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Environmental Justice and Public Lands
Edmund Muskie and the Clean Air Act of 1970 How a senator from a Maine paper-mill town built the Clean Air Act of 1970, why its health-based standards still matter, and who breathes the difference. Sackett v. EPA and the Wetlands the Clean Water Act No Longer Covers An Idaho couple's fight over a lot near Priest Lake led to a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that sharply narrowed which wetlands federal law protects. April 25, 2014, the Day Flint Switched Its Water Source How a cost-saving decision made under a state-appointed emergency manager poisoned a Michigan city's water, why the warnings were ignored for 18 months, and what changed afterward. Clair Patterson, the Geochemist Who Helped Get the Lead Out of Gasoline A scientist trying to measure the age of the Earth found lead contaminating everything, took on the industry that put it there, and helped drive the US phase-out of leaded gasoline completed in 1996. Executive Order 12898 and Three Decades of Federal Environmental Justice Policy Clinton's 1994 order told every federal agency to weigh environmental justice. How it worked, why it was weaker than it sounded, how later presidents built on it, and how it was revoked in 2025. Love Canal, Lois Gibbs and the 1980 Law That Created Superfund How a mother in Niagara Falls organized her neighbours over chemical waste buried under their school, forced two emergency declarations, and helped push Congress to pass the Superfund law in 1980. Mona Hanna-Attisha and the Blood-Lead Data That Exposed Flint A Flint pediatrician compared children's blood tests before and after the city's water switch, went public in 2015, and was attacked by the state until its own numbers proved her right. Robert Bullard and the Research Behind Dumping in Dixie A 1979 Houston lawsuit needed a sociologist to map the city's garbage dumps. Robert Bullard's answer launched a career, a landmark book and a field of research that still guides policy. Sharon Lavigne, St. James Parish and the Fight Against a Plastics Complex A retired special-education teacher in Louisiana built a faith-based group that took on one of the largest proposed plastics plants in the country. How she did it, and what it teaches organizers. The 1987 Report That Mapped Toxic Waste by Race In 1987 a church commission published Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States. How a ZIP-code study turned scattered local fights into national evidence, and why its methods still matter. The 1991 Summit That Wrote the Principles of Environmental Justice In 1991 grassroots leaders adopted 17 principles of environmental justice. What they said, why big green groups were unsettled, how organizers use them. The 2024 Rule to Replace Every Lead Pipe Within a Decade What the EPA's October 2024 lead pipe rule requires, how the 2021 infrastructure law pays for it, what could slow it down, and how to find out what kind of pipe feeds your own kitchen tap.