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California coastline communities are known for their natural beauty, but can also be some of the dirtiest places around due to their immense economic value as places to locate ports and oil refineries with easy access for shipping and importing and exporting fossil fuels. Many of California's most important refineries sit right on the water near residential areas, and the state's nurses, along with other residents, are constantly busy fighting attempts by the fossil fuel industry to expand, expand, expand. In San Luis Obispo, RN Sherri Stoddard first heard from the environmental group 350.org about Phillips 66's plans to expand a rail spur in order to bring in low-grade crude oil by the trainload to refine at its Santa Maria facility and international export. As a labor and delivery nurse at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center long con- cerned with the effects of environmental pollution on her patients, Stoddard was immediately opposed. "My first reaction was, 'Are you kidding me?' The whole thing was ridiculous," said Stoddard, who also serves on the California Nurses Association board of directors. These "oil trains," as they are known, were notorious for explosions because of the many volatile chemi- cals mixed in with the bitumen to make it viscous, and potential contamination through derailment and accidents. The trains would run near schools, hospitals, and other populated areas. On top of all that, it represented expansion of dirty energy that was not even intended for domestic use. "The fossil fuel industry needs to be done," said Stoddard. "This should be a dying, we hope, industry. We need to move ahead and forward in a clean way." Stoddard, another RN named Joan Silva, and additional con- cerned colleagues in her local metro council joined other environ- mental activists in the San Luis Obispo area to lobby against the plan, staging small protests which grew into bigger ones that attracted allies from Northern California as well as Los Angeles, writing letters to their local editors, attending county board of supervisors meetings, and involving regular folks such as parents and their kids. "It became a daily, in-your-face thing," remem- bered Stoddard. The intense pressure worked. Last October, the county planning commission voted to reject the proposal, and this March, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors likewise said no. Stoddard was proud to be part of the fight. "Nothing occurs in a vacuum," she said. "It's all interconnected. You can't just take the environment out of people's health and pretend it's not part of it. It's totally part of it." Kari Jones is a communications specialist at National Nurses United and Lucia Hwang is editor of National Nurse. M AY | J U N E 2 0 1 7 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N A T I O N A L N U R S E 19