2022 ECO-SUMMIT:
ENVIORNMENTAL HEALTH
April 9th 10am - 12:30pm
“Environmental health is the science and practice of preventing human injury and illness and promoting well-being by identifying and evaluating environmental sources and hazardous agents and limiting exposures to hazardous physical, chemical, and biological agents in air, water, soil, food, etc. that may adversely affect human health” - National Environmental Health Association
2021 ECO-SUMMIT SCHEDULE
1. Opening
2. Anne Rolfes' Keynote Speech (45 mins)
3. Workshop 1 (30 mins)
4. Workshop 2 (30 mins)
4. Closing
STUDENT ARTICLES
ANNE ROLFES AND THE LOUISIANA BUCKET BRIGADE: A PREVIEW OF NEWARK ACADEMY’S FOURTH ANNUAL ECO-SUMMIT
By Kaya Patel, Eco-Summit Coordinator & Minuteman Editor-in-Chief
On April 9th, Newark Academy will be hosting its fourth annual Northern New Jersey Eco-Summit. Each year, the Eco-Summit explores a specific aspect of environmentalism and highlights solutions to environmental issues from a local to international scale. The theme of this year’s Eco-Summit is environmental health. The summit will explore the intersections between public health and the environment, and it aims to promote the collective health of both the environment and humans. Environmental health is also closely tied to environmental justice because BIPOC and low-income communities often bear the burden of environmental hazards and pollution, leading to the prevalence of adverse health effects in these regions. Following the Community Service Council theme of environmental justice and stewardship, the Eco-Summit will serve as one of the main events for the Earth Month of Service occurring throughout the entire month of April.
Each year, the Eco-Summit features a keynote presentation given by an expert on the theme. This year, the keynote speaker is Anne Rolfes, the director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade in Cancer Alley, Louisiana. Cancer Alley is a region along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans containing over 150 petrochemical facilities, which have been found to release extremely toxic amounts of pollutants into the air and water. As the number of petrochemical facilities in Cancer Alley continues to multiply, respiratory diseases and cancer become more prevalent, especially among BIPOC communities. In a study conducted at an elementary school near the Pontchartrain Works facility, a chemical manufacturing plant, in Cancer Alley, chloroprene levels were recorded 755 times above the Environmental Protection Agency’s guidance. Over 400 children attend the school that is only about a thousand feet from the plant, meaning that they are exposed to toxic chemicals and can begin to develop respiratory infections and cancers from a young age. Toxic air quality levels like the ones in this elementary school are now common throughout the entire Cancer Alley region.
Anne Rolfe’s organization, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, is a grassroots organization that is fighting against the detrimental health impacts of environmental hazards perpetuated by Louisiana's petrochemical industry and regain control of the region’s environmental health. Since its founding in 2000, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has gathered community members to challenge the expansion of the petrochemical industry through local political action and data collection on pollution levels. The organization started collecting data using a simple, low-cost air sampling bucket that could be easily distributed to everyday citizens. Since then, the organization has expanded to provide medicines and supplies to suffering families and prompt political action through campaigns and protests. The Bucket Brigade exemplifies how sustained community efforts can raise awareness and hold large companies accountable for the environmental damage that they cause and its impact on the public health of these regions.
Anne Rolfe’s work goes beyond her influence in Cancer Alley and also brings attention to the ethics of environmental racism and health issues internationally. A year ago, the United Nations declared Cancer Alley a human rights violation and a case of environmental racism that must be addressed, as the petrochemical industries in Louisiana now infringe on citizens’ right to health and safety in their environment. Rolfes explained, “It’s easy to get used to atrocities that are happening in your own backyard, but when you step back and look at the situation in St. James Parish and along Cancer Alley, it does rise to the level of human rights abuse and humanitarian tragedy. The state and the local parish council are cramming all of the pollution into the two highest majority Black districts. We are relieved and grateful that the United Nations has taken a stand, and we would like our state officials to follow.”
So what can you do to help? First, Green and Blue Committee along with the Eco-Summit Steering Committee will be hosting a fundraiser to support the Louisiana Bucket Brigade with Eco-Summit themed stickers available to all who donate. Next, I urge you to register and come to the Eco-Summit to learn more about environmental health issues in Cancer Alley and beyond. And lastly, I invite you to engage in this intersectional topic within environmentalism beyond the Eco-Summit. Although this year’s Eco-Summit will highlight Cancer Alley, environmental racism and health issues are prevalent throughout the nation, including in Newark, New Jersey. Thus, environmental health impacts us all, and we should address it in our local communities as well as on a broader scale.
SPEAKER INFORMATION
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Anne Rolfes
Anne began her career in Nigeria, collaborating with local communities to address oil companies’ health impacts of environmental degradation. She returned to Louisiana in 2000 and collaborated with women along Cancer Alley to found the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. Louisiana Bucket Bridge, a grassroots activism group, focuses on keeping the petrochemical industry and government accountable for the true costs of pollution. Anne grew up in Louisiana and is an expert in environmental health issues in Cancer Alley, income inequality caused by the fossil fuel industry, and the intersections between grassroots action and science. She has twice testified before Congress and her work has been recognized by local and national awards, including the Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Public Advocacy and the Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leader Award.
WORKSHOP LEADER
Nancy Fiedler
Nancy Fiedler is a Professor at Rutgers School of Public Health and the Deputy Director of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute at Rutgers University. In 1982, Dr. Fiedler received a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Bowling Green State University and later completed a clinical internship in the Department of Psychiatry of Rutgers Medical school and a post-doctoral fellowship in community psychology at the St. Clare Hospital in Denville, NJ. Her research investigates the human health effects of neurotoxicants explored in interdisciplinary ways. As the PI of grants funded by NIOSH, DOD, and NIEHS, her research has centered on interactions between complex environmental exposure (e.g., volatile organic compounds) and psychosocial factors (e.g., stress, sex) on symptoms and neurobehavioral function. With Fogarty grants funded through the NIEHS since 2010, her work has extended to global environmental health research and research capacity building. Dr. Fiedler is currently leading an NIEHS-funded birth cohort study in Thailand to investigate the effects of organophosphate and pyrethroid insecticide exposure during each trimester of pregnancy, with the goal of defining critical windows of vulnerability that contribute to neurodevelopmental deficits.
WORKSHOP LEADER
Victoire Cleren
Victoire Cleren is the Program Director for Share My Meals, a Princeton, NJ-based nonprofit organization that fights both food insecurity and the environmental impact of food waste by recovering and delivering healthy meals to the local community. She has been involved in the non-profit sector for around 10 years, working as the marketing and strategic development Director at Second Servings of Houston, a food rescue organization, and as the Manager of Individual Giving for Alicia Keys' Foundation, Keep a Child Alive in New York. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from La Sorbonne, Paris, and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health Policy and Economy from the EHESP School of Public Health/Sciences Po in Rennes, France. Ms. Cleren developed the Waste Watcher Program for Share My Meals, which is a sustainable and innovative program that leverages and collects the surplus balanced meals from foodservice providers and distributes them to food-insecure people in the local community using technical solutions to create a seamless, sustainable model. Since 2020, Share My Meals have delivered more than 120,000 healthy meals directly to the home of the 180 families enrolled in their program.
WORKSHOP LEADER
Camryn Allen
Camryn Allen is a Coordinator for the Green Amendment for the Generations, a grassroots, national nonprofit working state by state to secure passage of Green Amendments – a constitutional Bill of Rights provisions that recognize and protect rights to pure water, clean air, a stable climate, and a healthy environment as inalienable rights on a legal par with the rights to free speech, due process, and freedom of religion. After graduating from Villanova University with a degree in Global Interdisciplinary Studies and Communications, Ms. Allen became a Semi-Finalist in the Fullbright Scholar Program. She then went on to lead multiple state coalitions seeking to amend their state constitutions with a green amendment through community outreach, policymaker engagement, and hosting educational events. Green Amendments also advocate for environmental justice reform, which refers to the rights of all people, because environmental harm such as poor air quality, water quality, and lack of access to healthy natural spaces fall disproportionately on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities. The campaign has been largely successful, as Green Amendments have officially been adopted into the constitutions of three states, Pennsylvania, Montana, and New York, and are up for hearings in around 11 other states as well.
WORKSHOP LEADERS
Irma Torres & Jacqueline Vazquez
Irma Torres and Jacqueline Vazques are Health Educators for Breathe Southern California, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that promotes clean air and healthy lungs through education, research, technology, and advocacy. Ms. Torres graduated from California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo with a degree in Public Health and a concentration in Culture and Society in Health. Ms.Vazquez got a Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences from California State University Long Beach. Breathe SoCal’s goal is to promote community health services through prevention, education, and early diagnosis for low-income underserved individuals suffering from respiratory-related chronic conditions such as asthma, lung disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) which is now the third leading cause of death in the United States. Breathe SoCal is an independent lung health organization focusing on addressing Southern California’s specific air quality and health needs while working with the larger member of the BREATHE America Alliance and BREATHE California Coalition. As pediatric asthma rates increased nationwide, the organization also placed greater emphasis on asthma education programs, while continuing to pursue other clean air initiatives like passing legislation such as AB 619 which addresses air pollution caused by wildfire smoke.
