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Backyard Talk

An Overlooked Group in the Fight for Environmental Justice

By: Ruth Rodriguez, Communications Intern
As an intern for CHEJ, I reflect on environmental justice every single day. This leads me to ponder over the intersection of homelessness and environmental justice. We see environmental justice as an issue that affects low income communities and communities of color, but we fail to address those who do not really have a “community.”  The definition of “community” is important when discussing this issue. A community is a group of people living in the same place. But those who are unhoused are not located in one single location, rather they are all over the world, making it difficult to address this environmental justice issue. The ability to organize is difficult for those experiencing homelessness because they do not have a “community” by the sense of the definition. How do you organize for a group that is so widespread? Additionally, they do not have the resources often needed to fight for their rights to a clean environment. 
The effects of pollution can be catastrophic to communities. Those who are unhoused are at a greater risk of being exposed to pollution and environmental hazards. Homelessness has increasingly been regulated and even criminalized by the banning camping in safe places and “move-along” orders. This has led people to be exposed to even more hazards by forcing them to move into risky areas in terms of violence and crime, water and soil contamination, noise pollution, pests and rodents, and natural disasters. One of the biggest environmental risks, though, is air pollution and particulate matter like dust and debris. Health effects of air pollution and particulate matter include, premature death, heart attacks, chronic diseases, respiratory conditions, and lung disease. 
In some places those experiencing homelessness are viewed as environmental hazards for nearby communities. Some of the byproducts that arise from those who are homeless are trash, human waste, bodily fluids, needles, and fires. Urban development is in part increasing homelessness through increasing housing costs and gentrification. It is therefore, in part, feeding into environmental injustice. With COVID-19 comes more problems for the unhoused. Many do not have access to masks and cannot properly social-distance making their potential for exposure high. 
The exposure to pollution, homeless hazard, urban development, and COVID-19 issues could possibly be mitigated by providing housing. For example, vacant housing and empty hotels could be allocated for those who are homeless to quarantine or for housing in general.
In Austin, Texas there are about 2,506 people experiencing homelessness, with 1,574 being unsheltered. Recently, Austin cut its police department funding by one-third through the reorganization of a number duties out of police oversight. Some of the money saved from this reorganization could potentially be used to provide the housing previously mentioned. This is just one possible solution to get environmental justice for those who are homeless.

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Stories of Local Leaders

A Nuclear Fight: Living Room Leadership with Pam Kingfisher

By: Ruth Rodriguez, Communications Intern
Pam Kingfisher, an experienced community organizer and advocate for Indigenous Peoples’ rights shared her experience for CHEJ’s Living Room Leadership series. Pam has over 30 years of experience in organizing and policy work, and has led the fight in shutting down 23% of the world’s uranium supply and fighting off unwanted poultry CAFO in her community. 
Her father had a similar experience while working on a bomb in Hanford, Washington. In 1943, her father had the decision of going to war or helping build a bomb. He saw this as an opportunity to get out of Oklahoma and receive a better paying job for his family. Her mother and siblings made their way to Washington thereafter. The working conditions her father endured were harsh. As a child Kingfisher realized this and began questioning her world. One question she had was why she, a Cherokee Native, was always surrounded by white people. The other question was the reasoning and implications of the bomb her father was helping to build.
“Asking questions…that is the key of organizing…nobody wants to be an activist, you know, but we are questioning, and we are very curious, and we want to know why, and we keep pulling those threads and pulling that string.” 
In 1985 she moved to her grandmother’s allotment land in Oklahoma. There she got involved with the community talking about the uranium facility that was going to deep well inject their waste. Jesse Deerinwater created Native Americans for a Clean Environment (NACE) and stopped the injection well. After, many in the community came to aid her in any way they could. Later, Deerinwater moved on and Kingfisher became the board chair for NACE. 
The Sequoyah Fuels Nuclear Plant in Gore, Oklahoma was responsible for bringing in yellowcake uranium from New Mexico and turning it into uranium hexafluoride, used for fuel, and uranium tetrafluoride, used for the shelling of army tanks and bullets. Instead of dealing with toxic waste, known as raffinate and partnering with Monsanto, the facility created fertilizer that was spread onto 10,000 acres. As a result, a “happy cow operation” came about. New cows would need to be brought in every 3 months to replace those who had died. People were also becoming ill. Because of this, Thelma Moton, a local member of the community, created a cancer map of Gore, Oklahoma by going door to door and asking questions. 
Because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), who conducts facility inspections, had already been sued, Kingfisher and/or her associates were allowed to be on site when the NRC came to inspect the uranium plant. They had standing. Kingfisher said, “Even if you don’t win and it cost a whole lot of money it got us in rooms we never would’ve gotten in to.” During one of the inspections it was noticed that 3-month contract workers with no insurance or tracking were standing in and cleaning uranium tanks. On a Saturday night, an explosion occurred and the plant was not immediately evacuated. Later that same night, 350 people were fired and the plant was closed. 
Although the plant was closed, the Cherokee Nation continued to have interest. Their eyes were now on the company conducting the cleanup. The company did not know where to put the waste and tried to get the state to allow them to leave the waste on site. The Cherokee Nation did not allow that and won a case forcing the company to move the waste to Utah. 
“This is human health, this is public health. I don’t care what stripe you are. I do care that we all live in this place, and what are we passing on.”
After the plant was shut down and the case was won, Kingfisher knew she had to do something new. She felt exhausted and out of balance. She started working on Native women’s reproductive rights and health, food and agriculture. Kingfisher explained how food, farming, environment, and health were all the same category to her. 
In 2017 her community noticed construction near the highway. Then in 2018 they realized the Simmons company out of Arkansas had a sort of poultry monopoly system going on. Workers received all their feed, propane, etc from Simmons. The poultry application was only $10 and they barely had to pay for water. 260 new houses on mega-barns were being created with 20 thousand more chickens in each barn. That is 400 tons of waste per day. The first study over the quantity of water in the local aquifer is currently being conducted. In a win, a megahouse next to an organic farm was shut down and taken off the market in 13 days after the Cherokee Nation bought it for $380 thousand.
Kingfisher cites how important gatherings like conferences are. From conferences, people are able to learn from each other, about different tactics that worked in other places, and network with people and groups like CHEJ. Additionally, garnering attention to the impacted people from her community was important in her fight. People affected by the uranium facility and poultry operation would be put on TV to speak on their negative experiences. Whether it was the family of the little girl that almost died from E.coli that came from a chicken house, or the grandfather talking about how his family was not able to have a birthday party due to too many feathers being in the pool. Cultivating your press and showing things that everyone “gets” and can relate to is important. 
“The community can lead it even if there’s not a community when you begin, you create that community by being very inclusive and listening.” 
 

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Homepage News Archive

9 Things the Biden Administration Could Do Quickly on the Environment

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. campaigned on the most ambitious climate platform of any presidential candidate in history, promising to spend $2 trillion over four years to draw down planet-warming fossil fuel emissions and convert much of the nation to clean energy.

The possibility that the Senate could remain under the control of Republicans, who have generally opposed climate legislation, puts a damper on some of his biggest-ticket plans. But with or without Democratic control of the Senate, the first 100 days of the Biden administration are likely to see a flurry of executive actions addressing climate change, as well as a major push to insert clean energy provisions into legislation that could pass with a bipartisan coalition.

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Photo Credit: Erin Schaff/The New York Times

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Homepage News Archive Superfund News

Claiming Major Superfund ‘Success,’ Trump EPA Focused on Completing Cleanups – But Climate Change Dangers Went Unaddressed

For the last two years of the Obama administration, Jacob Carter built data models at the Environmental Protection Agency that showed how extreme weather events amplified by climate change threatened hundreds of the nation’s worst toxic waste dumps, known as Superfund sites.
President Barack Obama had made combating climate change the EPA’s No. 1 priority, and Carter was a true believer, working on plans the agency’s regional administrators could use to safeguard those sites.
But when President Donald Trump took office in 2017, everything changed at the EPA. Trump was a climate change denier, and soon the words “climate change” were excised from agency policy. It didn’t take long for the knock on Carter’s door.
Read more…
Photo credit: Karen Ducey

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News Archive

As Shell’s construction moves into final stage, citizens organize environmental self-defense classes

To date, what we know about the petrochemical plant under construction in Beaver County has come from its owner, Shell Chemical Co.
That won’t always be the case. When the plant starts producing its plastic pellets sometime in the next few years, it will put information into the world, through air and water emissions.
A number of local environmental and citizen groups are mobilizing to scoop up that data and shift the information and, they hope, the power dynamic between the multinational company and its Beaver County neighbors.
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Photo credit: Andrew Rush / Post-Gazette

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Stories of Local Leaders

Victory for Just Moms STL | EPA Commences Clean-Up of West Lake Landfill

By: Kayleigh Coughlin, Communications Intern
St. Louis, Missouri families are feeling hopeful following the commencement of the EPA’s long-awaited clean-up at the West Lake Landfill Superfund Site at Bridgeton. Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel, community activists and co-founders of Just Moms STL, a non-profit organization aiming to educate the St. Louis community about the negative health impacts of radioactive waste at West Lake, have been campaigning for the clean-up since 2013. 
28661410_10215999033877128_6441531584775454720_n“To see this positive result”, said Chapman, “I guess I can say makes the bruises hurt less”. 
In 1973, radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project, a secret U.S. military project created in 1942 to produce the first nuclear weapon, was illegally dumped in the West Lake Landfill and remained there quietly until 2010, when a fire at the site emitted a foul odor, exposing the waste. In 2018, the EPA proposed a partial removal plan following years of campaigning by Just Moms STL and St. Louis community members. In the proposed plan, the EPA promised at least 70% of the radioactivity would be removed over a 5 year period. Last month, the EPA set foot on the site and officially began the clean-up process. The sight offered relief for St. Louis’ community members like mothers Chapman and Nickel.
In response to the clean-up, Chapman said, “Seeing EPA workers working on the landfill is proof of what moms can really do”. The success at West Lake is proof that small communities working together can accomplish big things. Now that tangible progress has been made at West Lake, Just Moms STL is expanding their outreach by helping other leaders combat environmental injustices in their communities.
Please visit http://www.stlradwastelegacy.com to learn more about Just Moms STL’s work and get involved with their campaigns.
If you’re interested in hearing more about Just Moms STL and their campaigning journey, click here to watch a Zoom recording of CHEJ’s Living Room Leadership Event from July 8, 2020: a conversation with Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel. 

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Homepage News Archive

Federal Report Warns of Financial Havoc From Climate Change

A report commissioned by federal regulators overseeing the nation’s commodities markets has concluded that climate change threatens U.S. financial markets, as the costs of wildfires, storms, droughts and floods spread through insurance and mortgage markets, pension funds and other financial institutions.

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Photo credit: Cindy Yamanaka | The Orange County Register

 

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Backyard Talk

Behind the Dakota Access, Keystone XL, Atlantic Coast Pipeline Wins

By Hamsavardhini “Anu” Thirunarayanan, Intern
This past Sunday, July 5, Dominion Energy and Duke Energy declared that they would cancel their planned Atlantic Coast Pipeline, despite the $3.4 billion investment and just 20 days after securing a 7-2 U.S. Supreme Court vote allowing them to build the pipeline below the Appalachian Trail. Fierce opposition from communities across North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia are overjoyed by this victory.
The next day, federal judge James Boasberg ordered the closure and emptying of the Dakota Access Pipeline pending an environmental review, which is a generally unprecedented resolution for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in their lengthy struggle against the oil project. Later that Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused the Trump administration’s emergency bid to allow the Keystone XL pipeline development to move forward while environmental concerns similar to the Dakota Access Pipeline are being resolved.
Environmental organizations all across the country are ecstatic. Kelly Martin, the director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuel campaign stated “A new era upon us—one for clean energy, and one where the risks of fossil fuel infrastructure are increasingly exposed.” “The era of multibillion dollar investment in fossil fuel infrastructure is over,” said Jan Hasselman of the environmental group Earthjustice and attorney for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
There are two main reasons for such optimism:

  1. The energy industry is grappling with the economic downturns of COVID-19, which has aggravated the already decreasing demand for oil and gas. Falling oil prices make the financial case for new pipelines even more complicated.
  2. The government has made a grave error by speeding through the National Environmental Policy Act process, neglecting the thorough environmental analysis for many of the current pipelines as mandated by law. This could allow for more litigation wins against other pipeline projects that communities are actively renouncing.

We could very well be witnessing the moment in time that marks the downturn of the oil industry. However, it is important to note that the fight is far from over. The Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipeline operations have only been halted, and they could easily be allowed to continue after the environmental review process is officially complete. Also, though the Keystone XL pipeline development has been halted, other pipelines that were under “Nationwide Permit 12” have been allowed to continue by the U.S. Supreme Court. This decision is overturning the cancellation ruled by a lower court federal judge Brian Morris. In addition, Energy Transfer (Dakota Access’s pipeline owner) refuses to accept the court demand. Instead, it’s continuing to schedule oil transport with its customers for August. Above all, even if the overall Republican administration is dealt a large blow with the cancellation of all new pipelines, there is no guarantee that oil will become a thing of the past—after all, Biden is also a top recipient of the oil & gas industry (though he has pledged to not reissue the Keystone permit if elected).
Despite grandiose statements made by various figures of large environmental organizations, to gain a true victory in this fight for their land and lives, there is much more to come for which the Sioux Nation needs to be prepared. For now though, hopefully these communities are taking a moment to rejoice their wins.
Photo by: Michael Nigro/Pacific Press, via LightRocket, via Getty Images

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News Archive

TOXIC TUESDAY: FORMALDEHYDE

toxic tuesday graphic
What is Formaldehyde?
Formaldehyde is a dangerous chemical that affects the respiratory system, lungs, eyes, and skin. It is classified as a carcinogen, hazardous substance, and hazardous waste. According to the American Cancer Society, Formaldehyde is a colorless, strong smelling gas used in making building materials and many common household products. It is well known for its preservative and anti-bacterial properties. It is commonly used in building materials such as particle board, pressed wood, insulation, glues and adhesives and more. It is also found in medic2ines, cosmetics, and cleaning products. Formaldehyde is even used in some food products as a preservative.
Why is it dangerous?
Formaldehyde is a dangerous chemical and is a known human carcinogen. It has been linked to cancer in animal studies. One study in mice showed that “applying a 10% solution of formaldehyde to the skin was linked to quicker development of cancers caused by another chemical”. Formaldehyde is common in certain workplaces and studies of industrial workers show increased risk of leukemia and cancers of the nose and throat. Formaldehyde can also be released from plants producing products that contain the chemical, increasing exposure to surrounding neighborhoods
Who is affected?
Since Formaldehyde is commonly found in many products commonly used in the home and workplace, exposure to the public is high. The main way exposure occurs is inhaling the chemical, although the liquid form can also be absorbed through the skin. Because of these routine exposures, formaldehyde is often present in both indoor and outdoor air, though at low levels. Materials containing formaldehyde can release it as a gas or vapor into the air.
There is a section of St. James Parish in Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley”. Cancer Alley is an 85 mile stretch of petrochemical plants and oil refineries along the Mississippi river. Many of these plants release several cancer causing chemicals, including formaldehyde and benzene. People living in this area are 50 times more likely to get cancer than the average American. Rolling Stone calls Cancer Alley the “frontline of environmental racism”. The communities surrounding this toxic stretch of plants consist largely of minority and low income neighborhoods, the poorest people in Louisiana live closest to Cancer Alley. New plants are in the process of getting approved and residents are wary of more poolution including an increase in formaldehyde and other cancer causing chemicals.
To learn more about formaldehyde, click here.
To learn more about Cancer Alley, click here.
 
 
 

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Homepage News Archive

The Intersection of Climate Change, Environmental Injustice and Racism

The murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor by police and the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on minority communities has largely brought to light the systemic racism that is deeply embedded in our society. The effects of industrial pollution and extreme weather events due to climate change are often also brought specifically upon minority communities. In the attached article, Yale Environment 360 interviews Elizabeth Yeampierre, the co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance, to further discuss the deep intersection between environmental injustice, climate change, and racism and how we can build a movement to help combat them together. Read More