Sometime it’s good to reflect on how you got to where you are today. Here’s a short version of how CHEJ got to where we are today.

It all started in 1978, in Niagara Falls, New York. Lois Gibbs was struggling to raise a family, which included two children suffering from a number of rare illnesses. Soon she realized they weren’t the only ones suffering. Nearly every family in the Love Canal neighborhood was facing its own medical nightmare.

Lois discovered that her home, and those of her neighbors, sat amongst 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals. In response to this shocking news, Lois stepped up to lead her neighbors in the battle to protect their families from the hazardous waste in their backyards.

Lois and her neighbors developed strategies to educate and organize their community, assess the impact of the toxic waste on their health, and challenge corporate and government disposal policies. After a three-year fight, Lois’ leadership led to the relocation of 833 Love Canal households.

Through this experience, Lois realized that no local, state, or national organization existed to provide communities with the strategic advice, guidance, and technical assistance necessary to win such a batt le.

To ensure that no other community would have to face a toxic health threat alone, Lois founded the Citizen’s Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste (CCHW) on April 6, 1981. CCHW became known as the Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ) in 1997 and in January 2017, we joined People’s Action Institute (PA I), as one of their projects.

The core of CHEJ’s mission is, and always has been, to prevent harm to human health. This is achieved by providing technical and organizing support to individuals and communities facing toxic hazards.

Today, CHEJ continues to harness the power of grassroots organizing to help communities protect their health – as Lois did many years ago. On average, CHEJ receives hundreds of requests for assistance each year. Over the past 44 years, CHEJ’s work has touched over 15,000 individuals and groups.

At CHEJ, we believe that everyone has a right to a clean and healthy environment; and together, we can create one powerful voice in favor of protecting our health and the environment, and promoting economic justice.

Don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you are having trouble dealing a with an environmental health problem.

By Leila Waid.

Environmental restoration does not need to be complex. You don’t need to have a bioengineering or chemistry degree to be involved in or even understand this topic of environmental justice. In fact, simple solutions that can be scaled nationally or internationally are just as important because they provide a method that is easy to replicate and implement.

Justdiggit is an example of an organization utilizing a simple restoration technique to help transform thousands of acres of dry, degraded land into a biodiverse haven.

Justdiggit collaborates with local communities in Sub-Saharan African countries to dig bunds to help conserve rainwater and re-green the environment. The method used is simple. Farmers and local stakeholders dig half-circles – which have been branded as “Earth smiles” by the organization (because if you look at them from a bird’s eye view, they look like smiles) – to help capture water in areas where the land is no longer able to soak up the water on its own. Seeds are then added to the dug half-circles, and they are covered with tree branches to help deter animals from eating the seeds. From there, Mother Nature takes over. The newly transformed land is able to capture water, and magic happens. Greenery and biodiversity come back to previously inhospitable lands. Here is a video LINK to a video showcasing just how easy this process is from beginning to end.

Although the technique promoted by Justdiggit is easy to follow and replicate, it still requires considerable physical labor and time to set up. Thus, environmental sustainability programs such as this cannot succeed without buy-in from the community. A peer-reviewed article published in E3S Web of Conferences researched how Justdiggit utilized community involvement to ensure the program’s success. The organization hosted community events, known as the “Raindance Project,” which included dance and music festivities. These events had the effect of bringing the community together and provided Justdiggit with a venue to educate the public about the project and promote buy-in.

Along with the Raindance Project, the Justdiggit project also used a variety of community engagement tools to ensure the program’s success. For example, they hosted community workshops where community members could attend to ask questions, provide feedback, and strengthen collaborative decision-making. They also identified individuals who could act as ambassadors and champions of the program to help unify the communities and disseminate the program’s message. To ensure program success, Justdiggit also utilized the power of social media to help spread the message about its mission.

The effects of this environmental sustainability initiative are many-fold. Because the program partnered with the locals where the re-greening efforts were being undertaken, this approach helped the local economy because community members were hired for the implementation of the program and helped dig the “earth smiles.” Once the re-greening efforts were realized, the local communities were also able to enjoy new farming opportunities and a greater biodiversity.

Along with the economic benefits, re-greening also has climate change mitigation and adaptation benefits. Increased greenery has a cooling effect on the area, which is essential during an intense heatwave. The greenery also provides a new source of carbon uptake, which, in turn, helps slow climate change.

The program has been so successful that its effects can even be seen from space. The screenshot below, taken from a Planet.com article, showcases how much the landscape has changed in just over four years.

By Sharon Franklin.

Amnesty International issued a report in April 2025 which addressed economic and climate injustice and the inter-connectiveness of the growing impact of severe weather events. Additionally, according to another report by First Street. Climate, the Sixth “C” of Credit , it is expected to increase home foreclosures.  The report was released following the latest tornadoes that swept through Missouri and Kentucky, leaving at least 25 people dead and scores injured.  Uninsured damage from flooding, as well as the depreciation of home values and rising insurance premiums from increasingly destructive climate disasters is still being calculated.  These climate events could lead to as much as $1.2 billion in credit losses in 2025, and estimates that mortgages on about 19,000 properties could be repossessed or foreclosed due to climate risk.

Key Points of the Climate, the Sixth “C” of Credit Report:

• Climate Driven Credit Losses Could Cost Banks Billions.
• Insurance Industry Bearing and Shifting Burden.
• Flood Risk Highlights Systemic Fragility.
• Household Absorbing Increased Climate Risk.  
• Floods Are the Leading Driver of Foreclosure Among Perils.
• Wind and Wildfire Damages are Insured, but Rising Premiums Drive Indirect Foreclosure Risk.   
• Macroeconomic Conditions Compound Climate Pressures. 
• Historical Climate Impacts Have Resulted in Hidden Credit Losses. 
• Escalating Flood Risks and Climate Drive Macroeconomic Changes Drive Future Foreclosures. 

As many of Americans already know the insurance industry is gradually shifting the costs of climate disasters onto homeowners, causing the financial stability of borrowers and the performance of their mortgages to be increasingly at risk.  In the most severe cases, this escalating burden can ultimately lead to foreclosure.

Why It Matters?  Studies have concluded that global warming and extreme natural disasters has immediate consequences on housing when it comes to home insurance and rebuilding destroyed properties.

What To Know   If 2025 turn out to be a particularly natural disaster year. Lenders could lose up to $1.2 billion this year.  It is estimated that Florida, Louisiana, and California alone are projected to account for 53 percent of all climate-related mortgage losses in 2025.  The main culprit would likely be flooding, and according to the report, foreclosures spike 40 percent among damaged homes following flood events.  Dr. Jeremy Porter, Head of Climate Implications Research, First Street Foundation stated “Flooding leads to higher foreclosure rates because many properties are uninsured, especially those outside FEMA’s [the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s] Special Flood Hazard Areas”.

Resources for Blog:

• The 12th National Risk Assessment  Property Prices in Peril
  https://assets.riskfactor.com/media/The%2012th%20National%20Risk%20Assessment.pdf
• Disasters Will Escalate Foreclosures and Create Systemic Financial Risk in Mortgage Markets, Study Climate, the Sixth “C” of Credit  
  https://firststreet.org/research-library/climate-the-sixth-c-of-credit  and   https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/climate-risk-foreclosures-report-first-street/
• Economic and Climate Injustice in Amnesty International’s 2025 Annual Report
  https://unipd-centrodirittiumani.it/en/news/economic-and-climate-injustice-in-amnesty-internationals-2025-annual-report
• US Housing Market Warned of Mortgage Rate Hikes, Foreclosures
  https://www.newsweek.com/us-housing-market-warned-mortgage-rate-hikes-foreclosures-2074671
• Climate Disasters Are Raising The Risk Of US Home Repossessions, Warns Research Group
  https://www.ft.com/content/c1d1ee7f-f34a-490d-bbd6-95b895ffd33e
• Tornadoes, storms kill more than 30: See photos from Kentucky, Missouri, other states https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/05/17/tornadoes-st-louis-kentucky-indiana/83691932007/