[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”][fusion_text]Although some people have already completed their absentee ballots, the 2016 presidential election takes place on Tuesday, November 8th. That means we have exactly ONE WEEK to fully educate ourselves and make a decision on which candidate to vote for. (Make sure to take a look at the first link listed at the bottom of the page.)
Where do you stand when it comes to environmental issues and climate change, foreign policy, abortion, healthcare…? The list can go on, but don’t let others decide for you! If you have an opinion and don’t voice it, then you’re letting others decide which issues matter, and ultimately, who’s going to win the election.
Remember, every vote makes a difference! For decades, laws have been passed and people have continued to fight to make sure others have this opportunity. Our first African American president just served two consecutive terms in office, and this could not have been done without voters sending off their ballots.
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The actions of many have helped shape history. If you want to see change happen, the best way to see improvement is to take part in the process. Get out and vote in this election- make sure you leave your mark!
BallotPedia.org is a great resource! Use it for information on:
[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”]Reverend Charles Utley in his Office, Augusta, Georgia (Photo by Rev. Utley).
Reverend Charles Utley, born in Waynesboro, GA, is the Associate Director and Environmental Justice Campaign Director at BREDL (Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League). He spent all of his childhood and young adult life in the Hyde Park Community, set next to a toxic waste site in an industrial area of Augusta, GA. When he left for Vietnam in 1966, his parents started organizing their community to improve their neighborhood with The Hyde and Aragon Park Improvement Committee, the oldest organized community according to IRS records. They fought for public water and sewer systems, paved streets and streetlights, spearheaded by Mary L. Utley, Charles Utley‘s mother.
‘It would be years later after all of these necessary things were achieved and my parents were deceased, I succeeded my mother’s role as community president. It was in the mid-1970. We found out that there was contamination in our community from a wood treatment plant (Southern Wood Piedmont Company). From this point on we were faced with cleaning up our community’, Utley writes in our interview.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted many studies in the area that resulted in seeking ways to get the community relocated. After approximately 25 years of community organizing, the Hyde Park Community is now finally being relocated. Reverend Utley helped organizing his community around this very topic.
Any movement has to deal with setbacks from time to time. The Hyde Park Community around Rev. Utley had to fight with constant disagreements of the commissioner concerning the severity of the contamination – even though it had been proven to be contaminated by Brownfield Projects by the EPA. Officials refused to take action for over 30 years. The community had not been notified about any environmental issues in their homes, so they decided to do their own investigation.
‘The local officials did very little in our fight to provide assistance with our efforts; however, the community was able to receive two Brownfields Pilot projects without the assistance of the city of Augusta. Additional assistance came from EPA and ATSDR (Agency of Toxic Substance and Disease Registrar) who provided us with a health study that was conducted by our local health department.
The city engineering department needed a place for a retention pond for water runoff and to assist the residents by using Hyde Park for the project’.
Since the community did not receive any help from the city and has been exposed to contamination for decades, there are many community members who are sick, mainly with cancer related issues and respiratory problems. Even 40 years after Utley took over as community president, issues are found among Hyde Park residents.
‘Our fight is a continuous fight because we have not reached full fruition. There are many residents who have not been compensated for their property who are homeowners. Therefore, the community has not given up but has continued to fight until all of our rights as citizens are received, which also includes long term health care’.
[/fusion_builder_column][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”]Charles Utley talks about what he says is the unfair treatment he has received from the city regarding the purchase of his Hyde Park properties during a news conference in September. Utley was a major player in a decades-long fight to clean up contamination from area industries at the site. (MICHAEL HOLAHAN/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE, 09/13/16)
Media coverage was one of the primary ways the community was able to get their story out to the public. The response to the community has been one of the things that caused the relocation to take place. They have received help from local and regional organizations for their plight, which includes the book Polluted Promises by Dr. Melissa Checker, and two documentaries.
Charles Utley is the Associate Director and Environmental Justice Campaign Director at BREDL. He says that BREDL has been a supporter for his community from the beginning of their struggle. They provided assistance with their staff, community programs and workshops. They are involved until the whole community has received the justice it deserves.
For people who want to help their community, he recommends staying focused on the major issue(s) and to understand that if you do nothing, then nothing will be done for your cause. Therefore, each individual in the community must be committed to the cause. The Hyde Park Community needed assistance in getting the word out to other organizations, to tell them that the struggle is not over and that their assistance is still needed. They sent letters to The Richmond County Commissions and Mayor Harry Davis, urging that the issues still needed to be addressed. But the fight goes on as homeowners have yet to receive the just compensation that was promised by officials.
At the end of our interview, Rev. Utley said that the vision that his parents had for the Hyde Park Community was what formed his organizing ground. Community organizing has taught him that success may not come immediately but that being persistent in your work will pay off eventually.
‘Above all, you must put your trust in Jesus Christ’.
Look up BREDL at http://www.bredl.org/ and see if there is a Chapter in your area. Get the help you and your community deserve with organizations like BREDL and CHEJ!
Our water in the US is supplied by lots of sources. Groundwater makes up about 25% of water used, while surface sources like rivers, lakes, or reservoirs make up the remaining 75%. Most of our water is used for thermoelectric purposes, irrigation and public supplies (2005). But water is also important for industry and farming, since it can be used for almost every step of producing everyday goods like food, paper, chemicals, petroleum, or metals. The water cycle doesn’t end there, though. The water used in production needs to flow somewhere, and a lot of times it goes back into rivers.
In a 2004 fact sheet by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), US water sources were declared too impaired by pollution to support their use: ‘In 2004, states reported that about 44% of assessed stream miles, 64% of assessed lake acres, and 30% of assessed bay and estuarine square miles were not clean enough to support uses such as fishing and swimming. Less than 30% of U.S. waters were assessed by the states for this report. Leading causes of impairment included pathogens, mercury, nutrients, and organic enrichment/low dissolved oxygen. Top sources of impairment included atmospheric deposition, agriculture, hydrologic modifications, and unknown or unspecified sources.’
Knowing the numbers is one thing, but knowing what that means for the general public is another. What does it mean to live near a contaminated river or reservoir? If the pollution exceeds a certain level of concentration, it means that your community’s main water source is not fit to drink. More than 100,000 miles of rivers and streams in the US have poor water quality due to factory farming. One single agricultural company, Tyson Foods, causes 104 million pounds of pollution in our surface sources of water within four years. One can only imagine the impact that the whole of US agriculture must have on our water supplies – not to mention other industries and big oil.
With public awareness growing and environmental movements on the rise, how can industrial and agricultural pollution still happen at this large scale? A big portion of water pollution is backed by outdated policies or lack of those that control the amount of pollution. Policies that do exist are enforced poorly and inconsistently which lets industries bypass or ignore laws. Unplanned industrial growth and a number of small scale industries with lack of funding for better technologies influence water quality as well. Often times, it is lower income and marginalized communities suffering the most.
The main issue that stems from water pollution is the impact on health. Polluted water can contain chemicals like fertilizers and pesticides, industrial wastewater, heavy metals, and even radioactive waste. The impacts on communities can be dreadful, and ecosystems are being harmed beyond repair. Failing ecosystems put a strain on many parts of our modern day lives. Fish living in contaminated waters can easily ingest pollutants and carry them into the natural food chain. Habitats are being lost and species are on the brink of extinction, major disasters like oil spills damage public and private properties. The list of consequences seems endless. We all know that coming in contact with these pollutants can cause diseases like cancer, painful rashes, issues with liver and kidney, and disturbance of the nervous system. Children are especially vulnerable: In the Flint water crisis, officials found lead levels in the water causing low IQ, shortened attention span, and increases in violence and antisocial
behavior. It can adversely affect major organs of the body and the effects are irreversible.
All these facts might feel almost insurmountable. But let’s focus on what we can do to change the way people look at our water, and to reduce pollution and the effect it has on our lives. There are many approaches to help keep our water sources clean.
Look at your own water footprint and the footprint of the food you’re eating and the goods you’re using. See what you can change about your lifestyle that would reduce it. See how we impact our water sources.
Look for companies that use environmentally friendly methods and sell biodegradable products instead of chemical cleaners and harming industrial practices. Buy local.
Advocate for your cause. If you change opinions of your friends and family, and if you educate them about water and all the issues revolving around it, they might do the same. It only needs a small number of people to start a movement. Spread the word.
Join an organization, donate or volunteer. See what you can do in your community. Join CHEJ and help communities affected by pollution
Learn about our water sources and how they are used, who influences them and who uses how much.
Check out these links to learn more: http://saveourwater.com/conservation-lifestyle/ https://www.americanrivers.org/category/clean-water/ https://www.americanrivers.org/category/restore-rivers/ https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/clean-water/sewage-pollution/ https://www.nrdc.org/issues/water-pollution https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05062015/fracking-has-contaminated-drinking-water-epa-now-concludes https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/fracking-air-pollution-IB.pdf
Each bee visits about 1,500 hundred flowers per day. They pollinate 80% of the world’s plants, which makes them responsible for about 30% of the food we eat (1). Without bees, we would not have honey, beeswax, oilseeds, or most of the fruits and vegetables we know and love.
On October 31st, the US Fish and Wildlife Service will put into place a ruling in which seven species of Hawaiian bees (a variety of Hylaeus yellow-face bees) will be placed on the endangered species list (2). You might assume that there is no cause for concern because these are only a few types of bees in one state. However, this endangered species ruling includes 3 animal species and 39 plant species in addition to the bees- and this is just in Hawaii. Unfortunately, the causes of endangerment for these species are happening in more than just one state. Causes for Concern
The Center for Biological Diversity tells us that 99% of any currently threatened species in the world were put at risk because of human activity (3). A multitude of human factors have contributed to the decline of what once were among the most abundant species- the bees. Urbanization, introduction of nonnative plants and invertebrates, water extraction, manmade structures, artificial lighting, human intrusion and dumping of trash into anchialine pools are just a few of the issues these Hawaiian bee populations are facing. In Europe, honeybee populations have declined partially due to a lack of forage (an effect of urbanization) and the use of pesticides. Pesticides not only kill bees, but they weaken their immune systems, and can affect things like their ability to navigate their surroundings or recognize certain flowers (4). This inhibits bees from performing the daily functions that we rely on them for. However, we do not need to protect certain species from endangerment solely because they provide us with something. We also must be aware that certain human activities are threatening biodiversity. Although there are many natural factors that cause populations to fluctuate and even go extinct, our focus must be on the human factors we can control.
[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 University of Vermont’s Study shown here displays other at-risk counties in the US, which are mostly agricultural areas. These bees face pesticides and habitat loss. (7) Solutions We Can See
One proposed solution by Greenpeace to protect bees from pesticides is ecological farming. Eco farming aims to create sustainable farms and communities through advocacy and education, which eliminates the use of pesticides altogether (5). Another proposed solution is advocating for legislation that fights human-caused degradation. A good example of this was Europe’s ban on neonicotinoids (a common pesticide that contaminates nectar/pollen) back in 2013 (6). Calling your local congressperson or speaking out about these issues are the first steps in getting legislation such as this passed. Although pesticide issues are not the main area of concern in Hawaii, campaigning against similar issues like the dumping of trash in anchialine pools or the building of structures on top of at-risk habitats is a great place to start. Though we may not be able to save every species from natural extinction, we can certainly reduce the human impact on the precious populations around us today.
[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”]Alonzo Spencer, president of Save Our County, speaks during a demonstration at City Hall decrying a hazardous waste incinerator run by Heritage Thermal Services in East Liverpool on Tuesday, May 26, 2015. The EPA had recently detailed serious and repeated pollution violations. Citizens have fought the presence and operation of the incinerator for decades. (Dispatch Photo by Barbara J. Perenic) Alonzo, you’re on the board for CHEJ. How did that happen? What’s your connection to CHEJ? I’ve been on the board of CHEJ for over 25 years. I met Lois before she formed CHEJ. She’d come [/fusion_builder_column][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”][to East Liverpool] to testify — we were battling this facility here and she came and testified on our behalf and then when she formed CHEJ, I think maybe a year or two later, and I accepted. What was Lois coming to testify about? In our community we have the world’s largest hazardous waste facility permitted. We’ve been trying to stop it from day one. She and I knew some of the same people and we invited her here to testify. She came and helped demonstrate. What hazardous waste facility? Heritage Thermal Services, formerly known as WTI. We’ve been fighting this since they started. We took action against permitting them to build. We requested that both the state and federal EPA monitor them, and they’ve had numerous violations cited against them. This facility should have never been built from a legal standpoint, environmental standpoint, or health standpoint. How did you become active in the organizing community? Why fight against Heritage Thermal Services? Well, you know originally when this was first proposed I was in favor of it, at that time, keep in mind we didn’t have any organization here. First, they said it was going to be safe, and it was going to attract industry. They were gonna sell cheap steam and electricity. To apply for their permits to build they were required to hold these hearings. We found out by attending these hearings their original statements were false. It was introduced to us as a “Waste to Energy Facility” but we found out it was actually a hazardous waste facility. So we learnt from that. Then we formed Save Our County and that was started to oppose the facility. What is your organization up to now? We are currently in the midst of a lawsuit against Heritage Thermal Service regarding their classification as a habitual violator by the U.S. EPA. We’ve been in court [with them] a number of times. We are set to go October 17th in the United States courthouse in Youngstown, Oh regarding our suit. We are going to present to the judge what we’d like to get out of the suit. Fighting Heritage Thermal Services is my organization’s, Save our County, main concern. We have other organizations throughout the country that our fighting their own local battles and we have gone to them and assisted them. We help other organizations in the same way that CHEJ does. We’ve learnt that from being affiliated with CHEJ. What did you start off doing in activism? Demonstrations at first. We held demonstrations at the facility. Martin Sheen came once and 33 of us got arrested, including Martin. We had a trial [regarding our arrest] and we won our case! We were charged with trespassing and we went to court we had a trial and we were found innocent. We had peaceful demonstrations here, demonstrations in D.C. and we were arrested there, too. What effect has Heritage Thermal Facilities had on your community? Right now, East Liverpool has been designated by the Ohio Department of Health to have a higher cancer rate than the state or national average of health. We were told this was going to happen to us before the Heritage Thermal Services moved in, and time has proven it to be true. Our school age children are breathing this poisonous air which has had an affect on their learning ability and attention span. We have a high rate of children with learning disabilities. This was all predicted. They said it would be a while, ten to fifteen years, and now it’s all come to fruition. What would you recommend to communities for advice in organizing? The first thing we tell communities is to organize and try to put people in positions of authority that are on your side, in other words, councilmen or commissioners. You have to make sure these officials understand the negative effects and are on your side, that they understand what’s going on. Ask them questions, do they know about the effects that the facility will have on the environment? These facilities have such a dramatic negative health effect on this community. This is a very important aspect that groups have to address before getting started. Any words of advice for citizens trying to organize? Do not be mislead by what these facilities say initially. Try to find out as much as you can about the facility itself, what they are going to do, and try to make sure that they are held accountable for all of their violations. 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[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”]Photo Credits: Alex Cohen of Soul Much Water.
The time for action is always now! In case you haven’t heard, here’s a brief rundown of what’s happening at the Dakota Access Pipeline. This movement is often referred to as the NoDAPL (No Dakota Access Pipeline.
The Army Corps of Engineers, although responsible for issuing the permits allowing the pipeline construction, failed to coordinate meetings to obtain explicit permission for the DAPL from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who have sacred ties to the affected area.
In response to the pipeline, there are thousands of people camping outside of Cannon Ball, North Dakota to peacefully protect the sacred land where the Dakota Access Pipeline has construction scheduled.
Unfortunately, the retaliation to these protect actions have not been peaceful nor respectful. Legal decisions have been made in an effort to dismiss the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s claims to rights for the land.
There exists an implicit media bias towards movements like this: which is why we need people like you to #StandWithStandingRock.
The time for action is always now! In case you haven’t heard, here’s a brief rundown of what’s happening at the Dakota Access Pipeline. This movement is often referred to as the NoDAPL (No Dakota Access Pipeline.
To read a complete summary of what’s going on, check out this article.
It is movement’s like NoDAPL that are why an organization like CHEJ exists. The injustice to the people affected by the pipeline, as well as the potential environmental disaster that could result from any malfunctions within the pipeline, are in and of themselves a call to action from each and every one of us to do our part. There are many reasons why people still justify having pipelines built, but no reason is good enough to dispute the fact that pipelines ruin lives and present too large a risk to the environment. We all live busy, demanding lives, but this is a powerful movement that cannot and must not be ignored.
Think of it this way: resistance for the pipeline is essentially a rejection of the pro-oil status quo. That means it’s power ultimately depends on the widespread support from everyone. Standing Rock is taking on one of the largest and most powerful interests groups of American politics and society right now. This isn’t something we can just talk about on twitter or amongst our friends. This is larger than a controversial dinner topic, it is a crucial turning point in our history where we finally prioritize our land over our economic gains.
Here’s how we, both you and I, can help this historical moment happen:
Go out to the various protect sites. Find out more here.
Follow these Facebook groups for immediate updates on the fight.
Organize an action demonstrating support for the movement within your community. Organize it well: the course of history depends on loud, powerful and forceful people coming together for the common good.
If nothing else, talk about it. Slacktivism it may be, it’s better to normalize the concept of resistance to the pipeline. Talk to your parents, your kids, your neighbors, your friends, your boss, your mailman! Make it a priority to discuss the issue with someone at least once a day. It’ll not only spread the word, it will also solidify the argument in your mind for the next time somebody tries to justify the pipelines existence.
Whatever you decide to do, the craziest thing we can do is absolutely nothing.
James Goodman, Democrat & Chronicle. Professor Richard Newman chronicles the history of health & environmental activism of Lois Gibbs during her time in Love Canal. This is the foundation of the movement behind the Center for Health, Environment, & Justice.
[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”]Remediation work being done near abandoned houses in the Love Canal neighborhood in the late 1970s. (Photo: NY Department of Health Love Canal collection at SUNY Buffalo)
A chain-link fence around 70 acres of land in the southern part of Niagara Falls is the most readily apparent sign that this was ground zero for the Love Canal environmental disaster.
Underneath are about 22,000 tons of hazardous chemical waste, dumped there — much of it in 55-gallon drums — between 1942 and 1953 by the nearby Hooker Chemical Co.
Rochester Institute of Technology history professor Richard Newman details this disaster — and the citizen movement it spawned — in his new book, Love Canal: A Toxic History from Colonial Times to the Present, published by Oxford University Press.
The dangers of the dump came to a head in August 1978, when New York state Health Commissioner Robert Whalen declared Love Canal “a great and imminent peril to health,” followed by President Jimmy Carter issuing a declaration of national emergency.
Testing by the Health Department revealed the presence of 82 chemicals — including such carcinogens as TCE (trichloroethylene) and benzene — in locations beyond the dump, in air samples, basements and monitoring wells.
But that was not the last word.
Love Canal residents in the area continued to voice their concerns — leading to an evacuation of about 1,000 families and the enactment of such laws as the 1980 Superfund legislation for cleanup of hazardous sites and its 1986 amendment providing the public with the right to know what chemicals are being dumped.
“This is the first time that a human-made disaster made national and international headlines and the first time a citizen’s movement impacted national environmental policy,” Newman said in a recent interview.
Most visible among the homegrown activists was Lois Gibbs, who moved to Love Canal in 1974 with her family. She soon found that her young son, Michael, began suffering seizures and immune system problems.
Her daughter, Melissa, who was born in 1975, suffered problems with her platelets, which cause the blood to clot. Bruises began appearing on her body.
“I had thousands of people call after Love Canal. They had questions like, ‘How did you do that?’” Gibbs said in a recent interview.
Newman’s book also tells about what he calls the “underside of the chemical century.”
And there is a Rochester connection. Hooker Electrochemical Co., as the company was formally called, was founded by Elon Huntington Hooker, an engineer and entrepreneur. He came from a prominent Rochester family and earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Rochester.
Hooker Chemical, like other emerging chemical companies, gave short shrift to the dangers posed by its pollutants.
“As he aged, Elon Huntington Hooker continued to celebrate the power, not the pitfalls, of chemical innovation,” writes Newman.
Grass-roots organizing
It was a group of residents-turned-activists who, after they and their children experienced the ill effects of Love Canal, made the pollution of this dump a national issue.
In 1978, Gibbs founded the Love Canal Homeowners Association, which sounded the alarm.
The evacuations began in 1978 and reached about 1,000 by 1980, with the federal and state governments, according to Newman, putting up $27 million for families to evacuate.
Gibbs, who was among those evacuated, moved to Falls Church, Virginia, where she established the Center for Health, Environment and Justice.
Luella Kenny, who lived in one of the hot spots near Love Canal, was among the 1,322 former residents who filed a lawsuit against Occidental Petroleum Corp., which in 1968 bought Hooker Chemical, and various governmental entities in Niagara County for damages to health and property.
Kenny, who was a cancer researcher at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, said the death of her 7-year-old son, Jon, from kidney disease was linked to the exposure of chemicals and his suppressed immune system.
In the settlement of the lawsuit, the judge ruled that her son had suffered a “wrongful death,” and ordered an undisclosed award, said Kenny.
The settlement also provided $1 million for the establishment of the Love Canal Medical Fund to help pay for medical expenses related to Love Canal. Kenny was the first president and is now vice president of the fund
“Love Canal was a man-made disaster. People should realize that they are responsible for the planet,” Kenny said.
Newman tells how state officials, in their study of Love Canal, documented increases in birth defects, miscarriages and various illnesses.
But officials were caught off balance, having to deal with so many health and environmental concerns at one time.
“Indeed, the very definition of ‘disaster’ still revolved around natural events like hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and earthquakes. But leaking chemical waste into nearby homes? This was simply not on the political radar,” writes Newman.
While other books have been written about Love Canal, Newman provides a comprehensive, start-to-finish history, with an emphasis on how the residents of Love Canal — people who had no background in political organizing — forced the issues.
They confronted public officials, questioned the halfway measures that government proposed and showed that the pollution was not an act of God, but rather the result of inadequate controls on industry.
In June 1978, Gibbs began going door-to-door with a petition to have children removed from the elementary school built on the dump.
Roots of pollution
Newman traces the history of Love Canal, which is in a region that in the 1720s served as a trading center for the French.
With companies taking advantage of its hydropower, the Niagara Frontier — most noted for Niagara Falls — became fertile ground for industrial development.
In 1894, entrepreneur William Love broke ground for what he envisioned as a power canal — diverting water for industrial development.
But within three years, Love ran out of money and left a big hole — about a mile long — in the ground.
That hole became the main dump for Hooker Chemical.
Elon Hooker was the patriarch of the company.
“He helped launch the American Chemical Century,” writes Newman. “Hooker backed an economic sector ready to take off and take over.”
A friend of President Theodore Roosevelt, Hooker aligned himself with the Progressive Party, and when Roosevelt made a bid for re-election in 1912, Hooker served as the party’s national treasurer.
Hooker Chemical took hold in the 1940s, producing not only bleaching powder and caustic soda but also explosives, rubber materials, disinfectants and defoliants used during World War II.
This was long before the full effects of hazardous chemicals were understood.
By 1953, the dump — Love Canal — was full.
Making a dangerous situation all the more so, the Niagara Falls School Board purchased Love Canal from Hooker Chemical that April for $1.
“Not since the Dutch gained Manhattan for a few guilders would a New York land transaction inspire so much subsequent scrutiny,” writes Newman.
Even though Hooker’s executive vice president told of the potentially hazardous “nature of the property,” the transfer of ownership went through and the construction of a new school ran into problems.
The foundation sank but, undeterred, the building was moved a short distance away.
Agents of change
Newman describes himself as an historian of American reform movements.
He is author, co-author or editor of six books on abolitionists and environmental history.
Newman returned to RIT for this school year after spending two years as director of The Library Co. of Philadelphia, established by Ben Franklin in 1731.
His first book, The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic, found that religion “was a cornerstone of abolitionism throughout the Revolutionary and early national periods.”
In Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers, Newman focused on a former slave who “helped define the meaning of liberation theology, the notion that God sided with oppressed people.”
Newman, 49, who grew up in Buffalo and earned his bachelor’s and doctorate in history at the State University of New York at Buffalo, grew up seeing TV news reports about Love Canal.
“It was always a curiosity, but I never visited it until I became a professor teaching environmental history at RIT,” he said.
Newman, who joined the RIT faculty in 1998, first visited Love Canal a year later.
“My first impression of Love Canal was that it wasn’t marked and people tried to erase it from the landscape,” Newman said. “I wanted to uncover the important nature of Love Canal and the way activists changed American environmentalism.”
[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”]Just Moms Co-Founder Karen Nickel happily maintains control of the microphone while Sam Page, democrat running to maintain his seat for County Councilmen of District 2 responds to questions about West Lake. This past Thursday, August 18th, members of the St. Louis community came together to hold their candidates running for public office accountable for working towards a safe and permanent solution for the West Lake Landfill. I am one of the St. Louis team members of CHEJ. We have worked tirelessly all summer to help the grassroots organization Just Moms STL organize powerful, community-driven actions in order to move public officials who are responsible for the West Lake Landfill. The irony has not been lost on us that Dawn and Karen, founders of Just Moms, named simply because that’s their preferred career title description, have had to interact with the EPA and many government officials as if they were as stubborn and incoherent as young children. We held a candidate forum. We invited every politician running for a position of power that has the potential to affect change for West Lake. A lot of politicians chose not to come, many citing that the Missouri State Fair’s Governor’s Ham Breakfast was on the same day, across the state. We had 11 candidates attend, running for local seats as city representatives, state legislation representatives, and two running for congress. We provided them with two pointed questions and three minutes to respond however they saw fit. We never handed them the microphone –– everyone in attendance of the meeting came to hear only about a West Lake solution, and keeping the mic gave us that control. On Thursday we heard a lot of bipartisan support for a bill currently sitting in the house, HR-4100, that would transfer the EPA’s responsibility (or lack thereof) of West Lake to the Army Corps of Engineers, who across the country effectively clean up nuclear waste sites such as ours. This bill has experienced resistance in the house from politicians in the pockets of Republic Services (the company who currently owns the landfill), and from representatives who fear their own nuclear waste-sites high priority status will be jeopardized once a site as bad as West Lake comes on to the Army Corps plate. It’s been a mess at the federal level, so perhaps a state-level solution is the best– and only– way. This event took a lot of coordination between CHEJ, Just Moms, and Missouri Coalition for the Environment. All three organizations worked together to come up with the questions, produce and edit literature, and fact-checked one another on all the information we presented at the event. We handed all this out in a booklet to everyone in attendance. One of the major successes of this handout was a candidate scorecard, which allowed the audience to write down and reflect on how the candidates responded to our questions. We used #WestLakeForum on twitter and facebook to document and share with those not at the meeting the various promises and ideas the politicians came up with. If nothing else, the community affected by the landfill now has a record of accountability for these candidates and can use this to decide how they’ll vote on November 8th. Overall, this forum was a demonstration of the enormity with which the Bridgeton community cares for a resolution to the West Lake Landfill, and a powerful tool of documentation for the candidates vying for their support. It has been made abundantly clear that to win over the votes of their constituents, these politicians need to work together to come up with a safe and permanent solution for the residents around the West Lake Landfill. We’ll be holding another West Lake Candidate Forum this month on August 31st. We have candidates running for seats like the U.S. Senate, Lieutenant Governor, and U.S. House of Representatives R.S.V.P.ing to the event. Check out the event page if you’d like more info. Check out photos of the event here. [/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
On August 18th, CHEJ worked with Just Moms STL and Missouri Coalition for the Environment to orchestrate the West Lake Candidate Forum, where state and local election hopefuls came out to respond to our questions about the steps they will take in office to resolve the issues from West Lake Landfill. The candidates can be seen in the following order:
Mary Nichols – State Rep District 72, Democrat
Keith English – State Rep District 68, Independent
Mark Matthiesen – State Rep District 70, Republican
Vicki Englund – State Rep District 94, Democrat
Kenny Biermann – State Rep District 65, Democrat
Dan Hyatt – State Rep District 72, Republican
Richard Orr – State Senator District 23, Democrat
Byron DeLear – State Rep District 70, Democrat
Steven Bailey – U.S. House of Representatives District 1, Republican
Bill Otto – U.S. House of Representatives District 2, Democrat
Sam Page – County Council District 2, Democrat
Mary Poelker – County Council District 2, Republican
with testimonies from two community members, Meagan and Izzy. The mic was constantly in the hands of Just Moms co-founder Karen Nickel and the ceremony was MC’d by STLCC Professor LaRhonda. For more info about the event, read our blog post about it’s strengths and successes.
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Check out this album from Just Moms community meeting in June 2016. Lois Gibbs came out to St. Louis to visit with Dawn and Karen, the leaders of Just Moms, and discuss the next action steps for the community affected by West Lake Landfill. We took some pictures at the formal meeting!
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gh some people have already completed their absentee ballots, the 2016 presidential election takes place on Tuesday, November 8th. That means we have exactly ONE WEEK to fully educate ourselves and make a decision on which candidate to vote for. (Make sure to take a look at the first link listed at the bottom of the page.)
