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.
Category: Backyard Talk
CHEJ Blog
“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.
Categories
My Personal Experience with the EPA
By: Jose Aguayo, Senior Science Associate
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an often embattled and criticized federal agency – and very much rightly so. Since its inception in late 1970, the EPA has struggled to deliver on its mandate to be good stewards for America’s environment. However, it is my view derived from my personal experience, that the agency’s failings have more to do with its structure and its imposed limitations, than with its people.
One example that is still fresh in everyone’s mind is the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The town experienced such a cataclysmic and systematic failure of all the safety checkpoints designed to maintain a safe drinking water system; but the biggest failure of all came from the very top. The EPA failed to “establish clear roles and responsibilities, risk assessment procedures, effective communication and proactive oversight tools,” as their own self-assessment report concluded. This stemmed from the slow and bureaucratic structure of their upper management, who in many instances were political appointees with little to no experience in the field.
Perhaps even more damaging are the handcuffs the EPA works with – financial handcuffs. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Superfund program. Once funded by a fairly well-designed and reasonable dedicated tax on polluters, the program now runs on fumes. Since 1995, taxpayer money funds the cleanups, and even this has been cut by almost 50% over the last two decades. The result for the agency is almost nonexistent enforcement power and cleanup activities that get delayed for years. I could probably go on and on citing examples of the way the EPA has proven to be next to useless. But I don’t despise the agency; at least not anymore. I worked there for a little over 3 years as a contractor and, initially, I was very cautious and apprehensive. Having come from an environmental nonprofit background, I saw them as, maybe not the enemy, but certainly as a facilitator for those against me. In many ways that remains true, but the people I met there changed my view of the agency quite drastically.
In my years working as a contractor for the EPA, I saw firsthand how its people work passionately and are fully committed to the agency’s mission. I have seen how toxicologist colleagues meticulously examined chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and approached their review from a precautionary principle standpoint. I saw how occupational safety experts strictly enforced updated chemical safety measures at EPA labs. I saw how sustainability professionals implemented new environmental management systems at nearly all EPA facilities to further reduce the carbon footprint of the agency. All of these personal victories of the dedicated EPA staff I have had the privilege of knowing and working with over the past seem small compared to the agency’s debacles. But they served to paint a different picture in my head. In an ideal world, where funding is not always cut short and management is effective and knowledgeable, the EPA could do some good work. Perhaps more, much more, is needed for it to address all of the environmental challenges we face today. But I am willing to bet that if the drive and dedication of most of the EPA staff were unshackled, the EPA would have a decent chance at doing its job.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
By: Sharon Franklin, Chief of Operations
In a recent article in Environmental Health News, Environmental injustice and disability: Where is the research?, it sites that one group remains largely ignored: disabled people, who make up more than 25% of the United States population. When descriptions of environmental justice are made, the EPA doesn’t even include a category for individuals with disabilities. While a recent study Unequal Proximity to Environmental Pollution: An Intersectional Analysis of People with Disabilities in Harris County, Texas suggests that disability status—especially in combination with race, ethnicity, and income—can determine the amount of environmental harm exposure, it doesn’t address the environmental harm and exposure for physically challenged individuals. When we compare similar other marginalized communities, these individuals are also forced to live in areas that disproportionately expose them to environmental hazards.
While environmental justice researchers have spent decades trying to document these inequalities, there are only a few studies focused on the disabled population. Jayajit Chakraborty, a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, observed that in Houston, where “neighborhoods located near pollution sources—like Superfund sites and hazardous waste facilities—were home to a significantly higher proportion of disabled people compared to the rest of the city. In addition, race, ethnicity, and age all further amplified these inequalities—disabled people of color and those aged 75 years or older both lived in even closer proximity to polluted areas, likely decreasing their quality of life.” Conversely, expanding on this research will be difficult, as work like Professor Chakraborty’s is uncommon.
Professor Chakraborty concludes that the goal has always been to expand the scope of environmental justice research. He hopes that studies similar to his Houston study will “lead to a better inclusion of people with disabilities in environmental justice research and environmental policy.”
Daphne Frias, a disabled youth organizer, told EHN researchers that the lack of available data is just a symptom of a larger problem: “ableism.” “It’s the idea that disabled lives are unimportant and disabled lives are invisible. It doesn’t matter if where we live makes us even more unhealthy.” That’s why Frias believes this framing needs to change. “Our community is beautiful and powerful, and I think that needs to be embodied instead of this doom and gloom narrative of how we’re perceived.” She added that moving forward, it’s important that researchers begin reaching out directly to the community and listen to their lived experiences. “It’s the phrase that [disabled people] always say, ‘Nothing about us without us.’”
Photo credit: Environmental Health News
By: Jessica Klees, Communications Intern
Research shows that among those with chronic diseases, use of health services increased as exposure to air pollution increased. It has also been shown that “burning fossil fuels has had significant, direct, and harmful impacts on heart disease, lung disease, and other health problems.” Exposure to pollution hurts those who are already at the greatest risk the most. We need to protect our communities and hold polluters accountable for their actions, before even more everyday people become sick.
Through our work with affected communities, the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice (CHEJ), understands that environmental rights are both a racial justice as well as an economic justice issue. We have found that it is important to note that young children, the elderly, people with weakened immune systems and underlying health conditions are even more at risk for the negative health effects of pollution and toxic waste. These individuals disproportionately suffer more, and for them the effects of pollution and climate change are a serious health issue.
I live with type 1 diabetes, and I understand all too well how unrelenting and frustrating living with a chronic condition can be. From my personal experience, I know what it is like to live with a disease that tries to break you, mentally and physically, every single day. I am very fortunate to be able to have access to treatment and resources for my disease, but this is not the case for others who suffer with chronic conditions. Individuals who are affected by toxic chemicals are more likely to live in underserved communities with less access to healthcare treatment and resources. As I fight my own health issues, I cannot imagine the pain that people who have underlying conditions face when their health is even further impacted by pollution and poisonous chemicals. The fact that corporations willingly destroy the environment and allow people to suffer so much just so they can make a greater profit is not only horrifying, it is WRONG.
Although this health crisis is a dire issue, there is hope. We need to support efforts to reinstate the Polluters Pay Tax. This will create a mechanism for companies that poison our environment to pay to clean up the environmental disasters that they created–rather than having taxpayers pay for the cleanups, when the payments should be coming from the polluters. Currently, there is an opportunity for us to right this injustice, with the proposed Infrastructure Plan that includes a provision to reinstate the “Polluters Pay Tax.” This will enable citizens to hold corporate polluters accountable. Unfortunately, it will not alleviate all the pain of the populations that have been affected, but this will be a giant step in the right direction towards collective healing and environmental justice for individuals who live in these underserved communities.
Photo Credit: James Nielson/Houston Chronicle
It was 43 years ago when I travelled to Albany, New York from Love Canal to meet with the NYS Health Department. My goal was to deliver the petition from the Love Canal Parents Movement asking for the state to close the 99th Street Elementary School. August 2, 1978 was the day my whole world shifted in an unimaginable way.
While knocking on doors in the neighborhood to obtain signatures on the petition, I learned that my neighbors were sick, some had multicolored gunk coming up in the basement and seeping through the cement walls. Many neighbors shared stories with me about black oil looking substance coming up in the fields located north and south of the 99th Street School and “hot rocks” yellow looking rocks that exploded like firecrackers when the children threw them against hard surfaces. Women I spoke with were the most impacting, they told stories of innocent children they lost, pregnancies that ended in miscarriage or birth defected infants.
Our goal at the time, was to close the elementary school. The playground sat on top of the toxic site with the school building located on the perimeter of 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals. I also felt the need to educate the New York State Health Department (NYSHD) about all the other health problems that were occurring in the neighborhood. Three of us travel to Albany, NY to deliver the petitions. As we walked into the auditorium where the meeting was held, we were shocked to see so many journalists. The room had dozens of cameras and microphones on tripods.
Naively, we thought there would be a private meeting in a small office to talk about what we wanted, why it was important to close the school and take the opportunity to share the health information we uncovered while visiting our neighbors.
It didn’t take long to understand that we were being set up. There were three of us, dozens of media related people and later the health department officials and staff took the elevated stage in front of us.
Heath Commissioner Robert Whalen took the microphone and said: “. . . the Love Canal Chemical Waste Landfill constitutes an extremely serious threat and danger to health, safety and welfare of those living near it or exposed to the conditions emanating from it.” He ordered that pregnant women or families with children under the age of two living at 99th and 97th streets (that encircle the landfill) move from their homes as soon as possible. Stunned and terrified Debbie my neighbor and I stood up and began to yell at Whalen. “What are you saying? My daughter is 2 ½ years of age has she been harmed?” The journalist then began to shout questions. The chaos, noise, and shock from the news made me feel faint.
When I walked out of that building, my life was changed forever. The rest of the story is history.
By: Leija Helling, Community Organizing Intern
On Monday afternoon between Zoom meetings, I set out for a walk around my Boston neighborhood and opened the front door to a hazy sky. The air felt thick and smelled like a backyard barbecue. I stood in confusion for a moment, and then in disbelief: wildfire smoke.
News headlines confirmed that smoke from wildfires in the Western U.S. and Canada had taken the jet stream to the east coast and settled over major cities like Boston and New York. Never before had I seen the Boston city skyline blurred out, a reddish haze covering the athletic fields at my university campus, or a deep orange sun. Air quality alerts had been issued across the upper east coast, warning people to stay indoors, especially children, the elderly and those with respiratory and cardiovascular health conditions. I’d been hearing horror stories about the unprecedented wildfire season tearing across Oregon, California, and British Columbia, but to see fires 3,000 miles away affecting air quality in my home city so significantly provoked new feelings of shock and urgency.
Folks on the west coast know intimately how intense, long-lasting, and dangerous wildfire seasons have become in recent years. But for western fires to cause the worst air quality New York City has seen in 15 years, to bring unhealthy PM2.5 levels to swaths of the east coast, highlights just how far the effects of corporate negligence and industry-fueled climate change reach. With extreme heat and dry conditions fueling fires that have already burned at least 1.3 million acres across 13 western states, it’s clearer now than ever that reactionary band-aid solutions won’t be enough. When PG&E, California’s largest power company, cuts costs by leaving flammable brush around their power lines, they start fires that wipe entire towns off the map. These are the consequences of corporate greed. And to fight, we must take power into our hands.
This spring and summer, the infrastructure plans debated by Congressional leaders have offered a glimmer of hope that, if we come together and make our voices heard, we can indeed hold big industries accountable for the harm they cause. For instance, President Biden’s infrastructure proposal includes measures to make sure polluters, not the public, pay to clean up toxic waste sites from industry. But the infrastructure negotiations have also demonstrated the massive obstacles we’re up against. Big industries, especially chemical, oil and gas, hold excessive amounts of power in our political process. As long as Senators’ votes can be bought by big oil, our system will allow corporations to keep putting people’s lives at risk for the sake of profit.
From worsening wildfires to the 40-year backlog of Superfund toxic waste sites, there are a whole lot of corporate messes worth getting mad about right now. Let’s channel that anger toward naming names, building local power, and calling on our elected leaders to fight for the people they’re supposed to represent. Right now, I’m fighting to #MakePollutersPay alongside people across the country who live, breathe, and raise families while industry’s toxic dumps sit in their backyards. It’s about time to start holding polluters accountable for their actions.
Photo Credit: Gary Hershorn/Getty
By: Tony Aguilar, Community Organizing Intern
Time and time again, it seems as though legislation always swings in the direction of big industries–especially the chemical, oil and gas, and pharmaceutical industries–rather than in the direction of the general public. A small number of pharmaceutical companies have been allowed to control the market on drugs and thereby control the prices, making it more and more difficult for Americans to get the drugs that they need. Toxic chemicals continue to pollute our environment and harmful drilling practices like hydraulic fracturing often go unchecked and unchallenged by our government. In a nation where the government is supposed to be of the people, for the people, and by the people, something seems to have gone awry.
The answer to why or how this has happened is probably clear to many by now. These industries have become so large and powerful that they seem to have a stronghold on the government. So, what exactly is at stake here for the American people? Well, in addition to all of the environmental damage that these industries are doing to the planet, they are also putting the lives of millions of Americans at risk in order to make more money. Not only are these industries putting lives at risk for the sake of money, but at the thousands of sites across the country where toxic chemicals are polluting communities, the government cannot seem to find it in the budget to clean up these sites and protect public health. Laws that hold polluters responsible for the cleanup continue to give these industries the benefit of the doubt.
Any work to clean up areas where people are being exposed to toxic chemicals is done at a snail’s pace and the government agencies that were created to help protect us from environmental harms often take the side of industry as well. Recent evidence has been uncovered showing that the EPA, the nation’s defense against environmental dangers, has even approved some chemicals that have been shown to be harmful to humans and the environment to be used in hydraulic fracturing–again, giving the oil and gas industry the benefit of the doubt without taking every precaution to ensure public safety. Many chemicals that are released into our environment and our communities have been related to public health hazards yet they are approved by the EPA on the grounds that the evidence is incomplete or that a causal connection cannot be made between the chemicals and illnesses in humans. Rather than erring on the side of caution, the government gives polluting industries every opportunity to make a profit, while disregarding possible risks to public health.
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 was created to hold polluters accountable for their pollution by charging a tax on polluting companies that would be used to clean up areas of waste and toxic contamination. Since this “polluter-pay” tax expired in 1995, the average number of cleanups completed per year fell from 71 to just 12, leaving more toxic chemicals in our air, water, and soil posing a threat to communities all over the country.
Despite these grim circumstances, there is still hope in our future. These industries have a daunting power that seems insurmountable, but we as the People, have a power that is not to be taken lightly. Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan includes a provision to reinstate this “polluter-pay” tax which would result in more money for the government to clean up communities that have been affected by decades of industrial pollution. This is just one effort in the fight to shift the priority onto the people, where it always should have been, and away from profit-hungry industry.
Although this signals a glimmer of hope, we as the people need to make sure we exercise our power as the chemical, oil and gas industries are sure to do everything in their power to ensure that the polluter-pay tax does not make it into legislation. This new bill will be yet another test of where America’s priorities truly lie.
Photo Credit: Stuart Villanueva/The Daily News file photo
By: Julia Weil, Organizing Intern
While switching to green energy is typically beneficial for human health, a higher standard for what is classified as “green energy” is required to protect vulnerable communities. An example of this is the definition of renewable resources, which allows Europe, which pledged to decrease fossil fuel use, to consider biomass a viable renewable alternative, though it is not carbon neutral.
What is Biomass? Biomass can be made up of wood, wood processing wastes, agricultural crops, agricultural waste, and manure. When this type of renewable material is burned, energy is produced. However, the production of some of these materials can be particularly harmful. In this case, Europe’s outsourcing of biomass includes a crucial “loophole,” which causes damage to the environment. For example, trees that are still rooted are leveled in order to produce greater quantities of wood pellets.
Because of the definition of biomass used by the European Union, they were able to declare themselves to be the first to use more renewable energy than fossil fuels. However, the enormous increase in the use of biomass caused people in the US – specifically, people living in the South – to suffer.
Enviva, the largest producer of “industrial wood pellets” – a type of biomass – was operating two facilities in North Carolina, processing this type of biomass far away from the location where the benefits of the “green energy” would be reaped. It should be noted that this type of biomass is not produced in the EU, therefore, Europe is able to report fewer emissions than were emitted throughout the entire process. The Enviva website, www.envivabiomass.com, advertises clean, green energy, and uses language promising a decrease in emissions from importing materials, however, there is no mention of the consequences suffered by the communities where these plants are located. The locations of the Enviva facilities highlight yet another case of environmental racism – eight of the nine plants located in the United States are in areas with a higher Black population than that of the entire state. Furthermore, “all of Enviva’s plants are in census tracts that have lower median household incomes than their states, and eight of the nine…are in tracts with higher poverty rates than their states as a whole.” Two of the major health concerns experienced by communities affected by Enviva’s production of biomass include defects from the significant increases in air pollution and sleep deprivation from noise.
As is true of most environmental concerns, the production of this type of biomass is one example that can be linked to the harmful effects it has on the environment and to the communities where biomass is produced. There are clean alternatives to energy that are less damaging, and they should continue to be championed as replacements for fossil fuels, such as wind and solar power. However, even with these sources of energy, it is crucial to take into consideration what communities will be adversely impacted by the expansion of our infrastructure, and what is needed to ensure that affected communities are the first to benefit from “green energy.”
Photo Credit: https://www.yourdailyjournal.com/news/74166/dogwood-alliance-concerned-citizens-of-richmond-county-mount-last-ditch-opposition-to-enviva-pellet-plant
By: Benjamin Silver, Science and Technology Intern
Imagine suspecting that your drinking water is unsafe, but lacking the tools to verify your assumption. If the Yankton Sioux Tribe of South Dakota wants to obtain useful data about their drinking water, they must navigate to an online Water Quality Portal with multiple spreadsheets. Some of these datasets take hours to download and contain millions of samples with confusing, bureaucratic jargon. You might fall asleep on your keyboard before reaching any conclusions about your water…
This case study is a prime example of how disadvantaged communities face challenges in learning about the chemicals in their environment. The disproportionate impact of toxic chemical exposure on low-income, minority Americans is compounded by restricted access to the knowledge to combat the injustice. These Americans inevitably struggle to find useful information, whether from a lack of knowledge about existing water quality data or the digital divide that exists in impoverished communities. Even with comprehensive reports at their disposal, most Americans don’t have the scientific knowledge necessary to interpret the data.
Understanding the chemical composition of one’s surrounding environment is a human rights issue. The CDC estimates that over 60 million Americans drink water with chemicals associated with acute or chronic health conditions. While the EPA has never formally investigated chemically-associated health outcomes on the Yankton Reservation, various hazardous waste dumps along the reservation leach into the Missouri River. Even if the EPA did attest to water safety, government promises garner skepticism amongst a culture that has been consistently deceived by white people.
The importance of access to and control over data on tribal land ignited the Sacred Water Bundle Project. CHEJ and the Braveheart Society, a Sioux non-profit dedicated to preserving traditional cultural practices have collaborated to harness data in the water quality portal to construct an interactive map of the land along the Missouri River, the primary water source of the Yankton tribe. Viewers will be able to click on various sampling locations in the region and learn about various toxins at each location, including pesticides, metals, and inorganic compounds.
To create the map, we used ArcGIS (an online mapping software) to pull only water quality data in the region of interest and generate coordinate points for each water sample. We then wrote a code that identified desired toxins in each dataset to group them by chemical type. We will use these groups to create the files for the interactive map.
Harnessing innovative data visualization methods will allow marginalized communities to familiarize themselves with their environment. Regardless of water safety, exposure to accessible, immersive data will equip the Sioux to grapple with long-term sustainability questions facing the tribe: What pollution sources threaten future water quality? Can the water support culturally-valuable plants and wildlife for generations to come? Empowering the Sioux with useful tools will better prepare them to fight for environmental justice and be stewards of their land.
Water quality data doesn’t have to be a jumble of mundane parameters and values. Effective data presentation can allow everyday Americans to become well-versed scientists and leaders in their communities.
Photo Credit: South Dakota State University