prompted John Anderson, senior engineering geologist for the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board (WQCB), to request EDCO do an additional cleanup and test the soil and water for contamination levels in a May 2007 letter.

Anderson cited the 1989 document and unpublished studies of paraffinic by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and American Petroleum Institute, as having the ability to cause “dermal sensitization, chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity” or the ability to cause cancer, in the letter.

A profile of petroleum hydrocarbons by the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control said some compounds can affect the central nervous system, skin and eyes as well as the “blood, immune system, liver, spleen, kidneys, developing fetuses and lungs.”

The WQCB was exclusively concerned with potential water contamination, Anderson said in a fall 2008 deposition, and expressed concern for a well on the Goodwins’ property that reportedly goes 10-feet deep, and the neighbor’s well that goes 3-feet deep.

No samples of the soil were requested from EDCO and no visits were made by WQCB officials to the Goodwin residence.

Anderson declined to be interviewed for the story because of continuing legal action. According to the deposition, he took on the case as a courtesy to the Goodwins.

“It was never really an official case, to be quite honest about it,” Anderson said. Instead, it was “kind of a follow-up to a complaint rather than an ongoing case that needed to be solved.”

The cleanup was requested, not demanded, because that would be “an ultraconservative approach to dealing with the matter,” Anderson said. “I didn’t think it was necessary. But as a good neighbor policy for dealing with the issue at hand, it would be, perhaps, going the extra mile to remove these soils.”

Though the initial letter claimed parts of the soil to be potentially cancerous or damaging to the nervous system or the brain, the recommended cleanup was revoked a year later by WQCB executive officer John Robertus only two days before a trial was set to begin, stating the agency was no longer concerned with water contamination.

“The ‘no further action’ letter does not address the issue of whether the property represents a danger of toxic exposure to humans,” Robertus’ letter said. “The Regional Board’s investigation in this matter focused solely on the potential for significant impacts to water quality.”

Soil samples taken in September 2008 had similar findings to tests done a year prior by Bryant Geoenvironmental, according to Plummer, which initially motivated the WQCB to request more cleanup.

A third soil analysis was done in November 2008 by mortgage owner Deutsche Bank, also a party to the lawsuit, since the Goodwins, adamant to move, stopped paying their mortgage.

Anderson and the WQCB were made party to a lawsuit the Goodwins filed against EDCO, but were declared immune and dismissed from case in August 2009 by a North County court, since neither the government nor its employees can be considered liable for statements made in connection to pending investigations.

Blayne Hartman visited the Goodwin home, walked the property with Hope Goodwin and conducted a soil sample analysis at her request in September 2008. Hartman is a nationally-recognized expert in soil sampling who has provided training to county and state agencies in more than 30 states and was co-founder and principal geochemist for H&P Mobile Geochemistry before starting his own firm.

“The aerial extent of the claimed contamination was minimal,” he said, adding that he didn’t find a risk to human health and called trying to prove an impact to the Goodwins’ health “a long shot.” It can’t be definitively concluded that high hydrocarbon levels found in tests were from the amount of organic matter in the pesticide-free soil or from hydraulic fluid.

The key to both analyses, he said, is that no volatile organic compounds or VOC’s were detected.

“The VOCs are the compounds that are a risk to human health, not the TRPH” or total recoverable petroleum hydrocarbons, he said. “The only way TRPH might be a health risk is if you ate the soil.”

Dr. Harper has a different view.

“There is no way they are able to recover as long as they are on that land,” he said.

Osman Osman, 38, is a security guard who works 40 hours a week at construction sites, then cleans houses and businesses.

He took out a $10,000 loan to expand his company American Cleaning Expert, $7,000 for more carpet and window cleaning equipment.

Growing his business allowed him to quit delivering newspapers at 3 or 4 in the morning. With a few more contracts, he can quit the security jobs and provide more work to other refugees and asylum seekers.

“Someone comes from Africa and he cant speak English very good,” he said. “I can help those guys build their language and stuff and survive as a refugee also.”

By making small loans to entrepreneurs like Osman, the International Rescue Committee’s microenterprise program has helped create or expand 150 refugee small businesses and create at least 200 jobs since the program’s start 10 years ago, said Joel Chrisco who helps run the program.

Businesses created or expanded include artists, handymen, janitorial, childcare, catering and restaurants, limousine and taxi companies, used car and towing businesses.

In this video, hear the stories of two business owners.

Microenterprises are generally defined as businesses with five or fewer employees. It’s a form of lending generally seen in the developing world but also in “poverty pockets” in the general U.S. microfinance market, said Robert Gailey, an associate professor at Point Loma Nazarene University in charge of the college’s Center for International Development.

Loans from the IRC typically start as low as $100 to build credit in the separate financial education program. Microenterprise loans average $7,500 each and can be as large as $15,000 at an interest rate of 7.25 percent. Interest free loans are also offered to Muslim clients, the only institution to do so county wide, Chrisco said.

There’s always competition for the kind of jobs that don’t require much English or special skills in San Diego but especially now with the state of the economy and an already sizable immigrant population.

“The general concept of the American dream is often defined as start your own life and become a business owner and that’s leading a lot clients here,” Chrisco said.

“This incredibly competitive job market leaves a lot [of refugees] to consider microenterprise as a means to an end in San Diego.”

IRC San Diego’s microenterprise program, the only specifically for refugees in the county, has a repayment rate of 96 percent and about that or higher for other microlenders.

The concept of establishing institutions to hand out small or microloans is often tied to the Gramman Bank in Bangladesh.

The bank centers around the concept that the most effective way to end global poverty is to lend money to groups of poor women. For their efforts, the Gramman Bank and its founder Muhammad YunusMuhammad Yunus were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

San Diego’s IRC office, the largest of 22 branch offices in the nation, started their microenterprise program in 2000 centered around the same concept but for individual entrepreneurs and grew to include men and women. At the end of 2009, the program handed out a total 81 loans, half currently active, totaling more than $600,000.

A grant from the Office of Refugee Resettlement helped start the program. 16 others like it are operating under the grant in cities around the country, the ORR said.

Nationally, in the general microloan market, large microlenders include Accion USA, who focus on lending to immigrants, and since 20006 Gramman America, who have offices in New York City and Omaha, Neb. and are expected to expand to more cities.

The ability to repay loans is considered but having a job isn’t a prerequisite for receiving a loan, he said. Profitability and a good business model are what’s most most important. Still, it’s incredibly challenging, aimed at entrepreneurs and “not a one-size-fits-all kind of program,” Chrisco said.

All loans must be approved unanimously by a board of nine lending professionals from local banks and financial institutions.

San Diego has become the number one city in the world for resettling Iraqi refugees with 5,000 last year alone. 90 percent of refugees resettled by the IRC since 2007 are Iraqi. Yet only three businesses, a dentist’s office, pizza shop and barber shop, have started through the microenterprise program.

But each business has hired other Iraqi refugees to work, as have nearly all businesses interviewed for this article hired refugees from their country of origin.

Jobs here help people support themselves but also send money home to those less fortunate in their country of origin.

Each month, 40 percent to 60 percent of Sarah Sami’s earnings from her fashion and jewelry company 7th Wish go back to family and neighbors in Baghdad.

Sami has been around fashion her entire life, studying in Denmark, running her own company at one point in Iraq and as a child spent time in the family clothes factory.

“There men and women who have been killed, they have kids,” she said. “They don’t have somebody to support them. So we try, me, my brother, my sister, we try to send them money.”

More interest is expected in the future after people have a chance to get acclimated and find work, said Jason Jarvinen from the IRC’s financial education program.

“The first few years when you’re in the country, that’s a really hard time to start a business just because there are so many other kind of adjustments taking place.”

IRC San Diego officials predict 20 percent to 30 percent of all Iraqi refugees resettled were previously employed in a high-skilled profession like doctor, engineer or business owner. So more interest is anticipated in recertification programs as well.

The San Diego County YMCA hosted its 25th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Human Dignity Award breakfast Friday with more than 1,000 people in attendance.

The morning’s keynote speaker was Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles, the last person alive who was with Dr. King an hour before an assassin fired a fatal bullet and was standing at his side that day on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.

That last hour in room 306, from roughly 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., was filled with light conversation, jokes and “preacher talk.” It was as if he’d preached the fear out of himself, Kyles said.

To hear more about the time after King’s assassination — and why Kyles believes he was there — watch the video clip above, the last three minutes of Kyles’ speech.

Martin Luther King Jr. Human Dignity Award breakfast – Images by Khari Johnson

King came to Memphis in April 1968 to support a strike by black garbage workers demanding fair treatment and pay.

The day before his death, Kyles, Jesse Jackson and others went to Bishop Charles Mason Temple, where King delivered his famous “Mountaintop” sermon, to see if anyone would show up.

Since it rained that day, they didn’t know if many people would come. But the church was full and, if they hadn’t called or didn’t get through to say so, there wouldn’t have been a Mountaintop sermon, Kyles said.

“I may not make it to the mountain top with you,” King said in the sermon.

King, 39, was confident he’d never make it past 40, Kyles said.

“We never said the word death or die,” he said. “We lost him.”

Kyles moved with his family from Chicago to Memphis in 1959 to pastor Monumental Baptist Church, where he has been ever since.

Viewing civil rights as “an extension of his ministry,” he joined the local NAACP branch and became involved in non-violent protest soon after his arrival.