By: Julie Silverman, Communications Intern
Since 2014, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) began campaigning to counteract the planning and construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. After six long years of dedicated work, BREDL and its partner organizations succeeded on July 5th, 2020 in cancelling the construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline: a major victory that likely would not have been accomplished without the work of Lou Zeller, the executive director of BREDL as well as key BREDL leaders and supporting partners and coalition groups.
The Atlantic Coast Natural Gas Pipeline was a multi-billion project led by Duke and Dominion Energy companies and was planned to go through rural and low-income parts of North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. The construction of the pipeline would have not only damaged local ecosystems but jeopardize the health of many nearby residents through emissions from compressor stations and pollution in both waterways and drinking water systems. The pipeline targeted poor communities and would have had a tremendously detrimental impact on community members’ health and agricultural success. For example, a sweet potato farmer in Johnston County, North Carolina allowed an earlier branch pipeline to come through his farm and said that the land never produced again despite it being 20 years after the pipeline’s construction. Therefore, the opposition to the pipeline was centered around risks of public health and environmental degradation as well as economic and agricultural concerns.
The victory that we saw over the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is “relatively rare. We don’t normally get the satisfaction of knowing that [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][the fight] is really over,” said Lou Zeller.
One of the key tactics in leading to BREDL’s massive success was uniting community members against the pipeline from all across the political spectrum. By reaching out to people who are both conservative and liberal and everywhere in between, BREDL was able to create a cohesive and extremely powerful bipartisan movement, one that you don’t see often in today’s political climate. Regardless whether people cared about the environment, public health, or land rights and eminent domain issues, there was a welcoming spot at BREDL for people to get involved and fight against the pipeline. This strong base allowed BREDL to cast out to a larger audience and gain a diverse following that appealed to people who would not have normally joined an environmental organization. By allowing different groups of people to focus on what issues impassion them, BREDL was able to create an extremely strong movement that even the most powerful companies, such as Duke and Dominion Energy corporations could not face.
Another tactic that was used to create a successful movement and opposition to the pipeline was organizing in communities and creating coalitions with organizations that were directly in the path of the pipeline’s planned construction zones in both Virginia and North Carolina. Lou Zeller described this process as stringing beads on a necklace. By engaging those closest to the pipeline, BREDL was able to create opposition along its entire route. This was an extremely tough task since the pipeline’s planned construction spanned across 12,000 acres of land that would have been disturbed from West Virginia all the way down to Southern North Carolina.
The success of BREDL in defeating the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is one that should be greatly celebrated. The idea of never giving up fighting for what you believe in and working together despite differences are important themes that led to BREDL’s victory. In the words of Janet Marsh, BREDL’s founder, “one person speaking alone may not be heard, but many people speaking with one voice cannot be ignored.”
Please visit http://www.bredl.org/index.htm if you are interested in BREDL’s work or would like to learn more or get involved with their campaigns.
If you are interested in hearing more about BREDL’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline, click here to watch a Zoom recording of CHEJ’s Living Room Leadership Event from July 15, 2020: a conversation with Lou Zeller and other key leaders in the organization.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Author: CHEJ Intern
By Paolo Padova, Science Intern
Last week the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, released his climate and energy plan. Biden’s plan puts an emphasis on environmental justice and its intersection with racial inequality. The plan commits to creating a new Environmental and Climate Justice Division within the Department of Justice to hold contaminating corporations accountable. Building on the EPA’s EJSCREEN tool, Biden will “create a data-driven Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool to identify communities threatened by the cumulative impacts of the multiple stresses of climate change, economic and racial inequality, and multi-source environmental pollution.” The plan includes several aggressive targets such as achieving an emissions-free power sector by 2035. Biden also set a goal for disadvantaged communities to receive 40 percent of all clean energy and infrastructure benefits he was proposing.
The plan is clearly an attempt to appeal to younger and more progressive voters who have, thus far, been a challenge for Biden. Many progressives have been uneasy about a Biden presidency because of his refusal to adopt a range of progressive priorities such as medicare for all, defunding the police, and the legalization of marijuana. His record on issues like criminal justice has drawn significant criticism from the left. Some view a Biden presidency as “harm reduction” while others are even less optimistic. Nonetheless, the appeal seems to be working, at least with some. Governor Jay Inslee of Washington, a prominent environmentalist called the plan “visionary.” In response to the plan Sunrise Movement executive director, Varshini Prakash said “It’s no secret that we’ve been critical of Vice President Biden’s plans and commitments in the past. Today, he’s responded to many of those criticisms.” This progressive shift in Biden’s environmental policy is a direct result of the progressive voters who have conditioned their vote on policy concessions from the former vice-president.
Biden’s plan also makes several references to Native American communities. Elizabeth Kronk Warner, the dean of the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah and a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, said she was pleasantly surprised by Mr. Biden’s plan.
On the other hand, some have been critical of the fact that the plan does not include the use of a carbon tax, which many see as the most effective and socially equitable way to decrease carbon emissions. This may be a result of an effort to altogether avoid the word ‘tax’ out of fear of alienating moderate voters. Trump’s allies have been quick to attack the plan, depicting it as a threat to jobs in the energy sector and some have attempted to link the plan with the significantly more progressive Green New Deal. According to Trump, Biden’s “agenda is the most extreme platform of any major party nominee, by far, in American history.” While Biden’s plan is less progressive than the Green New Deal and Biden has not fully endorsed the Green New Deal, his plan does follow a similar strategy of emphasizing how aggressive climate action could create jobs. Specifically, the plan presents itself as a response to the economic crisis brought on by COVID-19. Biden foresees one million new jobs will be created making electric vehicles and charging stations and perhaps millions more union jobs could come from building greener infrastructure.
Photo Credit: Matt Slocum/AP
For over 50 years during the 20th century, Monsanto produced and sold products that contained polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which have been known to cause severe health problems in humans such as cancer and liver damage and kill wildlife. After many decades of polluting into local waterways and communities, Monsanto will be held accountable by paying the city of D.C. $52 million in order to help clean up chemical contamination that they caused. The majority of the money will go towards cleaning up polluted waterways with high PCB concentrations, specifically in the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. Read More
Photo by Desmond Hester on Unsplash
By Jenna Clark, Communications Intern
This week, Congress is in recess. Most Representatives and Senators will return home to districts in turmoil. After many states reopened, Covid-19 rates skyrocketed in much of the south, west, and Midwest. On Wednesday, the United States reported 67,300 new cases. On the same day, we accomplished a remarkable feat: 3.5 million confirmed cases.
Despite the shattered records, in cases, in single day death statistics, and the growing number of hospitals facing- again, shortages in personal medical equipment and beds, Americans are today, somehow, still locked in a debate about masks. Perhaps it’s because our President until very recently refused to wear a mask in public, and because his administration is openly distancing itself from the CDC. Increasing research supports the airborne spread of Covid-19 particles. It shouldn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it: wear a mask. 
Many people in this country desperately need assistance. In tandem with an unprecedented health emergency: 138,000 deaths and rising, we face a once in a century economic disaster. As of this week, between 32 and 33 million people in the country are either receiving unemployment benefits or have applied to do so. While the national unemployment rate decreased from April to June, it’s hard to conceive that this upturn will continue as many states face massive waves of Covid-19. After re-opening, some states are re-enforcing shut down measures.
President Trump and other leaders argued that we must open up the country to stave off economic disaster. Thousands of lives have been and will continue to be lost due to their ignorance, a tragedy unlike this country has seen. Their focus on re-opening against all scientific recommendations may also prove to be economically short sighted. By ignoring science and scientists, the Trump Administration is actually creating the economic disaster that they feared. Now we may face a much larger and much more long–term economic problem. As our country continues to be crippled by the virus, those short-term unemployed may become so permanently. It is our government’s responsibility to help.
In March, Congress passed the CARES Act: a $2 trillion relief package. However, much of the funding allocated for local governments hasn’t reached them. Where local governments did receive aid, funds are running out, but the need isn’t. Increased unemployment benefits are set to end in most states on July 25, just over a week away. While Democrats passed a $3 trillion relief package through the House in June, it never reached the debate floor in the Senate. Senate Republicans are working on their own bill, which they expect to release “as early as next week.” However, the $1 trillion maximum that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell identified is below acceptable for House Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Senators must pass another Covid-19 relief act, and soon. In todays’ era of politics, bipartisanship isn’t trendy. Unfortunately, our government no longer has the privilege to infight. They must work together and create an agreement that both Democrats and Republicans can get behind. Fighting this virus and its economic toll shouldn’t be a partisan issue.
During this recess, constituencies across the country have an opportunity to hold their Senators accountable. Remember, our governmental officials are elected by us, for us. Our needs and our wills are their responsibility. They have power because we give it to them: we can just as easily take it away.
So this week, call your representatives. Send emails. Hold them accountable for our well-being. Let them know that they have to take action, they have to pass a new Covid-19 relief act.
For more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj6pizO84js&t=53s
By: Jenna Clark, Communications Intern
Karen and Dawn will tell you that they are “just moms,” but you shouldn’t believe them. 
In their
community of West Lake, Missouri, these two moms have led the battle against nearby nuclear waste. For 8 years, they have diligently organized community members, educated
local officials, spearheaded investigations into toxic waste mere miles from their homes, called EPA administrators day in and day out, and ultimately achieved their goal: federal recognition of its responsibility for the nuclear waste that threatens their community’s health, and its impending removal.
Rather than “just moms” it might be better to say that they are “moms, and…” Moms first, unequivocally and with pride, but just moms, never.
For Karen and Dawn, their kids are inextricable from their stories of the fights, challenges, and victories of their mission. Karen potty trained her youngest while calling the EPA: “When I first got involved in this, 2012, 2013, that was right when my youngest was potty training. And we’d be on a conference call with the EPA, and he’d be hollering for me from the bathroom. And I’d be quietly slipping him Cheerios and books and saying ‘you can’t get up until you go!’” Her kids are now 10, 12, and 14, and the oldest has an autoimmune disorder, likely caused by the toxic waste practically in their backyard.
Karen not only raised her own children near to tons of nuclear waste, she grew up there herself. After learning in 2012 that the Army Corps of Engineers was cleaning up a site adjacent to her home in West Lake, she realized that both she and her children had been exposed: “After attending that meeting I learned that I was raising my own four kids now, miles from a burning radioactive landfill. The fire had been burning since 2010, and I had been raising my own kids here for the past 20+ years. So, I have 4 kids, 3 of them are grown, one just graduated from high school, and I have grandchildren. We’ve been working on educating, promoting, raising awareness about the West Lake Landfill.”
The problems with the West Lake Landfill begin with the Manhattan Project in 1942. As the U.S. military sought to build the world’s first nuclear bomb, barrels of toxic waste from the uranium purification process were left outside of St. Louis. In the 1970s, efforts were made to clean up the site, without much success. Some was sent to be stored in Colorado, but much of the radioactive soil was dumped illegally into the West Lake Landfill.
For decades the presence of nuclear waste wasn’t acknowledged. However, in 2010 a fire began in the nearby Bridgeton Landfill, which is adjacent to the West Lake Landfill. With the fire came an intense stench. Karen and Dawn started to notice.
Dawn explained how she and Karen began working together: “Karen and I were neighbors and we didn’t even know. We had been living right around the corner from each other for years. I found out because I could smell the toxins from the fire that were coming out. And I put a call in to the local municipality, and they didn’t want to answer any questions. And I thought, oh God. And they sent me to the state regulator, which was the Department of Natural Resources…He was just pouring information out, and was really panicked. And I thought, this is a big deal.”
Once Karen and Dawn learned about the waste, they began a long term effort for its removal, and founded their organization, Just Moms STL. Karen credits team-work and connectivity as a major reason for their success: “Most importantly we used the connections that we had, both Dawn and I being involved with PTA’s in school and what not. We literally started one family at a time, sitting down and showing them documents that we had read about the fire. We spent really the first 2.5 years just educating, 24 hours a day, sitting with documents, just learning what we could learn. And then taking that out into the community and building relationships with other community leaders…You have to make those connections because you have to start building your army. Because this is a fight, and we need an army.”
Their best advice for activists just getting started? Find a team you trust. And if you can’t find one, create one: “Find a Karen. Find a Karen Nickel. Don’t isolate yourself within this fight, find a group, find somebody that you can really trust and count on,” says Dawn.
She adds, “Have a goal. What do you want to see happen at the end of this? And be prepared that should you achieve it, validation doesn’t feel like you think it is going to feel...Forget everything you knew about how change happens.”
For Karen and Dawn, this means that even now, after they “won” their battle, they still have work to do. Many of the problems caused by the nuclear waste and other toxic materials in their community still exist. Many people in the area, including Karen, will be dealing with negative health effects from the pollution for their entire lives.
Acknowledging this, Karen and Dawn’s story illustrates the power of team-work and community activism. With enough determination and drive, it is possible to create change. The groups responsible for large scale pollution can be held accountable for their actions, and you don’t need professional training or to be a policy or legal expert to do it. Yes, you can even be “just” a mom. As a part of our new series, Living Room Leadership, we recently spoke with Dawn and Karen. Watch our conversation here.
Recent studies have linked air pollution from the burning of excess natural gas to increased birth rate of premature babies. Many mothers that live near natural gas flaring sites are from low-income and minority communities, signally the environmental injustices linked deeply to these issues. In addition, there are few health-protective regulations that help control the high level of flaring that takes place across the country. Read More
Photo Credit: Trudy E. Bell
Categories
Toxic Tuesday: Creosote
Creosote is a large mixture of chemicals that is used as a wood preservative in the United States, as well as for roofing, aluminum smelting, and road paving. Houston’s Fifth Ward has been pinpointed as a Cancer Cluster: an area that has a “greater than expected number of cancer cases,” largely due to the community’s exposure to creosote from the Union Pacific railroad site in Houston’s 5th Ward.
Creosote is released into soil and water systems and may take many years to break down. Due to groundwater contamination, creosote can make its way into drinking water systems, putting entire communities at risk for exposure. Creosote may cause irritation of the respiratory tract and can lead to stomach pains and burning of the throat and mouth. The International Agency for Research on Cancer and the EPA have determined that creosote is likely a carcinogen, meaning that exposure to the chemical can likely cause cancer.
CHEJ has been working with the Texas Health and Environment Alliance (THEA) to help the communities of Houston’s 5th Ward further understand the extent of the contamination and what different health investigations can do to propel THEA’s goals of raising awareness of their exposure to creosote. CHEJ and THEA have been hosting informational Zoom town halls about Houston’s 5th Ward Cancer Cluster. You can learn more about Houston’s Cancer Cluster by watching Fault Lines’ mini documentary or by visiting THEA’s Facebook page to learn and listen in on their past and future town hall meetings or learn how to get involved.
To learn more about creosote, click here.
Coke is a type of fuel that is converted from coal and made to produce steel. Environmental non-profits, including PennFuture filed a lawsuit against the EPA, claiming that they were not doing enough to regulate coke ovens under the Clean Air Act. Recently, the EPA admitted that they failed to properly regulate parts of the coke production process through the use of coke ovens. Read More.
Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
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:
- 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.
- 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
60+ environmental justice leaders and organizations are calling for action and equity for their ‘Sacrifice Zone’ communities. They released an open letter calling for “an immediate and sustained response to inequities causing Covid-19 to infect and kill a disproportionate number of people subjected to systemic racism and the denial of self-determination throughout the United States.” COVID-19 has exacerbated the equities throughout society, including unequal accessibility to health care and the industry and pollution that impacts mostly low-income and minority communities. Read More
Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images