By Jessica Klees, Communications Intern
Jose Franco Garcia is an activist working with the Environmental Health Coalition, a binational organization that does work in San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico. His work focuses on environmental justice that crosses borders and brings communities together.
“Much like the Environmental Health Coalition, I grew up on both sides of the border,” Garcia explains. Like Garcia himself, many of the community members that EHC serves have family in the United States and in Tijuana. The border has a large impact on the day-to-day lives of people in these areas. Garcia says that in addition to environmental justice, issues such as immigration reform, housing, and worker’s rights are all affected by the US-Mexico border.
During the pandemic, members of the Tijuana and San Diego organizations were able to meet together much more frequently because of the conveniences of remote work. This has allowed group members to communicate, work together, and build a strong sense of community.
Garcia notes that “some of the environmental justice impacts are very similar” between the two communities in San Diego and Tijuana, although they are in different countries. Both are affected by the environmental impacts of factories and other industrial polluters. For example, textile plants known as maquiladoras are common near the border, and pollution caused by these plants affect those living nearby. Garcia adds that the nearby port also causes poor air quality for people on both sides of the border.
Garcia started his career as a labor organizer with United Healthcare Workers, where he worked with people in the same neighborhoods as he does with the Environmental Health Coalition. These communities are largely made up of people of color; they are often young people and the elderly. There are many frontline workers in these communities as well. Garcia says that “the same neighborhoods impacted by environmental justice are dealing with economic justice.” He describes this as a “cumulative impact” of these factors that affect people’s lives. And these experiences are quite similar between neighborhoods in Tijuana and San Diego; community members are often dealing with the same issues.
“I don’t think there’s a social justice organization in this region that isn’t impacted by the border,” Garcia explains. Issues like transportation, healthcare, and housing affect the lives of people who regularly cross the border and families on either side of it. Garcia emphasizes that all of these issues are interconnected. He adds that when policy decisions are made, leaders need to take into account how communities on both sides of the border will be affected.
The Environmental Health Coalition’s recent work includes establishing a new air pollution control district in San Diego. Another issue that the group is focusing on is transportation justice: improving mass transit to make it more accessible and better for the environment. Language justice is also a very important issue to Garcia, as he grew up interpreting for his mother, who only spoke Spanish. Because of these experiences, access to interpretation services is extremely personal for him. The Environmental Health Coalition always holds meetings in English and Spanish, and there is sometimes interpretation in more languages as well.
Using Zoom to connect during the pandemic has been difficult, but Garcia finds that it can still be a useful tool for getting people involved. “Folks that I never would have imagined being on Zoom a year ago are now jumping on and are telling others how to use the interpretation function on Zoom.” One way that community members have been able to connect online, Garcia found, is by leaving online meetings open so that people can talk and catch up with each other afterwards. “This was Spanish conversations, English conversations…Being able to have that connection, I’ve seen a lot of people have thrived in that, a lot of community members enjoyed that.”
Photo Credit: Jose Franco Garcia
Category: Stories of Local Leaders
By: Anabelle Farnham, Communications Intern
Georgette Gomez grew up in the Barrio Logan area of San Diego, California, and has always been invested in helping this migrant community thrive, both through her work in grassroots organizing and, more recently, as a local representative.
Gomez is first-generation Mexican American, and this culture and history are a central part of her identity. A freeway cuts right through Barrio Logan, but instead of letting it divide their community, artists have painted large murals that depict important immigrant stories on the pillars that hold it up over the community park. Gomez describes the murals and the park as an epicenter of her identity and culture, both today and as a child without access to these Chicano/Latinx stories in school. Because of these murals, the park is now officially designated as a National Landmark.
“There’s a lot, it’s not just a park with beautiful colors…for someone like myself, growing up I was really hungry for that, that belonging, that awareness of my own history, not the U.S. history, but the border history.”
The park was not only a location for this art and for family gatherings, but it was also the first place Gomez learned to have pride in her community. It serves as a central location for various rallies and protests, as a place where healthcare workers come to offer services, and where music and art are celebrated. Having grown up in a community so active in organizing and fighting for their own rights, Gomez was predestined in some ways to become a community leader: “I grew up being an organizer before even getting hired to be an organizer.”
While Gomez was in college, she learned of a grassroots organization, the Environmental Health Coalition. This non-profit was doing work in Barrio Logan and, motivated to be involved in the neighborhood and community that had raised her, Gomez found a job as an organizer with EHC shortly after graduating. After a few years of organizing work, she became more involved in EHC’s civic engagement projects encouraging folks in low-income, migrant communities to vote.
“I always wanted to figure out a way to go back to my community and do work; heal my community, make it strong, be able to provide the resources and infrastructure a community should have to live healthy, to really maximize people’s potential as humans.”
This work began to open new doors. A local candidate running for election in the neighborhood that Gomez was organizing in asked her to help him to run his campaign. Gomez considered this choice carefully, but in the end she believed that he was running for the right reasons and with a focus on important issues so she decided to volunteer with him. The candidate, David Alvarez, won the election!
After this campaign, Gomez became more and more involved with the policy side of organizing. She jokes that often the big players in politics, those with a lot of money and power who are seeking more of the like, constitute “the machine.” Although holding this view meant that she had always been a critic of the government, Gomez began to see the power of having the right candidates in office.
In 2016, a City Council seat opened up in a community adjacent to Barrio Logan with a similar resident make-up: low-income, Chicano/Latinx majority, and a dynamic age range. Gomez decided to run for office. The decision was not easy, and it took a lot of consideration for her to know what she wanted to do. With encouragement and support from the people she had worked with, she decided that it was important to take a stand for the issues that she cared about.
“We do so much work electing folks thinking, hoping, praying that they’re going to do the right thing and then you have to do more work to hold them accountable. So then I just said, okay I’m taking one for the team and I’m going to put myself out there.”
It worked: Gomez was elected for a four-year term in council and got to work immediately. She knew that reelection was not guaranteed and wanted to do as much positive work as she could. One of her major focuses was the transit system: having strong public transportation in this community is not only good for the environment, but also connects these families to better jobs and better healthcare without the expenses of a car. It wasn’t long before she was named president of the Council and Chair of the Metropolitan Transit System.
As her four years in this office came to an end, Gomez knew that she could run for reelection. But with the encouragement of her constituents and those close to her, she decided to continue challenging her limits by running for congress.
“I believe that all tools are necessary to be active. And all tools means also government.”
This was the biggest test of Gomez versus The Machine yet: she was up against a millionaire with funding multiple times larger than that to which Gomez had access. In addition, the Covid-19 outbreak hitting in 2020 took out the door-to-door strategy that a grassroots candidate like Gomez relies on in order to gain votes. She lost the election, but despite this loss Gomez remains full of hope for the future.
The purpose of the campaign was not to gain power or money. The purpose was to fight for the things she believes in and the potential of protecting and growing a community of people she cares about deeply. She says of the experience “I learned a lot.”
Today, Gomez is using her 15 years of formal organizing experience to advise non-profits on their strategies for effective action. Perhaps in the future we will see her running for office once again. One thing is for sure: she will continue to fight the odds against The Machine and to stand up for the issues that she believes in.
Photo Credit: David Poller/NBC News
Olinka Green is a fighter who wakes up every day and chooses not to be defeated. A natural born activist raised in Dallas, Texas, Green got her first organizing experience in the third grade making signs to encourage her classmates’ families to boycott canned tuna. In her high school, Green joined a group of volunteers canvassing door to door in the West Dallas Housing Projects talking to residents about getting lead tested. One of the largest developments in the state of Texas, the projects were next to factory smoke stacks with known lead exposure, and families were being poisoned. Green hadn’t known how detrimental lead poisoning could be until she saw children born with limb disfigurement and parents dying of cancer, and she didn’t know that this experience would prepare her to spend her life fighting for communities under environmental and economic stress.
“I wasn’t scared of knocking on doors. I was scared of the effects that I saw.”
After taking time away from school to raise her two sons, Green was incarcerated for several months. She spent this time finishing her high school degree, and when she was reunited with her children the family moved into a housing development in North Dallas where she met mentors that helped her continue her education through college. One of these mentors, Reverend Carter, took her under his wing and taught her the tenets of social activism from his experience throughout the Civil Rights Movement.
Green overcame the difficult circumstances in her young adult life and turned her strength towards fighting for racial and environmental justice, which she has continued to do for the past 33 years. From being a Block Captain to organizing protests, she believes that she must be revolutionary about her standards for the way of life in her community and that she must be revolutionary in fighting for them.
In contrast to the West Dallas Housing Project she canvassed around in high school, Green grew up in a community with parks instead of smokestacks, so she was shocked when she found out about the toxic contamination at the Lane Plating Works site near her house. She started uncovering the history of the site and helped organize a community health survey that connected her neighbors’ health problems to the now Superfund site, but in a low-income Black community, she feels the company and the government are being apathetic towards their needs. She is seeing suffering caused by contamination now in her own community, and is fighting to reinstate the Polluters Pay Tax to hold companies accountable for cleaning up the messes that burden citizens like her neighbors.
“They’re killing whole communities. And what do they do with the money they make off what they do? They create empires, buy stocks, and send their children to college. And our kids are born without arms.”
Green acknowledged that in the daily fight to protect her family and her community from racial and climate injustice, it is easy to feel like the work she does is not enough. She is vocal about mental health struggles as a woman of color and an activist – another way in which she supports the people around her. She expressed abundant gratitude for her teachers, and we thank her for teaching us and inspiring us through her story, her openness, and her perseverance.
Her message to corporations poisoning communities like hers: “You’re going to have to deal with me. I know who you are and I know who buys stock in your corporation, you gotta see me.”
Photo Credit: Sarah Hoffman/File 2013 Photo/Dallas News
By: Simone Lewis, Communications Intern
When Gillian Graber and her husband bought their home in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, she didn’t expect to become a full time activist fighting to keep her neighborhood safe from fracking. She was focused on being a stay-at-home mom, caring for her kids. This vision was quickly disrupted when smoke from their neighbor’s wood stove began permeating Gillian’s home and affecting her children’s health, causing her three and five year-old children to become sick with acute sinusitis. Gillian began to learn more about air pollution and the legal tools she could use to ensure environmental safety for her family. After a year and a half long court battle, the Graber family was assured the right to clean air in their home. The victory was big, but punctuated by bigger news: the same week in late 2014, they received a notice in the mail about two proposed fracking well pads within a half mile from her house.
“That really got us to realize that our surroundings and things that happen in our environment will impact us negatively health wise and impact our quality of life. I’m a mama bear and I will fight for my kids”
Well pads used for industrial hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, can contain five to twenty individual drill sites at which millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals are pumped at high pressure thousands of feet below the earth’s surface. This process fractures the shale rock formations, releasing fossil fuels as well as radioactive material and chemically contaminated water.
Gillian was tired from her long court battle, but she got to work researching hydraulic fracturing and found it could expose her community to known carcinogens, heavy metals, and a slew of other toxic chemicals. She knew first-hand the impacts of their surrounding environment on her family’s health and quality of life, and she felt that she had to do something. She made flyers, followed the school bus up the hill to inform other parents, and organized a meeting in her living room. That’s how she started Protect PT, a citizen’s group working to protect the Penn-Trafford area and surrounding communities from the effects of unconventional gas development. With a background in communications and a refusal to give up, Gillian volunteered her time for two years before receiving the grant that allowed her to assume her current role of executive director.
With the looming well pad proposal, Gillian worked to gather information and supporters. The citizen’s group participated at local hearings to question the gas company and persuade the municipality not to accept the well pads. In 2015 as the proposal was increased from two pads in their township to twelve, Protect PT secured three outright denials from the township – a big win.
The industry was shocked: “They weren’t expecting the resistance. They weren’t expecting us to know what we were doing. They weren’t expecting us to be prepared”
After the local government refused to accept the well pads proposal, the industry turned around and sued the township in federal court for 380 million dollars on the basis of violation of their constitutional rights. Although the municipality would have won such a case in court, the industry was able to pressure the government into approving the proposal without the thorough review it required through the threat of this massive cost. The residents knew that their constitutional rights to clean air and clean water were being violated by the fracking industry every day in Pennsylvania, and this series of events was undoubtedly discouraging and destructive to the community. Gillian, however, did not give up the fight.
“You can’t bury your head in the sand. It’s not an option if you want to maintain the integrity of your community and you want to maintain your property rights. We all need to understand that we have power too.”
She continued to use her experience and her platform to fight against the oil and gas companies and to help others do the same. Protect PT created a home resource guide on everything from state and local laws to the science of pollution to help people understand what they might be facing and how to fight it. They hold online workshops, consistently produce educational and advocacy materials, and partner with other organizations on action items to stop fracking and protect communities. After six years, Gillian shares, the oil and gas industry is starting to recognize that residents will oppose them and hold them accountable for infringing on their rights.
Gillian continues to lead her community in the fight to protect their economic, environmental, and legal rights and to advocate for people in extractive areas. Her advice to those getting involved: “Do your research first and listen to the people that have been through it because you can learn from their experiences.”
Learn more about Protect PT and how you can support their mission here.
Photo Credit: Connor Mulvaney/PublicSource
By: Anabelle Farnham, Communications Intern
Lee Ann Smith’s son was only 11 when he was diagnosed with a rare form of thyroid cancer. In fact, finding the cancer in the first place had been almost a mistake: Gabe had gone to get an MRI so that the doctors could check for scoliosis. When the scans came back, he was scoliosis-free, but a different mass had been discovered.
As a devoted mother, Smith’s first priority became helping her son to heal. They lived in Asheville, TN and the closest location for his treatment was a 4-5 hour drive away. Over the next two years, she put her energy into helping her son to get better, until he was luckily declared cancer-free at the age of 13.
“When I first got that call from the doctor who gave the results from the biopsy, it felt surreal. This was something that happened to other people, not to me or my family.”
Only after Gabe had recovered from the illness did Lee Ann start thinking more about why he might have gotten sick. The family had no medical history or genetic predispositions that indicated he could have been vulnerable to this form of cancer. They ate a healthy diet, and no one in their family smoked. Yet, Smith’s first thoughts were always questions of the concerned mother: “What could I have done better to prevent this?”
“There’s this tendency, I think, to say, ‘What could I have done to have prevented this?’…Short of choosing not to live where I lived…I don’t know that there was actually anything that we could have done.”
This cancer was no ordinary case, however. When Smith asked the doctors about what could have caused the cancer, their pediatric oncologist asked her if their family had ever been to Chernobyl. One of the known causes of thyroid cancer in children is high levels of radiation. This prompted Smith to think that the doctor was indicating an environmental issue could be the cause behind Gabe’s illness.
With this new knowledge, Smith began to do more research. She discovered that the house her family was living in was only one mile away from a toxic site. At the site, high levels of trichloroethylene (TCE) were being pumped into the ground, evaporated into the air, and contaminating many people’s drinking water. The company, Chicago Telegraph Service (CTS), had abandoned the site in 1986. They had manufactured car and airplane parts in Asheville and used TCE as a degreaser in the process.
When Smith made this discovery, she assumed that there were people who already knew and were taking action on it. Although CTS wasn’t functioning at that site specifically, they are still in operation even to today in other parts of the country. Surely someone was making sure they were paying for the mess they had left in the community?
“When I found out about this, I thought that somebody was probably working to take care of it; that somebody was watching out for my health and the health of my children, the health of my family, the health of my neighbors…And as I found out more about it I discovered that not much at all was being done.”
But as Smith looked more and more into the situation, she realized that no clear action was being taken. What needed to be done was obvious to her: these chemicals were in their environment, threatening the health of the community around her and they needed to be removed. As an elementary school librarian, Smith would go to school in the county where she worked and teach kids in grades K-4. Who was protecting the health and safety of the children she worked with everyday?
“I kept thinking about these itty bitties I teach and I couldn’t give up, not just for my family, but also for them. Because it has got to get better.”
Smith began going to community meetings and found that there were other community members who knew about this situation because they had also gotten sick; many people had suffered from the same rare thyroid cancer as Gabe. However, on a federal level, the amount of people who were suffering was not being recognized. When the North Carolina Health Department in partnership with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) did a study, they found that there was no statistically significant number of people who were sick in the area. This is not unique to Asheville: ATSDR has conducted many health studies that depend on population density as a key factor to determining a location as having a “cancer cluster.” Because their town was not densely populated, the government entities around them were not declaring their suffering to be significant.
Through these community meetings, Smith also learned that there was a history of the EPA working on the site. However, many of the people in these community organizations were angry at the EPA. The agency had not been effective at achieving a cleaner environment or protecting people’s health, and they had made many mistakes already. This ineffective action made people distrust the EPA and eager to find alternative solutions for approaching this site clean-up.
While community organizers held anger towards the EPA for their inadequate response, Smith remained focused on accomplishing what she felt was most important: removing the toxic chemicals from the ground. She continued to recognize the EPA as the only entity with federal power to take them through this process. With the help of some community members that she recruited, and local non-profits such as Clean Water for North Carolina, she began to reach out to the EPA and seek partners within the agency that could help her achieve justice.
Others in the community remained divided about the methods Smith was using. With their bad track record, people were unwilling to continue to pursue a clean-up through the EPA. Some community members felt so strongly that they would harass or even threaten Smith for the work that she was doing. One woman on the phone told her that she was “poisoning and killing” community members for working with the EPA. As though fighting CTS to take responsibility for their actions and spurring the EPA into meaningful action was not enough of a challenge, Smith was also faced with division in her community.
“I had people actually come up and say to me ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing that? You’re never going to see clean up in your lifetime. You need to just give up now.’ …and I said ‘No, watch. We’re gonna get it.’”
Despite the conflicts with other community members, Smith’s work led to the area being declared a Superfund site in 2011. They were also able to write a technical assistance grant and hire a technical advisor who could help create more clear communication between the EPA and community by putting the more dense information from the EPA into digestible form.
In the decade that followed the declaration of the Superfund site, the community was successful in developing and implementing two phases of removing the TCE from the ground. One strategy has been to put probes into the ground that heat up the soil and burn off the TCE. Secondly, they have been able to inject combative chemicals into the ground through a form of fracking that, when they come into contact with TCE, renders it inert.
“I would love to be able to tell budding environmental activists, ‘oh my god, do it, its gonna be so easy and you’re gonna be so successful.” Unfortunately, that would be a lie. I can tell you that it’s gonna be hard. Find your support structure and lean on it.”
Although this site is on track to continue being cleaned up, Smith is still fighting today for justice. Most of the money that pays for clean-ups of sites like hers come from taxpayers dollars. In other words, Smith not only had to pay for all the treatment of her son Gabe, and her other son who later developed a bone tumor, but her money is also going into cleaning up a mess that she did not create. This is why she is a part of collaborating with CHEJ on our mission to reinstate the Polluter’s Pay Tax. To read more about this campaign and to support people like Lee Ann in their fight against corporations like CTS, check out this link: http://chej.org/makepolluterspay/
Photo Credit: POWER Action Group
By: Anabelle Farnham, Communications Intern
When Darryl Malek-Wiley moved to New Orleans in 1983, the environmental justice movement was just beginning in the U.S. The Clean Air and Clean Water Acts had been passed in 1972, and pollution was not yet at the forefront of the mainstream environmental movement. Wiley had joined the Sierra Club in 1972, which at the time was a mainly grassroots operation focused on the protection of wildlands and the conservation of America’s beauty. From this, he was familiar with environmental work. By the time Wiley had moved to Louisiana, however, he wasn’t focused on conservation and the maintenance of coastal wetlands; instead, he wanted to know what was happening on the Mississippi River.
Upon his arrival in New Orleans, Wiley first investigated what was along the river, expecting to find it bordered by plantations. Instead, he was surprised to discover petrochemical plants strung along in what seemed to be a never-ending line, creating an environmental and health crisis in their trail. Wiley, along with other activists in his area, would soon coin this stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans where he was located “Cancer Alley,” and later on “Death Alley.”
“We can’t put no trespassing signs on our lungs. We can’t put no trespassing signs when we drink water. These companies are trespassing on our bodies and that’s not right and we need to stop it.”
His first project with these petrochemical plants came when Wiley discovered that one of them, Freeport McMoran, was planning to dump millions of gallons of radioactive waste into the Mississippi River every year. Wiley recognized quickly that this was an alarming and unsafe action for all of those affected by the water supply and surrounding environment. When he began to do more research into it, he found that just a 10% concentration of the pollution they were planning to dump would result in a 100% mortality rate of the fish in the river.
The fight to hold Freeport McMoran responsible for this method of waste management lasted for two years. During this campaign, Wiley was appointed to the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel. When began working with the other appointees, he noticed that he was one of many older white men, an identity that did not reflect those diverse individuals of the communities for which they were advocating. Wiley made it a point to quickly find an African American community leader who could serve as a representative alongside him. This was only the beginning of his parallel fight to that of environmental justice: giving voice to those in the communities truly affected by these issues.
Wiley had always been a part of change in his community, so this initial fight was not too unfamiliar to him. Before arriving in New Orleans, he had helped to organize workers demanding fair wages at his jobs in North Carolina, co-created an anti-nuclear group named the Catfish Alliance, and been a part of the KKK Ally Response in Alabama. This prepared him by the time he made it to New Orleans to work with diverse people and connect within and across communities desiring change.
“Once you put yourself out, people call you”
After they had succeeded in the fight against Freeport McMoran, the work Wiley was doing in the community continued to grow. Soon after, he received a call from Richard Leonard, who was an organizer with the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union. A BASF chemical plant along the Mississippi River was in the middle of a lockout, which functions like a reverse strike: the company was actively denying hours to the workers. Workers at the plant were looking for ways to put pressure on BASF to get their jobs and fair wages back, and they wanted Wiley’s help in this fight.
In order to strike back, the workers found that their leverage was in their knowledge of pollution. Given a map of the chemical plant, they could point to places on the property where they had been instructed by their managers to bury waste rather than dispose of it properly. The union had one of the workers print out the evidence—for BASF, and 16 other chemical plants in the surrounding area—and together they did some addition. These 17 chemical plants, out of the 140 that lined the Mississippi River, were emitting an astonishing total of 19,347,000 lb. of pollution every year. Using this information, the group of workers and organizers was able to expose and pressure BASF to do what was right. To spread the word even more, they collectively bought a billboard and put on it “Welcome to Cancer Alley: Brought to you by BASF.” If you want to learn more about the BASF fight, Wiley recommends reading the book Forcing a Common Bond.
“I’ve always been driven by, you know, what is right? What is right for people? How do we make sure everybody gets to breath clean air and water and land? And that’s sort of what has driven my activism”
Wiley has been in many environmental battles since these initial ones in the 80s and continues to work with the communities in Death Alley today. This past year, many people have been hit harder from Covid-19, as the history of air pollution in the region has made residents more susceptible to death when they contract the virus, either directly or by causing pre-existing conditions. Besides this national crisis, Wiley is also working on multiple campaigns today still against the petrochemical plants that line the Mississippi River. Most notably, he is campaigning to stop a new Formosa Plastics plant from being built along the river, which is the largest single-use plastic manufacturing company in the world. The plant itself would emit more greenhouse gases than 3 coal-fired plants combined. To read more about these urgent campaigns and find out how you can help, check out the links below:
To learn more about what residents in Cancer Alley are fighting against, click here.
To read more about the campaign against Formosa Plastics Plant, click here. You can also click here and here.
To read about the City of New Orleans opposing Formosa Plastics Unanimously, click here
By: Ruth Rodriguez, Communications Intern
Water You Fighting For activist, Melissa Mays, is not a stranger to standing up and speaking out. Nicknamed “Champion of the Underdog” at a young age, she always protected and helped the “little guy” succeed. She was working as a financial planner when her job transferred to Flint, Michigan. At the time, General Motors was cutting back benefits for retirees, and Mays would help people in retiring comfortably. Later, she went into music promotions and marketing, specifically for metal bands.
Flint, MI was struggling financially, and the head of MI at the time, Governor Snyder, put the emergency manager law in effect. He appointed an unelected emergency manager that had the power to veto all local government. In reality, Mays says this was a guise to privatize all of Flint’s assets which in effect began cutting multiple revenue streams. What prevented Flint from going bankrupt was the water crisis.
In 2014, the decision was made to switch the city’s water supply to the Flint River though residents knew to not fish or even go there. For decades, industry had been dumping waste into the river. The government did not test the water and went against locals’ wishes and switched the water supply. Mays said she was naive in thinking that the government would never give people something that was bad. Then, some residents began reporting brown and orange water running in their homes. This was as a result of Flint River water being 19 times more corrosive. The government would try to ease people’s minds by telling them that these houses with brown and orange water were just isolated incidents as a result of old pipes and such. Mays called these people lucky. Because their water had an odd color, they knew to immediately stop using it. Everyone else’s clear, normal looking water kept being used. Unfortunately, residents did not realize water could still be contaminated even without obvious odors or taste. Additionally, Flint residents’ water bills increased tremendously. Those in Flint paid in one month what residents in other nearby towns paid in 3 months.
Residents began talking to each other about odd things happening to their bodies like rashes. In September of 2014, Mays’ son got pneumonia, or Legionnaires, because of legionella in their plumbing. Mays also developed a respiratory infection that did not subside for 3 months. Her hair started falling out and her muscles and bones began aching.
In January of 2016, residents received a letter that stated for the past nine months their water had been contaminated with cancer causing byproducts total trihalomethanes (TTHMs). Again, residents were assured that they were most likely fine but to consult with their doctor about the water. This time, Mays went to Google to search for more information and came across Lois Gibbs and Stephen Lester of CHEJ. They provided her with information about TTHMs, and Mays realized residents were being lied to. The government was also using outdated data to justify the water’s safety. Mays knew she had to do something.
Since Mays was a promoter, and her husband was a graphic artist, they created Water You Fighting For in January of 2015. The organization started as a website portal for information because she wanted residents to be informed about the lies and issues. To further spread the word, Mays spent her tax money making door hangers to put on people’s front doors. They had a protest, and Mays conducted a “bootleg” epidemiological study by asking residents about any symptoms they may have had and where they were located to create a map. She figured that if people were informed and enough information was gathered, the government would see what is wrong and fix things. Mays found out that this was not the case.
Things then snowballed. They gained a lot of media attention but then it dissipated, though the crisis was and is still ongoing. Mays said that she does not like being lied to, and does not like that she, her kids, and Flint residents were hurt. Mays has had to deal with trauma from the consequences of speaking up. Her break lines have been cut, and she has been followed and threatened. That does not stop her, though. She knows this is what she is meant to do.
In 2015, with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan (ACLU), a lawsuit was filed and then settled in 2017 to force the city and state to replace all lead and galvanized steel service lines. This is still in progress. Mays stated that the settlement was not enough, but it was a start.
People have asked Mays why she does not relocate and she says that 1) she did not do this, 2) if she leaves, they win, and 3) she does not know anywhere else she would go. Mays has testified before Congress, and traveled across the nation to organize other groups fighting for a clean environment. She believes the most important thing is to build a community that unites against racial, economic, and geographical lines. That is what public officials most fear. As for Mays and Flint fighters, she says that they are going to continue what they do best – getting in the face of elected officials and pushing for laws.
“We’re not victims, we were victimized. We’re not victims, we’re fighters, and we’re not gonna give up until they replace every piece of damaged infrastructure or pay for it.”
By: Ruth Rodriguez, Communications Intern
On April 6, 1981, 501(c)(3) paperwork was filed marking the beginning of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ). Lois Gibbs, Founder of CHEJ, remembers the role everyone played in making it the organization it is today. We all now have the “right to know” and Superfund. Dioxin has been stopped in many places, much policy work has been done, and the movement has grown.
“An organization is only as successful as the people who are running it.”
Gibbs was a mom with two children moving through her life while not being able to figure out why her kids kept getting sick. She believed the school nearby was the culprit and asked the school board to transfer her son and close the school. They told her they were not going to do anything for one irate, hysterical housewife, so she decided to get others in the community involved. A parent’s petition was created. Gibbs, in high heels and a skirt, worried and nervous, went and knocked on doors. While doing this, a woman told her that she had been waiting over a month for someone to knock on her door and tell her what to do. That indicated to Gibbs that there were many people out there just like her. With guidance, ideas, and a friend, people would band together.
“When you go alone, you lose.”
The main industry at Love Canal in Niagara Falls is the chemical industry. Most households had someone employed in that type of work. People understood chemicals because unions educated workers, who in turn educated their families. People understood Gibbs’ plight. Gibbs, her husband, and another leader, Debbie Cerillo, took the petition to the state Health Department in Albany, NY. They were planning on having a meeting since every local entity refused to close the school. At arrival, they were told by the receptionist to go to the auditorium. Confused, as it was supposed to be a small meeting, they headed down and upon entering the auditorium they saw so much press that it looked like a governor’s press conference. They were bombarded by the media. Gibbs realized that this is how the government manipulates. They try to catch you off guard and make it feel like you don’t have control or know what is going to happen. It is about politics, not your health. The health department came out and talked about a study in which they found a problem at Love Canal and declared an emergency. All women and children under the age of 2 in the first row of homes had to be evacuated. Chemicals can pass through the blood brain barrier of children under the age of 2 and create brain damage. Outraged and with many questions, Gibbs and Cerillo began yelling and asking questions. The media had a frenzy, the health department left, and the press conference was closed.
The drive home was silent. When arriving back at Love Canal, there were barrels aflame, and people were yelling, “Burn your mortgage!” No one from the health department was there to answer any questions or worries people had. Gibbs was thrown in front of the makeshift microphone because people thought she had answers considering she just came back from Albany. She had never spoken publicly in her entire life, and did not have the answers they needed because even she did not know.
The community decided to create “street captains.” These captains were responsible for a number of houses. They would touch base, hand out flyers, and collect money, among other duties. There were never less than 500 people at Love Canal meetings as a result of having these street captains and this built power. There was not an executive team, Lois never made a decision. Majority ruled because it was a democracy.
Love Canal consisted of 800 families, 240 of those lived in subsidized housing called Griffon Manor. Sarah Herbert was head of the community called the Renter’s Association. Lois’ Homeowners Association and the Renters Association began working together and set goals. They were one group, but with separate leadership.
They never targeted an agency, always people, specifically the governor. When the state saw that the group was having success, they decided they needed to break it up. Mike Cuddy, who worked for the state and was the “on site” guy, came up to Gibbs and Cerillo one day as they were walking to a Renters Association meeting. He told them they could not go because they were women and it was dangerous. He unraveled a large piece of paper that listed the crimes in the area as a scare tactic that was not effective. Gibbs and Cerillo ignored him and went to the meeting.
The state wanted to make it clear that they were helping the Homeowners Association. They would do things for the Renters because they fought for it, but only the Homeowners Association’s name was ever acknowledged. Consequently, the media also never paid attention to the Renters. The state and the media worked hard to talk about the young woman with little kids, but would leave the African American families, who were just as impacted, entirely in the dark. Herbert and Gibbs would meet on a weekly basis until Sarah told her they could not meet anymore because things were getting uncomfortable. Tension rose amongst people within the groups and the Renters decided to go on their own. The dividing and pitting against each other was deliberate. Gibbs says she is responsible for not taking it head on. At the time they were trying to fight for their lives and already had no idea what they were doing, but in retrospect things could have been done differently to change the outcome. A lesson was learned.
By May of 1980, ring one and two of homes had been evacuated. The homes were purchased at full market value and the area was fenced off. A cleanup and daycare for children, that was located outside of the community, was won. Stephen Lester, now CHEJ’s Science Director, was hired and buses ready for evacuation were provided. Of the 12 goals originally planned, all but one was acquired: relocation.
In a similar fashion to what happened at the first press conference in Albany, EPA representatives told the media that they found chromosome damage in people and that children, and potentially children’s children, could face the consequences which included cancer, birth defects, and genetic damage. Instead of directly telling the community this catastrophic news, they held a press conference. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. People were furious and said if it was safe for them to live here then let the EPA representatives live here. The representatives were called up and then locked in a house that was surrounded by over 500 people refusing to let them leave.
Gibbs called the White House and asked to speak to Jack Watson to inform him about the hostages and the angry people who were just told about the dangers of living in their community. The woman who answered the phone began lecturing Gibbs. Gibbs told her that if she was crazy she would shoot them and then hung up. The hostages were held for five hours. When they were let go, a message was sent to the White House and President Jimmy Carter stating that they had until Wednesday at noon to give residents of Love Canal relocation or something would happen that would make what occurred that day look like a “Sesame Street picnic.” Gibbs also made it clear that this was not preplanned, and she does not advise anyone to do this, though good things did result from the situation. Love Canal attracted national media attention. This led them to create a different narrative. Anyone who talked to the media had to mention Jimmy Carter, who was running for reelection at the time, and talk about how he was not taking action. A sort of countdown began, counting down until Wednesday at noon. It built momentum and was a brilliant strategy that happened by accident.
For the first time, the media did not get the message before the community did. They called the White House and asked for the news release to be read. Precisely at noon, the Whitehouse said everyone would be relocated temporarily until finances could be secured for permanent relocation, but permanent relocation was the goal. They had won.
In October 1980, President Carter went to Love Canal, stood on their stage, announced that the appropriation had been made, and signed the bill for Superfund. Love Canal was essentially over. Lois Gibbs then moved to D.C. and started CHEJ.
“That’s my story. My story is I aligned myself with really smart, strategic people, and then together we all created this new world and made these changes.”
By: Ruth Rodriguez, Communications Intern
Andrea Amico is an occupational therapist who moved to New Hampshire in 2007 with her husband after he was offered a job at the Pease International Tradeport in Portsmouth, NH. Amico described it as a beautiful place to raise a family and a dream place to live. Though she had no idea this dream came with environmental baggage.
The Pease International Tradeport was formerly an Air Force Base. It was the first to become a Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) site which meant the base was repurposed into something else, in this case, as a Tradeport. Looking at the Tradeport and 250 business there today you would never know it was a former Air Force base.
In May 2014, Amico was devastated after reading in the newspaper that there was a high level of PFAS contamination in a well which supplied drinking water to the Pease International Tradeport. Because her children attended daycare and her husband worked at the Tradeport, they were among those who were drinking contaminated water every day. The source of contamination was from the Airforce using fire fighting foam which was laced with these chemicals. The chemicals then seeped into the ground, creating high levels in drinking water. Amico felt extremely guilty as a mother about putting her kids in a daycare where they were faced with an environmental threat.
After reading the newspaper, she began doing research on her own to find out more about PFAS, though there was not much information available in 2014. What information she could find concerned her. Amico learned that these contaminants can accumulate, cause cancer, and impact different systems in the body. After the May 2014 article came out, the local and state government held a community meeting and essentially downplayed the severity of the situation. Because Amico knew about the dangers, she had to do something. She said her family was “poisoned without permission.”
When the movement started, the threats that Amico’s community was facing were being called contaminants of emergent concern. No one could tell her much about what their effects were or what she should do. The lack of answers propelled her because as a determined person she could not accept “we don’t know.” Amico did not have any previous experience in advocacy. It was uncomfortable, at first, for her, but she refused to give up the fight. She began engaging with the health department about blood testing. The department was initially responsive, but then completely stopped responding to her questions. In January of 2015, in a last ditch effort, she went to the media. The local paper published her story on the front page where she urged for blood testing. The article led to a chain reaction and jump started the movement. The media has been critical in raising awareness and holding people accountable for not doing what they should be doing.
“I didn’t have a choice…I could not sleep at night letting this go”…“I couldn’t live with myself not trying to find answers.”
At the time, Amico was connected to Stephen Lester, CHEJ’s Science Director. He helped her as a mentor, and encouraged her to always listen to her intuition and instincts. His valuable advice guides her to this day, and she said being told that was very empowering.
“I think people who are most affected by environmental contamination have the solutions…they don’t need to be scientists, they don’t need to be experts, we know what we need.”
Testing for Pease, where Amico is Co-Founder, came about after the story was published and pushed elected officials to respond to the request of blood testing. Around 2015/2016, 2,000 people were tested for PFAS and the results showed that resident’s levels were elevated, compared to the national average. Amico then asked what the next steps were now that they knew about their elevated levels, but still no one had an answer. She was told that there are not enough health studies to know the effects on humans. This led to the community connecting with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) for a health study.
An issue was who was going to pay for the study. The Air Force was to blame for the contamination, so residents believed they should pay. The Air Force did not have a mechanism to pay for any studies which led to Senator Jeanne Shaheen to create an amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act that would give the Department of Defense the authority to fund the health study. This was unprecedented and never done before. Pease is now the pilot for multisite PFAS studies through ATSDR.
There are currently two active studies, the ATSDR and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Pease Study and an immune function study on children by the Silent Spring Institute to learn about PFAS levels and the effectiveness of vaccines. A concerning effect of PFAS exposure is its potential to make vaccines less effective and suppressing the immune system. This is extremely important research, especially during COVID-19 times.
Blood testing led to studies, which led to filtration of water, which led to clean up of contamination. It was all a domino effect from Amico’s article. Amico is looking forward to the completion of the health studies and hopes to see medical monitoring for people exposed to PFAS since there is no current path or plan for doctors about how to treat people who have been contaminated.
By: Ruth Rodriguez, Communications Intern
Penny Newman, Founder of Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ) was born and raised in California. Her parents taught her from a young age that you need to be involved if you want your community to be a good place to raise children. In fact, Newman’s mother was the first female mayor of Perris, CA. As a young woman, Newman was extremely shy, but she did not let that get in her way when she learned of what was happening in her community. She became an activist by accident, like many of the great activists of today.
After getting married she moved to Glen Avon, CA. It was not until her children began school that she became aware of the Stringfellow Acid Pits. When she became president of the PTA, a woman asked her to cancel the speaker for the meeting one night so that she could speak about the Stringfellow site. Newman asked if she could schedule her for another day, but the woman said no, it was an emergency. That was her first significant encounter about the toxic site. She began questioning what the site was which led her to call the Water Board who assured her that it was nothing to worry about.
The Stringfellow site is 17 acres of pits used as a cheap way for industry to dispose of waste. There were over 400 chemicals scrambled and mixed together at the site. Around 1978, there were many heavy rains in Southern California. Teachers at the nearby school were told to keep students in the classroom because the pits were starting to fill and flood. The teachers were also instructed to keep silent about the issue, but they were rightfully worried and started spreading the information provided to them.
Kids had bloody noses, rashes, dizziness, headaches, and Newman’s son even had seizures. Her family spent more time at the hospital than at home. Doctors had no idea what the cause for all the health problems was.
Newman told her son, “I promise you that I will do everything in my power to make this stop…I’m not going to let this happen to any other child ever again.” “That kept me going.”
Penny was invited to a meeting where concerned residents talked about what was happening and what actions should be taken. Members of the community believed that if they were able to gather facts about the chemicals in the pits and their effects on health, then agencies would better understand their issues and provide aid. They soon came to realize that the decision makers of agencies that could help were already aware of the facts. It was a turning point for her. She said she now knew we lived in a cruel world of money and politics.
“The hardest thing to get over is that you would have people in positions that are supposed to be doing these things and they weren’t. They were choosing not to do it…deny the problem existed.”
The early organizing group of Glen Avon was Concerned Neighbors in Action. It was made up of other moms in the area, about 20 to 25 families. None of them were professional organizers, but they put their heads together to try to figure out what to do. They even received help from Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda.
Chemicals from the site were overflowing, vaporizing, and leaching. The community’s initial approach was to dig up waste and truck it to a safe hazardous waste site. They then came to the conclusion that they could not put their problems onto other communities fighting for a clean environment as well. After radiation was discovered at Stringfellow, Glen Avon then became taboo, said Newman. No one from the outside wanted to visit and consequently businesses struggled.
They had to switch their plan of action. One of the main methods they used was the media. By telling people’s personal stories and keeping the public updated on their every move, they received lots of support and generated outrage toward what was happening in the community. For each demand or thing they wanted they targeted the person that could give them that. Newman said they had to plan strategically by conducting protests, using gimmicks, getting coverage, outlining demands, and giving a timeline. In one of her acts, Newman attended a fundraiser she knew the Governor of California, at the time, was going to be at. As he made his way down the crowd she took ahold of his hand and said “we need to talk” without letting go as he tried to pull away. The media loved this interaction. The Governor later had another engagement in Newman’s area that was picketed by over 150 people asking the Governor to meet with them. After this, Newman heard that the Governor told his team to do whatever they needed to do to get the concerned neighbors off his back.
Residents were awarded a $17 million special fund which allowed everyone to hook on a private well into a municipal water system. That was not enough though. They continued to build leadership and come up with policy so that these battles did not have to be fought at every toxic site.
“We wanted to make sure the people affected by the problem were the ones defining what the solutions would be.”
Newman’s transformation from a shy young woman to a leader that has spoken to hundreds of thousands of people was all as a result of her and her family suffering from the harm of a toxic site. She said, “We had a right to live in a safe community.”
“It was out of necessity. It was really a survival thing. Either we step forward and took it on now, or we’d be dealing with it down the road…It would continue to pollute our families.”