Center for Health, Environment & Justice
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Many Communities Don’t Have the Complexion for Protection

Charlie Powell in Birmingham, Alabama has waited since 2005 for action from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Instead he gets the run around. Why? Because like so many other communities that we work with they are poor and African American. They have the wrong complexion for real protection. Instead of stopping the air emissions of an industrial coke plant or properly cleaning up the contaminated soils throughout the community EPA and health authorities gave each family a piece of paper. It included a list of things they should do, not

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October 11, 2018

The Importance of Civic Engagement and Grassroots Politics

By: Sharon Franklin On September 18, 2018 CHEJ conducted a training conference call on The Importance of Civic Engagement, One question from the call included What happens if the people of this nation ignore their civic responsibilities and don’t help make important decisions? Answer: Only a hand full of gerrymandered voters end up deciding who represents us and the majority of the voices of voters are not heard.  That is Why Civic and Political Participation and Engagement are important because it allows all peoples voices and positions to be heard,

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October 3, 2018

New Plan for Disposing of Oil/Gas Waste: Where Bad Science Hits the Road

The state of Ohio reached a new low when it approved the use of radioactive oil and gas-related waste “brine” on roads as a deicer and dust suppressant. This issue came to public attention during a state legislative hearing on a proposed bill that would make this practice easy to continue. In response, the Buckeye Environmental Network filed a public records request for an Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) report that tested several samples of AquaSalina, a product available to consumers in local hardware and home improvement stores across

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September 26, 2018

Is the Drinking Water Safe at Your Child’s School?

I wonder how many parents, in the excitement of this new school year, were stunned to read this week that there is a good chance that their children’s school drinking water is tainted with lead? More concerning to me is how many more parents still have no idea whether there is lead in their kids’ school water fountain. Children are more at risk from the danger of lead poisoning than adults and the damage lasts a lifetime. Yet the majority of schools nationally don’t test their water, or if they

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September 19, 2018

Toxic, yet non-hazardous?

Coal is dirty. That is an unsurprising fact of coal, every process involving coal is dirty. Mining coal is extremely energy intensive and can destroy whole ecosystems, burning coal produces millions of tons of carbon dioxide, but perhaps the dirtiest part of coal is disposing of coal ash. The United States burns over 800 million tons of coal each year to produce 30% of its energy. This burning of coal produces 110 million tons of coal ash annually according to the EPA. Coal is really just ancient carbonized plants, burning it produces millions of

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September 6, 2018

Depression, A New Side Effect of Fracking — Pennsylvanians who live near fracking are more likely to be depressed

By: Sharon Franklin July 29, 2018 Stress and depression are higher among those living closest to more and bigger wells. People who live near unconventional natural gas operations such as fracking are more likely to experience depression, according to a new study, by Joan A. Casey, Holly C. Wilcox, Annemarie G. Hirsch, Jonathan Pollak and  Brian S. Schwartz  “Associations of unconventional natural gas development with depression symptoms and disordered sleep in Pennsylvania.” Background:  The study is the first of its kind published in Scientific Reports.  The University of California at Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University

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August 29, 2018
Blog Roll
Greenpeace’s The Witness
Grist
Groovy Green
Healthy Child Healthy World
Inside Prevention
It’s Getting Hot in Here
Moms Rising
Pharos
Safe Mama
Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
The Soft Landing
Treehugger
Zero Waste World