Maria López-Nuñez - Environmental Justice

Program Title: Maria López-Nuñez - Environmental Justice
Description: Parts of the U.S. are an eco-disaster, a sacrifice zone. Take Newark, NJ. If you travel down a one-mile stretch of Doremus Avenue in Newark you pass a natural gas plant next to a sewage treatment facility next to an animal fat rendering plant next to a series of ominous looking chemical storage containers behind acres of fencing. Airplanes pass overhead every two minutes, their engines rattling windows, while a putrid smell wafts from the open pools at the sewage treatment plant. Nationally, where are these polluters located? Overwhelmingly in poor communities of color like the Ironbound section of Newark where activists are organizing and fighting back to create a just, vibrant and sustainable community.

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Featured Speakers/Guests: Maria López-Nuñez is the Deputy Director of the Ironbound Community Corporation in Newark. She is an environmental justice organizer and plays a large role in activating and uplifting her community while also pushing for policies to address environmental injustice locally, regionally, and nationally. She is on the board of the Climate Justice Alliance. She helped to pass the country's strongest Cumulative Impacts Law in the state of New Jersey.

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