Tag: Activism

lead in the blood of Flint’s children

The crisis in Flint started in 2014 when Gov. Rick Snyder’s hand-picked and unelected city manager decided to save money by switching Flint’s water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Problems with the water were immediately apparent but state officials did not take residents’ complaints seriously until testing last fall showed elevated levels of lead in the blood of Flint’s children.

Gov. Snyder has finally, after 20 months, declared a state of emergency and is scrambling to do damage control and deflect blame.2 President Obama declared a federal emergency in Flint as well. But as chief executive of the state of Michigan, with an aggressive agenda of cost-cutting and austerity practices, responsibility ultimately rests with Gov. Snyder.

The Justice Department has said they will join the EPA in investigating the contamination of Flint’s water.3 We need to make sure there is a transparent and fair investigation that reaches all the way to Gov. Snyder, and holds him accountable for his role in creating and perpetuating this crisis.

Tell the Justice Department: Deliver justice for Flint, Michigan. Click here to sign the petition.

Before the water source switch, anti-corrosives were added to the Lake Huron water to help protect aging pipes. But when the switch was made, officials did not add anti-corrosives to the Flint River water. It would have cost $100 a day to do so. The change in water quality was immediately apparent:

Residents rapidly voiced complaints about the smell, taste and rusty appearance of the water. They also raised health concerns including rashes, hair loss and mood changes. Even General Motors stopped using the Flint water, “saying it was rusting its parts.”4

The high levels of salt in the Flint River were leaching lead out of Flint’s aging pipes. In the face of an E. coli advisory, chlorine was added to the water, which only increased the corrosion. When the chlorine failed to fix the bacteria problem, residents were urged to boil their drinking water. But boiling increases concentrations of lead, leading to higher exposures.5

Repeated complaints were ignored. As of February 2015, officials were still telling the people of Flint that their water was safe.6 More than six months before Snyder declared a state of emergency, one of his top aides warned that the state wasn’t taking resident complaints seriously enough.7 There are reports that state officials knew last year that the water was poisoned, but didn’t say a word.8

We need to demand immediate steps to fix Flint’s public health crisis. But sadly, Flint is not alone in dealing with crumbling infrastructure and right-wing leaders who enact slash-and-burn budget policies. If we don’t demand justice for Flint, we’ll be seeing the same story emerge in cities across America.

Tell the Justice Department: Deliver justice for Flint, Michigan. Click the link below to sign the petition:

http://act.credoaction.com/sign/Flint_Snyder_la

Thank you for speaking out,

Heidi Hess, Senior Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

Add your name:

Sign the petition ►

References:

  1. Mitch Smith, “Flint Wants Safe Water, and Someone to Answer for Its Crisis,” New York Times, January 9, 2016.
  2. David Graham, “What Did the Governor Know About Flint’s Water, and When Did He Know It?” The Atlantic, January 9, 2016.
  3. Arthur Delaney, “Justice Department Investigating Toxic Tap Water In Flint,” Huffington Post, January 5, 2016.
  4. Judy Stone, “What You Need To Know About Lead Poisoning – Flint Edition,” Forbes, January 9, 2016.
  5. Ibid.
  6. David Graham, “What Did the Governor Know About Flint’s Water, and When Did He Know It?” The Atlantic, January 9, 2016.
  7. Stephanie Gosk et. al., “Internal Email: Michigan ‘Blowing Off’ Flint Over Lead in Water,” NBC News, January 6, 2016.
  8. Ben Mathis-Lilley, “Michigan Knew Last Year That Flint’s Water Might Be Poisoned But Decided Not to Tell Anyone,” Slate.com, January 11, 2016.

neonicotinoid pesticides

 

Big news in the fight to protect bees: The Environmental Protection Agency just released a stunning new report admitting that popular neonicotinoid pesticides are partially to blame for the massive bee colony collapse.1

This new development is remarkable because the federal government is now finally admitting, after over 20 years in use, that “neonics” are killing bees. Yet, farmers are still spraying dangerous bee-killing neonics on tens of millions of acres of farmland across the United States while bees continue to die off in droves.2

The EPA has been notoriously slow at responding to this crisis, and its previous efforts to restrict neonics use have not gone far enough. We must ramp up pressure on the EPA to ban the use of neonicotinoid pesticides once and for all.

Tell the EPA: Ban dangerous bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides. Click here to sign the petition.

Bees and other pollinators play a vital role in our food production system by enabling the production of many of the nuts, fruits and vegetables in our diets. In total, pollinators make possible an astounding 35% of global food production and contribute more than $24 billion annually to the U.S. economy. But the number of managed honeybee colonies in the United States has declined from 6 million in the 1940s to just 2.5 million today – jeopardizing our food supply and domestic agriculture industry.3

And the outlook for bee colonies is getting worse. A recent survey, funded in part by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, revealed that U.S. beekeepers lost over 42% of their colonies between April 2014 and April 2015, a significant upswing of losses from the previous year.4

Now that the federal government has admitted the definitive proof that neonics are contributing significantly to the collapse of bee colonies, it’s time for the EPA to take action to ban these dangerous pesticides nationwide before any further harm is done to bee populations.

Tell the EPA: Ban dangerous bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides. Click the link below to sign the petition:

http://act.credoaction.com/sign/epa_neonics_bees?t=6&akid=16622.7870734.8eVdVc

Thanks for all you do to save bees.

Josh Nelson, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

Add your name:

Sign the petition ►

References

  1. EPA Releases the First of Four Preliminary Risk Assessments for Insecticides Potentially Harmful to Bees, United States Environmental Protection Agency, January 6, 2016
  2. Tom Philpott, The EPA Finally Admitted That the World’s Most Popular Pesticide Kills Bees—20 Years Too Late, Mother Jones, January 7, 2016
  3. “Fact Sheet: The Economic Challenge Posed by Declining Pollinator Populations,” The White House, June 20, 2014
  4. “Colony Loss 2014-2015: Preliminary Results,” Bee Informed Partnership, May 13, 2015

The Campaign for Food Justice Now

Prominent food researcher Patricia Allen finds promise in the movement, but also raises concerns about the effects of alternative economic strategies that are found in community supported agriculture (CSA) and farmers market models
and the possibility that these types of “designer” food production schemes may create a two-tiered food system built upon class differences.

She also critiques the movement’s view that using food assistance programs is “dependence,” pointing out that in antihunger perspectives food is viewed as a right to be fulfilled by the state if the market, or for us the self-reliant community, fails.

Published on Mar 4, 2013

LaDonna Redmond is the founder and executive director of The Campaign for Food Justice Now. Previously, she was part of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in 2011 as the Senior Program Associate in Food and Justice. A long-time community activist, she has successfully worked to get Chicago Public Schools to evaluate junk food, launched urban agriculture projects, started a community grocery store, and worked on federal farm policy to expand access to healthy food in low-income communities. In 2009, she was one of 25 citizen and business leaders named a Responsibility Pioneer by Time Magazine. In 2007, she was awarded a Green For All Fellowship. LaDonna was also a 2003-2005 IATP Food and Society Fellow. Redmond is a frequently invited speaker, and currently hosts the weekly Monday evening radio program “It’s Your Health” on 89.9 KMOJ, The People’s Station. LaDonna attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Improving access to healthy food is a critical component of an agenda to build an equitable and sustainable food system.

Accessing healthy food is a challenge for many Americans—particularly those living in low-income neighborhoods, communities of color, and rural areas.

A 2009 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that 23.5 million people lack access to a supermarket within a mile of their home.

A recent multistate study found that low-income census tracts had half as many supermarkets as wealthy tracts. Another multistate study found that eight percent of African Americans live in a tract with a supermarket, compared to 31 percent of whites. And a nationwide analysis found there are 418 rural “food desert” counties where all residents live more than 10 miles from a supermarket or supercenter— this is 20 percent of rural counties.

Researchers find that residents who live near supermarkets or in areas where food markets selling fresh produce (supermarkets, grocery stores, farmers’ markets, etc.) outnumber food stores that generally do not (such as corner stores) have lower rates of diet-related diseases than their counterparts in neighborhoods lacking food access.