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Wausau city becomes first in Wisconsin to pass environmental justice resolution

Wausau is the first city in Wisconsin to pass a resolution supporting environmental justice, a move that was months in the making.
The 11-member Wausau City Council voted 8-1 to pass the resolution, with Dist. 9 Alderwoman Dawn Herbst casting the lone vote against the proposal. Herbst, who had voted to approve the amended version of the proposal at the meeting of the Committee of the Whole (COW) on Sept. 8, did not explain her decision. Two representatives – Council President Becky McElhaney (Dist. 6) and Debra Ryan (Dist. 11) – were absent during Tuesday’s meeting.
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Photo credit: Wausau Pilot & Review

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Wausau City Council Passes Environmental Justice Resolution

WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The Wausau City Council has passed a much-debated resolution in support of environmental justice following just eight minutes of discussion during Tuesday’s meeting.
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Photo credit: MWC File Photo

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Bob Welton On Dunn Landfill Town Meeting

Hudson Mohawk Magazine correspondent Steve Pierce speaks with Bob Welton, treasurer of the Rensselaer Environmental Coalition, about a town hall meeting on the controversy surrounding the Dunn Memorial Landfill scheduled for 6 PM on Wednesday, September 29, 2021.
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Photo credit: Sanctuary for Independent Media

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The Air That We Breathe: Neutral and Volatile PFAS in Indoor Air

Sources of exposure to per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) include food, water, and, given that humans spend typically 90% of their time indoors, air and dust. Quantifying PFAS that are prevalent indoors, such as neutral, volatile PFAS, and estimating their exposure risk to humans are thus important.
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Photo credit: ACS Publications

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EPA’s “scientific integrity” program lacks teeth, group alleges

Insiders at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have alleged dozens of violations of the agency’s “scientific integrity” policy over the last few years, including complaints of political interference and tampering with chemical risk assessments, but nearly all the complaints have been ignored, according to an analysis conducted by a nonprofit group representing EPA employees.
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Photo credit: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

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Climate strike marches for climate justice, youth representation in local climate decisions

More than 200 protestors marched down Fifth Avenue on Friday demanding climate justice. The protesters chanted, “No coal, no oil, keep your carbon in the soil!”
Sunrise Movement Pittsburgh hosted the Pittsburgh Climate Strike on Friday to fight for three demands — represent youth in local climate decisions, ban fracking and tax big businesses in order to create more green infrastructure. The protest began at Schenley Plaza with a rally of people ranging in age from high school students to senior citizens, and concluded at the City-County building Downtown.
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Photo credit: John Blair/The Pitt News

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Patricia Arquette to Star in, Direct Showtime Limited Series ‘Love Canal’ From Colette Burson (EXCLUSIVE)

Patricia Arquette is set to star in, direct, and executive produce the limited series “Love Canal” currently in development at ShowtimeVariety has learned exclusively.
The series is based on the upcoming documentary “The Canal” by Will Battersby and upcoming book by journalist Keith O’Brien entitled “Paradise Falls.”
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Photo credit: Riccardo Vimercati; Colette Burson

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Backyard Talk News Archive

The Meaning of Environmentalism Has Expanded

The year 2021 marks the 40thth anniversary of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice.  The Love Canal community’s efforts in 1978 successfully won the relocation of 900 working class families away from a leaking toxic waste dump and awoke a nation to the hazards of toxic chemicals in our environment.  Overcoming powerful resistance from government and a multi-billion dollar company, Occidental Petroleum, this grassroots effort demonstrated how ordinary people can gain power through joining together to win their struggle.  Love Canal sparked a new nationwide social justice movement concerned with links between health problems and the environment.  Hand-in-hand with these concerns are questions about the rights of corporations to increase their profits through decisions that sacrifice the health of innocent families and the environment.
The Meaning of Environmentalism Has Expanded—A New Grassroots Environmental Health Movement
Traditional environmentalism in America has centered, in general, around protecting the natural environment through laws and regulations.  Newer grassroots efforts, however, are as much about protecting public health as the environment.  These efforts value the basic human right to have clean air, water, food and soil along with preserving our nation’s natural resources.  The grassroots leadership believes systemic change comes from the bottom up—people plus organization equals strength—the strength to influence policy and win protection of these basic rights, and the strength to counteract the money and pressure corporations bring to bear on elected representatives to oppose or weaken protective laws.  As a result, the grassroots strategy is to build a stronghold at the local and state levels that can trickle up to influence federal-level representatives and national policies.
Another distinction between the two movements is their contrasting approaches on achieving the same overarching goals of protecting the environment and public health:
Traditional environmentalism is focused on regulations and regulatory controls.  It therefore inevitably winds up debating how many parts per million of chemical X can be in wastewater that is released into a river without killing off downstream fish populations?
Today’s grassroots efforts are focused on prevention.  Grassroots leaders are asking “Why do we allow chemical X in wastewater to be discharged into our rivers when non-toxic alternatives exist?”
Neither approach is right or wrong, or is superior to the other.  The overarching goal of protecting the environment and all living things is the same for both segments of the environmental movement.  When operating on a parallel path, the two approaches together can make significant progress in protecting the environment and public health.
Who Represents the Grassroots Environmental Health Movement Today?
The grassroots environmental movement has a long history of success.  One of its most important achievements has been building a broad and diversified base of support that includes:  Workers, people of color, faith-based organizations, rural and urban families, and indigenous peoples living in today’s society whose lives have been affected by environmental issues.  Parent-teacher organizations, doctors, nurses, and other health professionals working to transform the health care industry’s disposal of potentially harmful substances; people who make their living fishing or depend upon fish as a primary food in their diets and other people from all walks of life.

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Backyard Talk

Public Hearings: Is Anyone Listening?

“A public hearing is an official event on a public issue where the public speaks and the officials don’t listen.”
Activists spends endless hours sitting and testifying in public hearings. Local leaders often have endless patience despite the fact that hearings are generally convened in inconvenient places, at inconvenient times and with the room set up to intimidate. Public hearings chew up a huge amount of time and burn out leaders. They alienate members who have such a lousy time that they never come to another group activity. And often, they have no effect on public policy.
When asked why they go to hearings in light of such bad experiences, here’s what some local leaders said:
We don’t want to miss anything. There could be useful information, though this is not the only place to get it.
It’s a chance to tell our side. Sure, after the “experts” for the agencies and polluters drone on for hours, knowing the news media will leave after the first hour.
Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? The typical public hearing is a gross distortion of democracy. Hearing officers are trained to control public hearings. Your opponents will use public hearings to TEST you. Will you sit there and take it? Can they force you to conform to their rules? As the saying goes, “if you take what they give you, you deserve what you get.”
Do you have to go to public hearings? No, you don’t. If a public hearing ignores your needs, you can boycott it. You can hold a protest outside and denounce it. You can send a speaker inside to say you refuse to acknowledge its legitimacy. And you can organize a mass walk-out. You can even organize your own “People’s Hearing,” one you run and that deals with the truth.
If you do attend, insist they take their rules and throw them out the window. Let the people speak first, even if this means crying mothers speak, instead of the “experts” hearing officials prefer. Insist that officials respond, point by point. Use the hearing to present specific, concrete demands and insist on “yes” or “no” answers on the spot.
If they don’t cave in to your demands to do it your way, pull a mass walk-out. When denied the dignity of meaningful participation, the United Farm Workers would signal members to kneel in prayer and sing hymns.
At one public hearing, Concerned Citizens of White Lake (MI) were shocked when hearing officials turned out the lights when it was the citizens’ turn to speak. At the next public hearing, each member brought a lit flashlight.
At another hearing on contaminated water Concerned Residents of Muskegon (MI) showed up with water jugs. Their “testimony” took the form of queuing up at water fountains to fill their jugs from the city water supply they wanted hooked up to their neighborhood.
At a hearing in Maryland, Lois Gibbs, CHEJ’s founding director, stunned local leaders with a small but powerful tactic. As she testified, she saw that the hearing officials weren’t listening. Lois stopped and stood silent at the microphone. After a long pause, the hearing official saw she wasn’t talking. “Er, ah, Ms. Gibbs, are you through?” “No sir, “Lois replied, “I was simply waiting for you to start listening. When you’re ready, I’ll continue.”
We’ve advised groups who’ve been shut-out, silenced or scorned to physically display their response. Accordingly, groups have shown up wearing gags, ear plugs and in a couple of instances, wearing cardboard cut-outs over their ears bearing the label “B-S Protectors.”
The best way to handle the media black-out that results when community testimony is not given until after the media leaves (and after hours of testimony by the “experts”) is by calling the news media and holding a news conference before the hearing starts so they can get both sides of the story.
What you do with public hearings is up to you. If you let the hearing officials control the agenda and flow of the meeting, they’re assured of prime media coverage. All you’re assured of is the that they won’t be listening to what you and your group has to say. It’s up to you.
Excerpted from Public Hearings: It’s a hearing, but is anyone listening? Chapter 30, CHEJ’s Organizing Handbook.

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EPA orders dioxin removal to commence at Superfund site

In October of 2017 Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Scott Pruitt ordered the complete clean-up of the San Jacinto River Waste Pits.
“To witness the threat, the danger that this site poses to the community in person makes a difference and the difference it makes is urgency,” said Pruitt at the time.
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Photo Credit: Mark Mulligan/Houston Chronicle