"Kettleman City, Calif. -- California's two U.S. senators on Tuesday called for a moratorium on plans to expand the state's largest toxic waste landfill pending the completion of investigations into birth defects in the nearby farm workers' community of Kettleman City.

Both Democrats also pledged to secure an estimated $4 million needed to upgrade the community's drinking water system, which contains elevated levels of arsenic, a naturally occurring element in California soils that also is used in pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and metal alloys."

Louis Sahagun reports for the Los Angeles Times February 10, 2010. [2]