Seattle Town Meeting Targets Environmental Justice.

Environmental justice was a key theme of community testimony at an NIEHS town meeting titled "Voices for Healthy Environments, Healthy Communities," held 29-30 September 2000 in Seattle, Washington. Other major themes included concerns about the health effects of pesticide exposures (especially among farmworkers), groundwater contamination from radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Site, and a desire for environmental health researchers to be advocates for disease prevention, not just providers of scientific data. More than 200 people attended the meeting, which was cosponsored by NIEHS and the University of Washington Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health along with several community groups and the regional office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The NIEHS has held a series of town meetings throughout the country during the past four years in order to solicit public input in setting its research agenda. The meetings also provide a forum in which the American public can speak directly with NIEHS director Kenneth Olden and senior NIEHS staff to express their concerns and local experiences with environmental health problems.

The morning before the meeting opened, Olden and other NIEHS representatives visited Seattle's South Park neighborhood, which has a high percentage of low-income and minority residents, and high loads of air, noise, and chemical pollution from freeways, airports, and industry. U.S. Congressman Jim McDermott (D-Washington) and Washington State Representative Velma Veloria accompanied NIEHS officials on the tour.

The town meeting opened Friday evening with a welcoming ceremony that included dancing and comments from members of the Suquamish Tribe, and presentations by more than 20 community groups, tribal nations, and youth groups. Saturday morning began with addresses from Olden and Washington State Senator Rosa Franklin, a retired nurse, who spoke on environmental justice. Said Franklin, "A growing body of evidence continues to show that low-income people--a disproportionate percentage of whom are people of color--are more exposed to environmental pollutants than the general population."

The theme of environmental justice continued during Saturday's open microphone session, which included Latino farmworkers who testified about the effects of pesticide exposures. "Every time a worker moves a piece of fruit or a leaf, they get exposed to pesticides. They get overexposed," said Guillermo "Bill" Nicacio, a family service worker with the Washington State Migrant Council. "During apple-thinning season we can tell who is thinning because of the redness of their eyes and the rashes on their hands." During his keynote address, Lupe Gamboa, Washington State regional director of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, said, "Farmworkers are treated this way because they don't have political power and they don't have economic power." Gamboa also expressed concern about the lack of training for health care workers in detecting pesticide-induced injury and illness.

Throughout the meeting, participants pressed for more community involvement in research projects, and for researchers to help tackle the environmental health problems that communities identify. "We do need research, but we also need action once we get the information. We need researchers to work with the communities to find solutions to the problems as well," said Yalonda Sinde, executive director of the Seattle-based Community Coalition for Environmental Justice. Carol Dansereau, executive director of the Washington Toxics Coalition, added that researchers should speak out about the limitations of scientific studies to predict exactly where pollutants will end up and how they will affect different populations. "We want to see decisions based not on risk assessment but on prevention," she said.

Saturday afternoon workshops were led by community and labor leaders, center researchers, and representatives of local and federal agencies and industry. Congressman McDermott chaired a session titled "Air Pollution (Indoor and Outdoor) and Asthma." Other workshop topics addressed chemical health risks to agricultural workers and their families and environmental justice issues. A series of smaller groups discussed topics including water quality, contamination of seafood by marine toxins and pollution, toxic waste, children's environmental health, and drinking water quality.

Further information on the town meeting is available at the "Voices for Healthy Environments, Healthy Communities" Web site at http://depts.washington. edu/townmeet/.