Issue: Environmental Justice

Nalleli Cobo led a coalition to permanently shut down a toxic oil-drilling site in her community at the age of 19. She and her community went on to push the city of Los Angeles to ban new oil exploration and phase out existing sites.

In September 2019, Sharon Lavigne, a special education teacher turned environmental justice advocate, successfully stopped the construction of a US$1.25 billion plastics manufacturing plant alongside the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, Louisiana.

LeeAnne Walters led a citizens’ movement that tested the tap water in Flint, Michigan, and exposed the Flint water crisis.

Born and raised in a family of community activists, mark! Lopez pushed government officials to provide comprehensive lead testing and cleanup of East Los Angeles homes contaminated by a battery smelter that had been operating on temporary pollution permits for over three decades.

In a community whose environmental rights had long been sidelined to make room for heavy industry, Destiny Watford inspired residents of a Baltimore neighborhood to defeat plans to build the nation’s largest incinerator less than a mile away from her high school.

Kimberly Wasserman led local residents in a successful campaign to shut down two of the country’s oldest and dirtiest coal plants—and is now transforming Chicago’s old industrial sites into parks and multiuse spaces.

Hilton Kelley is a leading figure in the battle for environmental justice on the Texas Gulf Coast, as he fights for communities living in the shadow of polluting industries.