For the Navajo people Mother Earth is sacred. She places her mineral riches below ground. That’s where they’re meant to stay. If the Earth’s elements are hauled up to the surface, Navajos believe they can turn monstrous -- or they can unleash the monsters in humankind. Uranium mining produces radionuclides and other toxic wastes full of heavy-metals. Transformed for weaponry and fuel, uranium can affect human genes, according to the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity. To get at uranium deep…
"Smackdown" tells the story of Richmond California, a working class town that grew up in the shadow of a massive Chevron refinery. The refinery emits a toxic soup of chemicals and residents suffer an asthma rate that is double the national average. Explosions and fires have periodically shaken the refinery since 1989. But Chevron is also the biggest employer in town and its taxes supply tens of millions of dollars for city services. Can Richmond maintain a healthy economy while transitioning…
During the Vietnam War the U.S. military defoliated large swaths of Vietnam with Agent Orange to deprive enemy forces of jungle cover. In the process it exposed American soldiers to this toxic chemical as well. Our own civilians back in the U.S. were also exposed to Agent Orange, along with other herbicides. They were involved in testing herbicides at an Air Force base in Florida throughout the 1960s. Dozens of civilians involved in the testing at the base say that more than 40 years after…
When we imagined a podcast about environmental justice – it was before the Tubbs fire here in Sonoma County – and the deadly fire seasons of 2017 and 2018. Even so, we wouldn’t have thought of Indians and their relationship to fire as a matter of environmental justice. But producers Allison Herrera and Debra Utacia Krol have a different viewpoint. They’re members of a Western tribe – and see the increasingly destructive fires in Northern California as a matter of the Anglo society forgetting…
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