Tolle Graham and Liz Harriman discuss policy
                                                    
   Twenty-three environmental and worker health and safety activists met on the morning of February 8th, 2010 to engage in a training of trainers for a new curriculum for short green chemistry training sessions.  They came from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire for a day-long session in Wilmington, MA at the training center of Beyond Benign, a program of the Warner Babcock Foundation.

   The training was part of a project of The New England Consortium (TNEC), a New England-wide worker health and safety training program that is based in the University of Massachusetts Lowell's Center for Health Promotion and Research (CHPR).  Project funding came from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) new Partnerships for Environmental Public Health initiative and is part of the federal government's stimulus funding to spur a greener economy.  This is one of several UMass Lowell projects funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

 

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   Several TNEC staff members from UMass Lowell attended the Conference on Environmental Justice, Air Quality, Goods Movement, and Green Jobs:  Evolution and Innovation in New Orleans, Louisiana on January 25-27, 2010, co-sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Worker Education and Training Program and Dillard University.

   This event, sponsored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS) provided participants with the opportunity to learn about new initiatives to reduce the impacts of transporting goods or produce, sustainability in the context of jobs aimed at preserving ecosystems and reducing consumption, impacts of ambient air pollutants and greenhouse gases on disproportionately affected communities, and the impacts and challenges of hazardous materials, waste exposure and cleanup activities.  The conference preceded the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) meeting held on site.

   Dr. Beverly Wright, Professor of Sociology and head of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University in New Orleans welcomed participants to the conference.  A leading scholar on and advocate for environmental justice (EJ), she was recently honored with the Heinz Award for her work on behalf of communities nationwide.  Dr. Wright lost her own home to Katrina and has been an advocate of the safe return of residents, addressing the critical issues of health and environmental restoration and monitoring fairness as it relates to standards of clean up.

   Hundreds of activists from affected EJ communities attended the conference and overall participants felt encouraged by an EPA leadership that is more willing to listen, dialogue and work with communities at a grassroots level to address injustices in environmental policy, cleanup, protection and jobs creation.

   U.S. EPA Administrator, Lisa P. Jackson delivered opening remarks to the conference.  Administrator Jackson had made promoting environmental justice and expanding the conversation of environmentalism one of the seven key priorities of her tenure at EPA.  Since taking office, she has appointed a Senior Advisor for Environmental Justice and a Senior Counsel for External Civil Rights in order to focus the agency's efforts to address the health and environmental burdens faced by communities disproportionately impacted by pollution.  Most recently, and consistent with this commitment, the agency announced that it would assess the impacts of its hazardous waste rule on disadvantaged communities.  This action will also be used to inform EPA's ongoing effort to strengthen the consideration of environmental justice in rule makings.

   The conference featured three primary workshop tracks including Hazardous Waste Cleanup/Job Training.  NIEHS WETP organizations facilitated and participated in these sessions leading up to the training program's semi-annual awardees meeting on January 27.

  Bill Prohibiting Flammable Floor Finishes Advances 

  Ms. Goldstein-Gelb stated, "We are very close to ending, once and for all, the use of highly flammable floor finishing products that led to the deaths of three workers, several injuries and hundreds of fires across the Commonwealth."

  Now the bill moves to the House Committee on Steering, Policy and Scheduling.  For further information on the legislation and what you can do to help go to www.masscosh.org.