A study published in the JAMA Psychiatry journal shows that early exposure to the toxic metal, which can be found in the paint and dust of old homes and even in local water supplies, is associated with increased mental illness in adulthood, including phobia, depression, mania, and schizophrenia.
As May reflects Mental Health Awareness Month, this panel will feature mental health experts, environmental justice activists, public servants, community organizers and policy strategists who work to uplift brown communities.
Host
Kayla Shannon, Spelman College Student
Panelists
Dr. Sarah Bailey, Flint Public Health Youth Academy
Lauren Owan, Lead Prevention Ambassador Alum, Black Millennials 4 Flint
Elise Tolbert, Senior Energy Campaign Manager, Climate & Energy Program , Union of Concerned Scientists
This episode will be hybrid taking place on site at MLK Library in Washington, DC (401-A Conference Room, 901 G St NW, Washington, DC 20001) on May 25, 2023 6PM ET/5PM CT and will be streamed on Facebook Live here: www.facebook.com/blackmillennials4flint.org.
Just days before the Calhoun County derailment, residents of Springfield—some living just 1,000 feet from the tracks—were placed under a shelter-in-place order, which has since been lifted, to prevent exposure to hazardous materials and chemicals. And while officials report that no such exposure risks exist, they have said that at least one train car spilled plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic pellets—and these PVC pellets (nurdles) and the items they are used to create are in facthazardous to human and environmental health.
In Van Buren Township, six cars of a 30-car train derailed in February just weeks after the disaster in East Palestine. While little information about this accident has been released, it’s known that at least one train car was carrying liquid chlorine, a “lung-damaging agent” (which was used as a chemical weapon during World War I) that could have caused serious environmental and potentially lethal human health effects if it had ignited or leaked.
The highly visible derailment in East Palestine that happened on February 3 has been deemed one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. The event’s effects are serious and ongoing, and shed an unfortunate but necessary light on safety issues and a general lack of transparency existing around toxic and flammable plastics and chemicals carried by rail.
Train Derailment in East Palestine, Ohio: One of the Worst Environmental Disasters in U.S. History
Frontline Communities in Ohio & Beyond Face Escalating Chemical Dangers
The East Palestine train disaster’s impacts continue to threaten frontline communities in Ohio and beyond. The waste created by the disaster is scheduled to be stored or disposed of in dangerous ways in close proximity to communities already overburdened by the presence and activities of an extensive array of hazardous petrochemical, chemical, and other industrial infrastructure and activities—resulting in serious injustice. Thus far, officials have made plans to ship the toxic wastes from the derailment firefighting operations and “cleanup” to:
Deep-injection chemical storage wells in the U.S., like the ones in Deer Park, Texas, and Vickery, Ohio, are among the most used and least expensive forms of disposal for hazardous chemicals and other liquid wastes (such liquids from oil and gas extraction and mining). in the U.S. More than 740,000 industrial injection wells were counted under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Underground Injection Control program by 2018, the most recent year for which data is available. Despite being so widespread across the country, these wells are notorious for being poorly regulated and unsafe, with a long history of scientific evidence linking their existence and use to earthquakes, groundwater contamination, and other serious hazards.
Fenceline communities, especially those in Texas, which leads the nation in uninsuredand [is ranked] last in the nation for prenatal and maternal care, are forced to absorb the deadly costs of these toxic disasters. Waste transporter, Texas Molecular, has been the subject of 10 compliance investigations by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in the past five years. Texas Molecular has admitted that there is potential for this injected toxic water to the surface, stating: ‘Could it come up someday? Yes…’
• Tell the EPA and Norfolk Southern to “stop burning toxic chemicals from East Palestine train derailment in our community” to prevent the impacts of this crisis from expanding
• Clean Air Council is working to limit chemical exposure within the homes of impacted residents by providing whole-home HEPA rated activated carbon air purifiers. Support Clean Air Council’s Direct Relief Fund
In addition to helping frontline communities in the wake of disasters, we must also call for systems-level change so that harm can be stopped and avoided in the first place. We need to end wasteful plastic and petrochemical production and expansion and push back as industries build up a vast and highly hazardous network of plastic and chemical railways, highways, pipelines, injection systems, and other toxic artificial arteries which are changing the very nature of the planet and our bodies.
You can advocate for a healthy, just, regenerative world free of plastic pollution and divested from fossil fuels. Get the facts, learn about solutions, and take action.
The topic of menstruation is still considered taboo to discuss in many cultures, despite the fact that half of the people on our planet menstruate every 28 days. Join us for our July webinar, Plastic Free Periods: Protecting Our Bodies & Preventing Plastic Pollution, where we will discuss the connections between plastic pollution, menstruation, and social change.
This webinar is sponsored by Plastic Pollution Coalition member Natracare and in partnership with Coalition member Menstrual Cup Coalition. Together, we will learn from activists and leaders about period justice and how to protect your body from toxic chemicals in products, while exploring the movements happening now around menstrual practices toward a more just, equitable world.
Government agencies play a critical role in advancing environmental justice across the United States, and California’s primary environmental agency (CalEPA) is one of the leaders in this field. At CalEPA, understanding the role of government in perpetuating institutional and structural racism is essential to its work to address the legacy of racist practices and their impacts today. Through the Pollution and Prejudice project, CalEPA’s racial equity team designed a set of tools to help agency staff and communities explore the connection between racist land use practices of the 1930s and the persistence of environmental injustice. Understanding how environmental conditions are informed by legacy land use practices helps it to ensure equitable access to clean air, water, and land for all Californians through policy development and implementation. Learn about how CalEPA developed and uses this important set of resources.
Speakers: Yana Garcia, Deputy Secretary for Environmental Justice, Tribal Affairs and Border Relations, CalEPA Jaimie Huynh, Environmental Scientist, CalRecycle
Moderated by Charles Lee, Senior Policy Advisor for Environmental Justice, USEPA
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