WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Dariel Yazzie, Environmental Assistant Director for the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) takes a deep breath when asked about why the cleanup of uranium mines on the Navajo Nation is important to him.
“It’s personal,” he said.
Yazzie shares that it has impacted his health and many of his family members’ health.
Yazzie grew up in Cane Valley, southeast of Monument Valley, and said his maternal grandfather Luke Yazzie Sr. found uranium mill tailings less than a mile from their homestead. Their home was demolished in 2009 because of the contamination.
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Photo Credit: Kathy Helms/Gallup Independent via AP
Author: CHEJ Intern
NAVASSA, N.C. (SBG) — Millions of Americans live near Superfund sites, areas the federal government considers contaminated as a result of hazardous waste that was dumped, mismanaged or otherwise left out in the open. Many of those sites are still awaiting cleanup. And with climate change triggering sea-level rise, experts are ringing the alarm bell about the threat of flooding at Superfund sites, which could put the communities that surround them at risk.
Photo Credit: Alex Brauer
Volume 90%
Oscar Sanchez’s fight against a scrapyard set to be relocated to his Southeast Chicago neighborhood has taken quite the physical toll. He’s lost about 20 pounds in the past month. He is increasingly unable to sleep, speak, or think clearly. Sometimes it’s so bad he can’t remember what he said even five minutes ago.
Sanchez knows exactly why his mind and body are deteriorating: He is one of more than 100 Chicagoans participating in a hunger strike to force the city to rethink the scrapyard’s proposed location. The metal recycling plant used to be in a wealthy, mostly white neighborhood, but its newly approved site is in a lower-income, predominantly Latino area that’s already carrying a higher environmental burden compared to other parts of the city.
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Photo Credit: Grist/Google Earth
The hunger strike ended on March 7th after over a month of protests and direct actions, but activists vow to continue the fight. Read about their continued fight here.
WASHINGTON — The census tracts span much of Pittsburgh, along with the suburban North Hills and South Hills. They snake along the banks of the regions rivers, encompassing small towns like Connellsville and Kittanning, rural swaths of Indiana County and the woods of the Allegheny National Forest.
State officials have deemed the tracts as environmental justice zones: areas with high poverty rates or high rates of “non-white minorities,” or both, and that often contend with industrial development or pollution issues.
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Photo Credit: Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette
Texas’ deep freeze was the latest warning that extreme weather events threaten to derail efforts to clean up the most toxic sites in the US. In a worst-case scenario, a natural disaster can unleash buried toxic substances. But even minimal damage or the mere threat of a storm can stop or slow cleanup efforts.
That vulnerability could become a bigger problem as climate change brings about more weather-related disasters. For years, experts have pushed the Environmental Protection Agency to prepare for the onslaught.
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Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Originally dubbed “Plantation Country”, Cancer Alley, which is located in the southern state of Louisiana along the lower Mississippi River where enslaved Africans were forced to labour, serves as an industrial hub, with nearly 150 oil refineries, plastics plants and chemical facilities.
The ever-widening corridor of petrochemical plants has not only polluted the surrounding water and air, but also subjected the mostly African American residents in St. James Parish to cancer, respiratory diseases and other health problems.
“This form of environmental racism poses serious and disproportionate threats to the enjoyment of several human rights of its largely African American residents, including the right to equality and non-discrimination, the right to life, the right to health, right to an adequate standard of living and cultural rights”, the experts said.
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Photo Credit: Robin Sommer/Unsplash, file
Categories
Communication for the Community
By: Judith Eppele, Community Organizing Intern
Growing up in a household with divorced parents, I quickly realized how important communication was for creating and sustaining strong relationships. This notion is the backbone of CHEJ, of which I’ve experienced firsthand through my time as an intern. Since I’m a community organizing intern specifically, I’ve found that having good communication with the different community groups we work with is incredibly important. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that maintaining this good communication is one of the most important parts of organizing. Though I haven’t been with CHEJ for that long–I’m coming up on my three month mark soon–I’ve been able to see this in action through helping out with the Unequal Response Unequal Protection campaign.
If you haven’t checked it out already, Unequal Response Unequal Protection is all about developing a framework to conduct health investigations for toxic chemicals. But the root of this campaign is the emphasis of it being community-driven. This is seen in the Operating Principles of the campaign, wherein the community leaders are involved throughout the entirety of the process in order to create the most effective and personalized response possible. When I first read this, I was a bit surprised, but in the best way possible. I’m an Environmental Science and Management major and so have taken some environmental policy classes, though usually there is more of an emphasis on what the government should/shouldn’t do or has/hasn’t done in respect to making change happen, as opposed to the role of community members and grassroots level organizing. I’d really only seen community members having the ability to be involved in policy making processes through a public comment period, though this doesn’t guarantee that the comments will actually be taken into consideration as the policy moves forward. On top of this, the public comment period is usually pretty short, sometimes being only 30 days long! This never sat right with me, as shouldn’t it be clear to policy makers to have solid communication with the community members that live in the area that they’re trying to enact a policy in? Aren’t they who you’re trying to help? That’s why I found Unequal Response Unequal Protection so refreshing, as there is that prioritization of solid communication between community members, scientists, and activists in order to make the best chemical contamination response possible. In doing so, everyone can submit their comments, questions, and concerns at any time throughout the process and feel confident that they’ll be heard and respected.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m a huge supporter of good and extensive communication. Without it, people and their experiences wouldn’t be accurately represented in decision-making processes, which could cause more problems than what was already there in the first place–and who wants that? While Unequal Response Unequal Protection and CHEJ in general are making waves in promoting communication, it’s definitely lacking in the greater world of policy making. While amending this may not be easy, it’s not impossible. Taking full advantage of any public comment period, setting up meetings with local policymakers, and reaching out to people outside of your community group in order to gain additional points of views on your issue are a few ways that you can take a stand in supporting the importance of communication. After all, many hands make light work, and the fight against toxic chemicals needs as many of these hands as possible.
Photo Credit: Liquid Planner
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Pa.—In the spring of 2019, after years worrying about exposures from a fracking well about a half mile from her grandkids’ school, Jane Worthington decided to move them to another school district.
Her granddaughter Lexy* had been sick on and off for years with mysterious symptoms, and Jane believed air pollution from the fracking well was to blame. She was embroiled in a legal battle aimed at stopping another well from being drilled near the school. She felt speaking out had turned the community against them.
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Photo Credit: Connor Mulvaney/Environmental Health News
Analysis of the 44 million Americans being served by water systems with recent health-based Safe Drinking Water Act violations, reveals overwhelming evidence of a clear racial divide in the provision of clean tap water in the United States. Not surprisingly, a new survey published by SOURCE Global PBC reveals a significant racial disparity in Americans’ trust in the quality of their domestic water supply.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data from 2016-2019 reveals that public water systems that constantly violate the Safe Drinking Water Act are 40% more likely to serve people of color, and take longer to come back into compliance among communities of color.
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Photo Credit: Getty
The potential health risks of chemicals used in plastic toys have had scientists concerned for years, but new research reveals just how widespread the risk of harm to children remains.
In an international study, researchers assessed the chemical compositions of toys and estimated levels of human exposure to the substances, ultimately finding over 100 “Chemicals of Concern” in plastic toy materials that could pose a non-negligible health risk to children.
“Out of 419 chemicals found in hard, soft, and foam plastic materials used in children toys, we identified 126 substances that can potentially harm children’s health either via cancer or non-cancer effects, including 31 plasticisers, 18 flame retardants, and 8 fragrances,” explains quantitative sustainability researcher Peter Fantke from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).
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Photo Credit: Miguel Sanz/Getty Images