May 4, 2021 • 37 mins
For years, Black Americans, Latinx communities, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans have been disproportionately impacted by environmental hazards. This is not an accident or coincidence. It’s the result of policy choices, corporate practices, and deliberate actions.
That’s why this week, Chelsea is sitting down with three people who share a deep commitment to environmental justice: Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who was one of the first people to speak out and bring public attention to the Flint Water Crisis; Juan Parras, founder of T.E.J.A.S., an organization standing up to the powerful oil industry in his hometown of Houston, Texas; and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, who is responsible for our public lands.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Chelsea Clinton, and this is in fact, a
podcast about why public health matters even when we're not
in a pandemic. Today we're talking about environmental justice. Recently
on this podcast, we talked to activists Jane Fonda and
(00:21):
Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms about the global public health
crisis that is climate change. Compounding that crisis is another one,
environmental racism. For years, Black Americans, Latino communities, Native Americans,
Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders have all been disproportionately impacted
by environmental hazards, including toxic waste dumps, landfills, oil refineries, fracking,
(00:48):
chemical manufacturers, and more. In fact, one report found that
more than half of the people living within less than
two miles of toxic waste facilities in the United States
are people of color. This isn't an accident or a coincidence.
It's the result of policy choices, corporate practices, and deliberate actions.
(01:09):
The environmental justice movement is fighting back against environmental racism
and for climate justice. It was started and is led
by advocates, primarily people of color, who are determined to
build communities and a country where it's possible to live, work,
go to school, and spend time outside without getting sick. Today,
I'm talking with three people I deeply admire. We'll hear
(01:31):
from Juan Paras, founder of Tajas, an organization standing up
to the powerful oil and gas industry in his hometown
of Houston, Texas. I'll be talking with Secretary of the
Interior Dev Holland, the first Native American to serve as
a cabinet secretary, who was responsible for our public lands.
But first I'm talking with my good friend Dr monahana Atisha.
(01:55):
In April, the city of Flint, Michigan, a Black majority city,
change its water source. This seemingly simple act sparked one
of the biggest environmental health crisis in recent memory when
it was discovered that water from the new source was
croating the lead pipes in Flint, causing lead to be
in the water. Now, for anyone who may not know,
(02:17):
there is no safe level of exposure to lead. Drinking
or bathing in water that contains lead can lead to
serious and long term health challenges, especially for kids. Well,
Flint may not be in the headlines every day, the
people who live in Flint are still very much living
with the effects of this crisis every day. No one
knows that better than Dr monahana Atsha, a pediatrician in Flint.
(02:40):
Dr Mona, as she's known by her patients, was one
of the people who spoke out early and forcefully about
what was happening in Flint and why it was a crisis.
I so admire her bravery and was honored to talk
to her about her experiences in Flint and the lessons
we should apply to our current public health crisis. Hi.
Dr Mona, thank you for being here. Chelsea. It's it's
(03:01):
great to connect with you. I I sincerely enjoy these opportunities.
We met in February of when I was there in
Flint with you as part of my mom's campaign, and
yet very much felt like I was there as a mom.
My daughter Charlotte was not even too and I was
quite pregnant with my son Aidan, and it just was
(03:24):
so horrifying to me in every part of my heart
that we had so failed parents and kids in Flint.
While I know there was a saturation of news about
Flint five years ago, could you just give a brief
overview of what happened before the water crisis, What famously
(03:47):
did Flint bring to our nation cars cars. So Flint
was the birthplace of cars, and even more than the
birthlace of cars, was also the birthplace of the middle
class in America. Because of some amazing kind of resistance
organizing by auto workers in the nineteen thirties, they went
on strike. It was called the strike that was heard
around the world, to sit down strikes. They were demanding
(04:09):
things like living wages and benefits and healthcare and occupational
safety and the chance to be part of the prosperity
of that industry, and amazingly they won. So then for
the first time, really working people got access to things
like living wages and weekends and benefits, and Flint became
this promised land. It's hard to believe, but not even
(04:30):
not long ago. In nineteen seventies, Flynt had the highest
per capita income in the country, and thus it became
this place where immigrants from all the world came. African
Americans and the great migration North came to Flint in
places like Flint for opportunity and prosperity. Not necessarily always equality,
but you know, better than the Jim Crow South. And
then through purposeful policy decisions like racist real estate practices
(04:54):
redlining and block busting and decreased revenue sharing and white
fly and all these thing is that happened also not
unique to Flint. Flint became a victim of extreme capitalism.
Jobs were lost, plants closed, and the people who had
the power and the privilege to leave the city left
the city. And that left Flint segregated, and it left
(05:16):
Flint almost bankrupt as a city because the city relied
on its tax base for its services. In two thousand eleven,
Flint got taken over by the state, so we were
under something called emergency management. Yeah, but that's an important point.
Flint was living under direct control by the state so
effectively like not the mayor or the council that they
(05:37):
would have voted for, and that by fourteen, half of Michigan,
right was like living under emergency management. Yeah, half of
the African American population of the state was under emergency
management compared to two percent of the white population. So
there was actually national media on the story before we
were anything of a water story, but when we were
just a democracy story. And so it was those emergency
(06:00):
managers that reported to the governor that decided that to
save money they would change our water source from the
Great Lakes to the Flint River, and we had been
getting high quality fresh water from Lake Huron for you know,
close to a century. And in April of two thousand fourteen,
the decision was made in an effort to save money,
and our our former mayor, who had no power, and
(06:21):
a bunch of men and suites went on TV and
they pressed a button and they toasted with our new water,
and that toasted not Harold good tidings. Can you just
explain a little bit more about why it didn't Harold
good Tidings, because for people who might be listening, you think, well,
all fresh water is the same, not all fresh water
is the same, and not all pipes are the same.
(06:45):
Our water was switched in April of two fourteen, and
there was problems right away, color and odor and taste,
and there was bacteria, and then we had boil advisories
and then they put a out of chlorine to kill
the bacteria, and people felt like they were drinking a
glass of bleach or showering in a swimming pools. Lots
of red flags from the beginning, but the most important
thing that caused our our water to be unsafe was
(07:06):
that it wasn't being treated properly. Corrosion control was not
added to the water treatment, and that made our water
in Flint about twenty times more corrosive than the water
from the Great Lakes. And I want to share one
of my favorite stories about science denial. So we had
a group of fourth graders, a fourth grade class in
the Flint area collected Flint water and they collected Great
(07:29):
Lakes water from Detroit. And they had a question. They're like, well,
I wonder what the difference is. They put nails in
each of the different waters, and they noticed, oh my gosh,
the nail and the Flint water was actually corroding twenty
times faster than the nails in the Great Lakes water.
That corrosive water ate up our pipes. And when that
(07:49):
report came out from our fourth graders, the state said
that the science was too complicated and too expensive and
they couldn't have done that or known that, and it
would have cost a hundred dollars a day to add
the antigrus of treatment. It's unreal other day for the
whole city, right, not like per household or per zip code,
the whole city. And how many examples do we need
(08:12):
about the cost of prevention. Prevention is so much more
cost effective than treatment. I love the words of Frederick Douglas,
who a hundred fifty years ago said it's easier to
build strong children than to repair broken men. And it's
it's timely here, like if we had only treated this
(08:32):
water properly, if we had only invested in the proactive
preventative measures, we wouldn't be spending all these resources and
time in terms of treatment right now. And so when
do you spoke about the fourth graders? And I hope
that my children you are as curious and precocious and
kind of justice driven when they're old enough to be
(08:53):
in fourth grade. When did you first realize something was
wrong with the water? That's a great question, and it's
one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't realize
something was wrong earlier. It was almost a year and
a half after the water switched when I heard about
the possibility of lead being in the water. I'd heard
about the color and the odor and the bacteria and
(09:15):
the water advisories. And after all of these red flags
that happened, there was reassurance by the folks in charge
that everything is okay. So you know, I was also
reassuring my patients for about a year and a half.
When they had concerns about the water safety. That all
changed for me. And I can remember the exact moment.
It was the end of August of two thousand fifteen,
and it was not in my clinic. It was not
(09:36):
with a patient. It was in my home with a
high school girlfriend. And my high school girlfriend, of all things,
had gone on to become a drinking water expert. And
she was at my house. She had just been back
to Michigan. Our kids were playing, they were screaming in
the background. She cornered me in the kitchen and she's like, Mona,
have you heard about what's going on in Flint with
the water? And I'm like, oh, yeah, they know there's concerns,
(09:58):
but the folks in charge everything it is okay. And
she shared with me that she had just seen a
memo from her former colleague at the e p A
that said that the water wasn't being treated with this
important ingredient corrosion control, and because of that, there would
be lead in the water. And when I heard the
word lead, that's when I stopped sleeping. That's when I
(10:19):
stopped eating. That's when my diet just consisted of coffee
for the next several months. That's when my quest began
to find out what was happening to the children. Because
when anybody here's the word lead, it's a call to action.
That's when my life changed. We'll be right back, stay
(10:40):
with us. Can you just talk a little bit about
why it's a called action for you as a pediatrician
and as a scientist, for people who may know that
(11:01):
lead isn't good for us, but may not understand just
how dangerous lead is to anyone, but especially to kids
and to kids brains. Lead is probably the oldest and
most well studied neural toxin. There's no safe level of lead.
Zero impacts cognition, so it impacts how kids think. It
(11:22):
actually lowers i Q levels. It impacts behavior, leading to
things like developmental disabilities, attention problems, focusing problems. Blood exposure
has also been linked to things like criminality and oppositional
defined disorders. We also now know that childhood exposure to
lead can manifest much later in life with things like
high blood pressure and early dementia and kidney disease and gout,
(11:46):
and the really bad thing about lead. It's invisible, it's
silent lead and water. You can't see, you can't taste.
Your house could be beautiful and clean, and if you
still have lead underneath layers of pain or in the dust,
you'll still be exposed. What are you doing in Flint?
And what do you think other people who might be
(12:06):
concerned about kids exposure to lead could be doing in
their communities. You know, for so long I wanted to
believe that I could like write a prescription that could
take this away, but that doesn't exist. There's there's no
magic pill that can take away what happened. But there
is a lot that we can do and that we
are doing to limit the impact of this exposure. We
(12:28):
are also leaning on the incredible science of child development
to put into place everything that kids need to be
healthy and successful. What helps kids, What helps kids thrive.
It's a lot of parenting support, high quality prenatal care
and access to a medical home. It's high quality early
childhood education. It's it's home visiting. It's literacy support, its
(12:50):
transportation access, it's good nutrition. This is basic, fundamental things
that all kids need. But our kids in Flint didn't
have that, and kids all over then wake up to
some of those same conditions that make it impossible for
them to be healthy and successful. And I'm not naive
to think that all these efforts for children is enough.
We're also trying to address the bigger things, like living
(13:13):
wage jobs for their parents. We have an almost seventy
percent child poverty rate and Flint like that's not okay.
These are also really critical factors to make sure that
communities can be healthy and thrive. Do you think the
Flint water crisis would have happened in an arbor? No,
and your mom said that right away, it never would
(13:33):
have happened. It never would have happened in a richer
or wider community. People who are poor, people of color, disproportionately,
they're the burden of environmental contamination. Can we talk about
environmental racism? But also, as you mentioned, that environmental impacts
or maybe the mismanagement and the exploitation of the environment
(13:54):
almost heavily on kids of color and our country, and
especially black kids. Flint absolutely wasn't the first example of
environmental racism. Thirty years ago, I was in a classroom
looking at maps that showed, oh my gosh, this community
has more exposure to environmental contamination than this community. This
is the science they know it's it's the placement of
(14:16):
polluting refineries and trash burning incinerators and dumps. You know,
they're predominantly in these minority communities. This has been going
on for decades and the science is absolutely clear in
regards to the burden of this environmental contamination. And I'm
grateful that Flynn has been able to shine a big
spotlight on this issue. As we come up with our
(14:39):
anti racist plans, as we actively work to address these
long standing systemic injustices, things like lead elimination, safe housing,
they need to be at the top of the list.
So I'm hopeful, but we need action to follow. We
need the robust capacity and environmental agencies at the e
p A, but also at the state level to full
(15:00):
because on environmental justice. Every state needs an environmental justice department.
So there's a lot more that we could do to
actively address these longstanding and systemic injustices. And when in
our last few minutes, I do want to talk about COVID.
I know that you have both been a COVID patient
and a COVID caregiver as a doctor. Could you talk
(15:21):
a little bit about your personal experiences with COVID and
those different those different ways that you've been in the
in the center of this crisis too. The biggest lessons
for me in regards to COVID are the parallels to Flint,
the same lessons that we learned in Flint in terms
of good governance and science and public health and equity
that need to be addressed, and that, if anything, what
(15:44):
we learned in Flint and what we've done in Michigan
can really serve as a playbook on how to move forward,
how to elect leaders who value public health, how to
have decisions that are driven by science, how to proactively
invest in public health infrastructure, and how to call lowed
in equities and then actively address in equities. For example,
in Michigan, quite quickly we created a racial disparity tax
(16:06):
force for COVID, and because of the active efforts of
that task force, we've been able to lessen those disparities.
We cannot regard this as a one off, just like
Flint wasn't a one off. Oh that was that one
city over there that didn't treat its bad properly. Know,
the lessons of Flint are everywhere. They're continue to be
communities that are suffering the exact same injustices where the
(16:27):
potential of their children are also best predicted by things
like zip code. That's throughout this nation and we can
absolutely do better, and COVID must be that opportunity for
us to think big, to reimagine, and to do better,
especially on behalf of our most vulnerable. Dr Bona, thank
you for being here and I hope to see you
in person as soon as it's safe soon. Thank you.
(16:50):
I can't wait to give you a hug. Dr Mona
has written about the Flint water crisis in her excellent
book But the Eyes don't see a story of crisis, resistance,
and hope in an American city. I highly recommend to
picking up a copy. While the story of what happened
in Flint is one of the more visible and recent
(17:11):
examples of environmental racism, there are sadly dozens of flints
all over the country. In Texas, predominant Latino communities like
Houston's Manchester neighborhood are suffering from increased rates of cancer
and other illnesses because of pollution along the Houston Ship Channel,
one of the biggest oil and gas manufacturing and transport
(17:31):
areas in the United States. One par Us has been
a community organizer and environmental justice advocate for decades. His organization, TAJAS,
was founded on the belief the quote everyone, regardless of
racer income, is entitled to live in a clean environment.
I was so glad to have the chance to listen
to him talk about what's happening in Texas and in
too many other places across America. Houston is often known
(17:56):
as the energy capital of the United States, sometimes even
the energy capital of the world. What does that mean though?
For people who live in Houston, who live in the
shadow of all of that energy being produced every day,
it's almost as if they don't exist. Nobody's addressing their
concerns and the issues. There's been a study done on
(18:20):
the Houston CYP channel that if you live within a
two mile rade use of the Houston GYP channel, there's
a fifty six probability of contacted childhood and kemia. There
was another study done by the City of Houston and
School of Public Health that says that in the Manchester community,
which is one of our main focus, that they're exposed
(18:41):
to twelve hesidous air pollutings. Seven of which are cancer costs.
They know the research is being done by you know,
credible and reliable sources institutions and universities, and yet uh,
they just dispelled it like, well, you know, we got
some good information and the best thing people ought to
do just relocate or move out of there. And we
(19:02):
feel like these well the public health department are not
taking as much interest as I feel that they should
to address just the earth toxins that actually caused leukemia. One,
why do you think that the public health authorities in
Houston or in Texas aren't responding more seriously to the
(19:24):
very serious health crisis as seen in the elevated rates
of leukemia in children and in so many other cancers
that affect kids and adults. One of the reasons that
I think they don't address it is because it is
confirming something that's going on in our communities, legitimize our concerns.
And then the other issue is that they blame it
(19:46):
also indict it's what you eat, and but they will
blame other issues on these environmental hasswards that we're facing
instead of saying, look, it's connected to the industry and
this COEs on what the nation is not just our munities.
Could you also tell us a little bit about TAJAS
and the work that your organization focuses on. Now, our
(20:06):
organization focuses primarily to environmental justice or injustice as some
of us call it, and our focus has been to
address all the air toxins. That there's numerous studies that
have been done along the Houston Chip Channel that in
the cap high levels of very toxics, and we're talking
about cumulative impacts and others. The evidence is overwhelming. The
(20:28):
environmental health impacts are not unknown. The consequences, especially for kids,
are not unknown. And yet you know, for years, for decades,
you've been pushing for establishing that evidence and then pushing
the local, state, the federal government to act on that evidence.
(20:48):
Do you ever get discouraged Because just listening to you
sound so measured and future oriented and action focused. I
would say we don't get discouraged because what it does,
it irri teakes you so much that you actually get
more agitated. You feel like, I'm just not gonna let
this happen to our communities. I'm not going to let
it happen to my family. Where you have to defend
(21:10):
your position against all thats on the happy with your
community and yourself and your families in your neighborhood, because otherwise,
you know, as they always say, if you don't stand
up for yourself, you're just going to be abused all
the time. So we are standing up for ourselves, were
speaking for our communities in a sense. Also, because we
deal with a lot of immigrant population, they're even afraid
(21:34):
to speak up, regardless of how better situation, because of
the fear of maybe immigration rate in their communities and
just grounding them up. There's a lot of things that
happen in our communities that are beyond the issues of
what we call environmental justice issues. One, given that you've
been in the trenches of this work now for so
(21:55):
many years, what gives you hope about the future. I'm
hoping that the future generations will have a better life
than we have. We need to address climate change and
somebody's got to speak up for it. You can just
be in the audience and say, well, let those kids
do it, or that you know has the organization doing it.
(22:17):
I think people are coming together to realize and that
this is a good cause. It's a cause that has
huge implications. It just takes a mindset to get to
that point because a lot of us, as they say,
lift paycheck to paycheck, and when you live paycheck to paycheck,
that's why you're trying to do, trying to survive. But
(22:37):
when you go a little bit beyond that and you
start realizing, well, look there's other things that are affecting
my way of life and how can I get involved
and how can I make a difference, That's part of
what we're trying to do. Just a final question, what
does environmental justice look like for the communities where Tejas works?
What would it look like for you to say, yes,
(23:00):
like this is environmental justice. Finally, bottom line is that
what we need to do is the e p A
at the national level has to have policies in place
that are federally regulated to impost good environmental regular issues.
If it's left up to individual states, we're going to
(23:20):
continue having issues with just local issues. And we need
to support of our congressional folks at the national level
as well. In the city of Houston, we really have
rarely our elected officials come out on defensive community saying, look,
we're going to support you on this until you know
(23:41):
we win this environmental concerns that you have, but you've
got to care. You've got to care about your community.
And if you don't care about your community, if you
don't you're not impacted by it, is like, well, you know,
that's out of sight, out of mind. Well one, thank
you so much for your time today, and certainly and
I hope that everyone take seriously the message of understanding
(24:02):
what's happening in our own communities and also listening to
people who are living in communities that are disproportionately affected
by pollution and more often than not, the twin problem
of environmental racism. To learn more about the important work
that Want and his fellow community organizers are doing in Houston,
(24:24):
please go to Tajous Barrios dot org. That's t e
j A S B A R r I O s
dot org. We're taking a quick break. Stay with us.
Local communities speaking out about environmental racism and taking on
(24:45):
powerful industries in the process are crucial to drawing attention
to injustices, but they can't solve these problems alone. We
need leadership on the local, state, and federal levels too.
When President By nominated then Congresswoman Deb Hollen to service
this secretary of the Interior was a major commitment to
environmental justice. As a member of Congress, she had introduced
(25:06):
legislation requiring the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture to
publicly report on their permitting processes. She had fought for
funding to address air pollution and historically marginalized communities, and
she has always been passionate about protecting our public lands
for everyone. As Secretary of the Interior, she's responsible not
only for our public parks, but also for preserving our
(25:28):
natural resources and building relationships with tribal governments. Secretary Holland
is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and a
thirty fifth generation New Mexican. It was particularly eager to
learn from her about how she hopes to address the
needs of Native American communities who have been at the
front lines of some of the biggest environmental justice battles
in our country. Thank you so much for talking with
(25:52):
us today. You know, first I just want to ask
how you're doing and how your first month as Secretary
of our Interior has been. Thank you, Chelsea. I'm honored
to be here and happy to have an opportunity to
speak with you on this important topic and let's see,
it's been busy. That's the understatement. I guess the thing
(26:12):
that I will tell you right now is I am
honored to be on a team of so many dedicated
public servants. The Department of the Interior has about sixty
five thousand employees who care for our public lands. They
care about our animals, they care about water and air
and renewable energy. And it is a true amazing honor
(26:35):
to serve alongside so many talented and dedicated individuals. I
read that your mother actually worked for the Bureau of
Indian Affairs many years ago, which is part of the
Department of the Interior. Do you remember your mom talking
about her work when you were growing up and did
you ever imagine that one day you might be the
Secretary of the Interior. No, I never imagined it. Quite frankly,
(26:59):
I know. I wasn't a kid that said, oh, I
want to be a congresswoman when I grow up, I
want to be the president. I never said any of that.
My mom was actually an office manager in Albuquerque for
the Superintendent of Education in the Southwest Region, and she
was responsible for student count She was responsible for counting
every single student in that system to make sure that
(27:21):
they had the funding that they needed, and she took
that job extremely seriously. So she's thrilled, Yes, but she
dedicated twenty five years of her career to Native American
students across the country and and so she's proud of
the work that she did. The Department of the Interior
is a big department. You oversee everything from the Endangered
(27:44):
Species Act to energy and mining to protecting cultural heritage.
Is there one thing that you wish more people understood
about your mission and why it's so important to you?
You know, I was very fortunate to grow up outdoors.
My dad he was an environment almost really and made
sure that we were in nature every chance we got.
(28:04):
And I know there's a lot of kids who don't
have those opportunities, and I'm hoping that somehow as a country,
we can provide folks with those opportunities, because I feel
like you learn about nature if you're in nature. I
completely agree. My parents, thankfully very much brought me into nature,
whether that were hikes on the weekends in Arkansas or
(28:26):
some of my earliest memories are going to Glacier National
Park or going to Yellowstone, like really being in some
of our most majestic spaces and places in our country,
and we have so much evidence that being in nature
is really good for our health. And so while I
bet a lot of Americans don't think of the Department
(28:47):
of the Interior first when they think of what part
of our government has stewardship for health, you actually have
such an important role in helping to protect our environment
and help people be in nature. Do you see public
health as part of your role as the Secretary of
the Interior. Absolutely. I remember reading an article about some
(29:10):
people on the Navajo Nation who didn't either they didn't
have running water or the water that they had is polluted,
so they would have to drive twenty miles to fill
water buckets up. I mean, and that is a responsibility
of the Department of the Interior. And so proud that
President Biden recognizes that we need to pay attention and
(29:31):
put resources toward cleaning up this environmental degradation so that
people have clean water to drink. It's a human right.
And during a pandemic, when everybody was washing their hands
and worried about that aspect, there were folks in this
country who couldn't do that. Likewise, a broadband internet service right.
(29:52):
There are Indian tribes right now, tribal governments who are
using dial up because they don't have access to a
broadband internet service. So those are issues that we care about,
that we're going to work on, that we need to
absolutely pay attention to. As I mentioned with this pandemic,
if folks, if more people had access to broadband internet,
(30:16):
folks living in those vast rural communities would have opportunities
for telehealth, for example. And so there are so many
ways that we can impact people's lives positively, and I'm
going to look for every single opportunity for us to
do that. When you were a Congresswoman Holland, you repeatedly
(30:36):
called out the role that the Department of the Interior
could be playing in helping to not only really combat
climate change, but also to really be a force to
combat environmental racism and a force for real environmental justice.
Now that you're on the inside, as it is, leading
(30:58):
the Department of the Interior, you think about translating all
that passionate energy of a real accountability into now action.
One thing I think about so often as I'm going
about my daily work. I'm from Laguna Pueblo and we
were home to the largest open pit uranium mine in
the world for thirty years, three open pit and nine
(31:22):
underground mines. When the company left, uranium was blowing around.
There's still people who are reckoning with the health impacts
of that massive project. And so I think about how
we absolutely need to make sure that communities who were
impacted by those kinds of issues have a way out,
(31:45):
have opportunities to thrive, to live clean lives, to breathe
clean air. And so of course we'll do whatever we
can with the leadership by this president and ensure that
that can unities that have been left behind are lifted
up and amount of secretary. So often it is the
(32:06):
communities who are most affected by environmental injustice who have
to raise the alarm, whether that is in Flint or
in your pueblo. How do you think about ensuring that
those voices are heard and listened to, especially from tribal government.
We need to make sure that tribes are genuinely consulted
(32:28):
when issues would impact their communities before any decisions are made,
so they actually have an opportunity to weigh in on decisions,
to make their voices known. Tribal consultation is not texting
a tribal leader two hours before a major impact to
one of their sacred sites. It's making sure that we
(32:50):
have meaningful consultation. I think that in the end it
will save the taxpayers money. It will make sure that
we are sending to folks on the ground and we
can change courses when we have that input. Sectry Holland,
we spoke a little bit about the disproportionate effects of
(33:13):
the COVID nineteen pandemic on communities of color in our country,
including on our Native and Indigenous communities. Do you think
that out of this moment you really and the Biden
administration really will have more momentum to tackle all of
those inequities and inequalities coherently. Well. I think President Biden
(33:33):
hit the ground running, and he came into office during
the height of this terrible pandemic. That was his main
priority to make sure that our country got their vaccinations,
that they were able to have the resources they need
to make sure their communities had masks and medical supplies,
but also vaccinations. If you look across the country to
(33:56):
some of those communities, Native American communities, for example, have
done an amazing job. The Navajo Nation on some days
has had the highest per capita vaccination rate of any
community in our country. Yes, the Navajo Nation, the Cherokee Nation,
New Mexico's Pueblos Native American communities there seemingly the most organized. Yes, yes,
(34:18):
ma'am using those traditional communication skills and organizing skills to
get vaccinations done. They were even inviting people from outside
of their communities. Call your friends and tell them we
have vaccinations for them. And so I feel that we
need to continue on this trajectory making sure that we
are vaccinating the country. And when we're healthy, when we
(34:43):
can venture out, then our economy will get moving again.
Montor Secretaries, is there anything else that you would want
anyone listening to understand about your work or about Really
it sounds like your mission at the Department of Interior
and how it connects to environmental justice and to public holistically.
This kind of goes back to a question you asked
(35:04):
me earlier. We all benefit from our knowledge of the
natural world. You're not going to care about things you
don't know about. I just want every single American to
know that our public lands belong to you, and I
want people to get out there. I want people to
experience nature and realize how important it is that we
(35:26):
protect these things. Go for a hike, take a deep breath,
and be there to take a deep breath and be
in nature. Secredy Holland, thank you so much for your
time today, and I certainly am looking forward to taking
my kids to National Parker to this summer and hopefully
seeing you when it is safe. Thank you again, so
very much for your time. To learn more about Secretary
(35:49):
Holland's plans for the Department of the Interior, please go
to d o I dot gov and follow her at
secdeb Holland. Whether we're talking about lead and drinking water
or COVID nineteen, the effects of public health crises are
rarely felt equally across communities. Systemic racism and the other
inequities that affect people's lives every day have a lot
(36:11):
to do with who gets hurt, who gets sick, and
who gets the resources they need to address a problem.
It also influences whether or not people in a position
of power or paying attention in the first place. So
what can we do for starters. We can name and
recognize these challenges. We can hold our elected officials and
leaders accountable and we can always amplify the voices of
(36:32):
people who are speaking out when it comes to environmental justice.
The good news is that there are lots of organizations
already working at the local levels all across our country,
so finding one near you tackling a challenge you care
about is an excellent way to join the fight. If
you're concerned about a specific environmental issue near you, contact
your member of Congress or file a complaint through the
(36:52):
Environmental Protection Agency. You can do that at e C
h O dot e p A dot gov, slash report
dash Environmental dash Violations. In Fact is brought to you
by iHeart Radio, reproduced by Erica Goodmanson, Lauren Peterson, Cathy Russo,
Julie Subrian, and Justin Wright, with help from the Hidden
(37:14):
Light team of Barry Lurie, Sarah Horowitz, Nicki Huggett, Emily Young,
and hum Abodeen, with additional support from Lindsay Hoffman. Original
music is by Justin Wright. If you liked this episode
of In Fact, please make sure to subscribe so you
never miss an episode, and tell your family and friends
to do the same. If you really want to help
us out, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks
(37:37):
again for listening, and see you next week.
Hi, I'm Chelsea Clinton, and this is in fact, a
podcast about why public health matters even when we're not
in a pandemic. Today we're talking about environmental justice. Recently
on this podcast, we talked to activists Jane Fonda and
(00:21):
Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms about the global public health
crisis that is climate change. Compounding that crisis is another one,
environmental racism. For years, Black Americans, Latino communities, Native Americans,
Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders have all been disproportionately impacted
by environmental hazards, including toxic waste dumps, landfills, oil refineries, fracking,
(00:48):
chemical manufacturers, and more. In fact, one report found that
more than half of the people living within less than
two miles of toxic waste facilities in the United States
are people of color. This isn't an accident or a coincidence.
It's the result of policy choices, corporate practices, and deliberate actions.
(01:09):
The environmental justice movement is fighting back against environmental racism
and for climate justice. It was started and is led
by advocates, primarily people of color, who are determined to
build communities and a country where it's possible to live, work,
go to school, and spend time outside without getting sick. Today,
I'm talking with three people I deeply admire. We'll hear
(01:31):
from Juan Paras, founder of Tajas, an organization standing up
to the powerful oil and gas industry in his hometown
of Houston, Texas. I'll be talking with Secretary of the
Interior Dev Holland, the first Native American to serve as
a cabinet secretary, who was responsible for our public lands.
But first I'm talking with my good friend Dr monahana Atisha.
(01:55):
In April, the city of Flint, Michigan, a Black majority city,
change its water source. This seemingly simple act sparked one
of the biggest environmental health crisis in recent memory when
it was discovered that water from the new source was
croating the lead pipes in Flint, causing lead to be
in the water. Now, for anyone who may not know,
(02:17):
there is no safe level of exposure to lead. Drinking
or bathing in water that contains lead can lead to
serious and long term health challenges, especially for kids. Well,
Flint may not be in the headlines every day, the
people who live in Flint are still very much living
with the effects of this crisis every day. No one
knows that better than Dr monahana Atsha, a pediatrician in Flint.
(02:40):
Dr Mona, as she's known by her patients, was one
of the people who spoke out early and forcefully about
what was happening in Flint and why it was a crisis.
I so admire her bravery and was honored to talk
to her about her experiences in Flint and the lessons
we should apply to our current public health crisis. Hi.
Dr Mona, thank you for being here. Chelsea. It's it's
(03:01):
great to connect with you. I I sincerely enjoy these opportunities.
We met in February of when I was there in
Flint with you as part of my mom's campaign, and
yet very much felt like I was there as a mom.
My daughter Charlotte was not even too and I was
quite pregnant with my son Aidan, and it just was
(03:24):
so horrifying to me in every part of my heart
that we had so failed parents and kids in Flint.
While I know there was a saturation of news about
Flint five years ago, could you just give a brief
overview of what happened before the water crisis, What famously
(03:47):
did Flint bring to our nation cars cars. So Flint
was the birthplace of cars, and even more than the
birthlace of cars, was also the birthplace of the middle
class in America. Because of some amazing kind of resistance
organizing by auto workers in the nineteen thirties, they went
on strike. It was called the strike that was heard
around the world, to sit down strikes. They were demanding
(04:09):
things like living wages and benefits and healthcare and occupational
safety and the chance to be part of the prosperity
of that industry, and amazingly they won. So then for
the first time, really working people got access to things
like living wages and weekends and benefits, and Flint became
this promised land. It's hard to believe, but not even
(04:30):
not long ago. In nineteen seventies, Flynt had the highest
per capita income in the country, and thus it became
this place where immigrants from all the world came. African
Americans and the great migration North came to Flint in
places like Flint for opportunity and prosperity. Not necessarily always equality,
but you know, better than the Jim Crow South. And
then through purposeful policy decisions like racist real estate practices
(04:54):
redlining and block busting and decreased revenue sharing and white
fly and all these thing is that happened also not
unique to Flint. Flint became a victim of extreme capitalism.
Jobs were lost, plants closed, and the people who had
the power and the privilege to leave the city left
the city. And that left Flint segregated, and it left
(05:16):
Flint almost bankrupt as a city because the city relied
on its tax base for its services. In two thousand eleven,
Flint got taken over by the state, so we were
under something called emergency management. Yeah, but that's an important point.
Flint was living under direct control by the state so
effectively like not the mayor or the council that they
(05:37):
would have voted for, and that by fourteen, half of Michigan,
right was like living under emergency management. Yeah, half of
the African American population of the state was under emergency
management compared to two percent of the white population. So
there was actually national media on the story before we
were anything of a water story, but when we were
just a democracy story. And so it was those emergency
(06:00):
managers that reported to the governor that decided that to
save money they would change our water source from the
Great Lakes to the Flint River, and we had been
getting high quality fresh water from Lake Huron for you know,
close to a century. And in April of two thousand fourteen,
the decision was made in an effort to save money,
and our our former mayor, who had no power, and
(06:21):
a bunch of men and suites went on TV and
they pressed a button and they toasted with our new water,
and that toasted not Harold good tidings. Can you just
explain a little bit more about why it didn't Harold
good Tidings, because for people who might be listening, you think, well,
all fresh water is the same, not all fresh water
is the same, and not all pipes are the same.
(06:45):
Our water was switched in April of two fourteen, and
there was problems right away, color and odor and taste,
and there was bacteria, and then we had boil advisories
and then they put a out of chlorine to kill
the bacteria, and people felt like they were drinking a
glass of bleach or showering in a swimming pools. Lots
of red flags from the beginning, but the most important
thing that caused our our water to be unsafe was
(07:06):
that it wasn't being treated properly. Corrosion control was not
added to the water treatment, and that made our water
in Flint about twenty times more corrosive than the water
from the Great Lakes. And I want to share one
of my favorite stories about science denial. So we had
a group of fourth graders, a fourth grade class in
the Flint area collected Flint water and they collected Great
(07:29):
Lakes water from Detroit. And they had a question. They're like, well,
I wonder what the difference is. They put nails in
each of the different waters, and they noticed, oh my gosh,
the nail and the Flint water was actually corroding twenty
times faster than the nails in the Great Lakes water.
That corrosive water ate up our pipes. And when that
(07:49):
report came out from our fourth graders, the state said
that the science was too complicated and too expensive and
they couldn't have done that or known that, and it
would have cost a hundred dollars a day to add
the antigrus of treatment. It's unreal other day for the
whole city, right, not like per household or per zip code,
the whole city. And how many examples do we need
(08:12):
about the cost of prevention. Prevention is so much more
cost effective than treatment. I love the words of Frederick Douglas,
who a hundred fifty years ago said it's easier to
build strong children than to repair broken men. And it's
it's timely here, like if we had only treated this
(08:32):
water properly, if we had only invested in the proactive
preventative measures, we wouldn't be spending all these resources and
time in terms of treatment right now. And so when
do you spoke about the fourth graders? And I hope
that my children you are as curious and precocious and
kind of justice driven when they're old enough to be
(08:53):
in fourth grade. When did you first realize something was
wrong with the water? That's a great question, and it's
one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't realize
something was wrong earlier. It was almost a year and
a half after the water switched when I heard about
the possibility of lead being in the water. I'd heard
about the color and the odor and the bacteria and
(09:15):
the water advisories. And after all of these red flags
that happened, there was reassurance by the folks in charge
that everything is okay. So you know, I was also
reassuring my patients for about a year and a half.
When they had concerns about the water safety. That all
changed for me. And I can remember the exact moment.
It was the end of August of two thousand fifteen,
and it was not in my clinic. It was not
(09:36):
with a patient. It was in my home with a
high school girlfriend. And my high school girlfriend, of all things,
had gone on to become a drinking water expert. And
she was at my house. She had just been back
to Michigan. Our kids were playing, they were screaming in
the background. She cornered me in the kitchen and she's like, Mona,
have you heard about what's going on in Flint with
the water? And I'm like, oh, yeah, they know there's concerns,
(09:58):
but the folks in charge everything it is okay. And
she shared with me that she had just seen a
memo from her former colleague at the e p A
that said that the water wasn't being treated with this
important ingredient corrosion control, and because of that, there would
be lead in the water. And when I heard the
word lead, that's when I stopped sleeping. That's when I
(10:19):
stopped eating. That's when my diet just consisted of coffee
for the next several months. That's when my quest began
to find out what was happening to the children. Because
when anybody here's the word lead, it's a call to action.
That's when my life changed. We'll be right back, stay
(10:40):
with us. Can you just talk a little bit about
why it's a called action for you as a pediatrician
and as a scientist, for people who may know that
(11:01):
lead isn't good for us, but may not understand just
how dangerous lead is to anyone, but especially to kids
and to kids brains. Lead is probably the oldest and
most well studied neural toxin. There's no safe level of lead.
Zero impacts cognition, so it impacts how kids think. It
(11:22):
actually lowers i Q levels. It impacts behavior, leading to
things like developmental disabilities, attention problems, focusing problems. Blood exposure
has also been linked to things like criminality and oppositional
defined disorders. We also now know that childhood exposure to
lead can manifest much later in life with things like
high blood pressure and early dementia and kidney disease and gout,
(11:46):
and the really bad thing about lead. It's invisible, it's
silent lead and water. You can't see, you can't taste.
Your house could be beautiful and clean, and if you
still have lead underneath layers of pain or in the dust,
you'll still be exposed. What are you doing in Flint?
And what do you think other people who might be
(12:06):
concerned about kids exposure to lead could be doing in
their communities. You know, for so long I wanted to
believe that I could like write a prescription that could
take this away, but that doesn't exist. There's there's no
magic pill that can take away what happened. But there
is a lot that we can do and that we
are doing to limit the impact of this exposure. We
(12:28):
are also leaning on the incredible science of child development
to put into place everything that kids need to be
healthy and successful. What helps kids, What helps kids thrive.
It's a lot of parenting support, high quality prenatal care
and access to a medical home. It's high quality early
childhood education. It's it's home visiting. It's literacy support, its
(12:50):
transportation access, it's good nutrition. This is basic, fundamental things
that all kids need. But our kids in Flint didn't
have that, and kids all over then wake up to
some of those same conditions that make it impossible for
them to be healthy and successful. And I'm not naive
to think that all these efforts for children is enough.
We're also trying to address the bigger things, like living
(13:13):
wage jobs for their parents. We have an almost seventy
percent child poverty rate and Flint like that's not okay.
These are also really critical factors to make sure that
communities can be healthy and thrive. Do you think the
Flint water crisis would have happened in an arbor? No,
and your mom said that right away, it never would
(13:33):
have happened. It never would have happened in a richer
or wider community. People who are poor, people of color, disproportionately,
they're the burden of environmental contamination. Can we talk about
environmental racism? But also, as you mentioned, that environmental impacts
or maybe the mismanagement and the exploitation of the environment
(13:54):
almost heavily on kids of color and our country, and
especially black kids. Flint absolutely wasn't the first example of
environmental racism. Thirty years ago, I was in a classroom
looking at maps that showed, oh my gosh, this community
has more exposure to environmental contamination than this community. This
is the science they know it's it's the placement of
(14:16):
polluting refineries and trash burning incinerators and dumps. You know,
they're predominantly in these minority communities. This has been going
on for decades and the science is absolutely clear in
regards to the burden of this environmental contamination. And I'm
grateful that Flynn has been able to shine a big
spotlight on this issue. As we come up with our
(14:39):
anti racist plans, as we actively work to address these
long standing systemic injustices, things like lead elimination, safe housing,
they need to be at the top of the list.
So I'm hopeful, but we need action to follow. We
need the robust capacity and environmental agencies at the e
p A, but also at the state level to full
(15:00):
because on environmental justice. Every state needs an environmental justice department.
So there's a lot more that we could do to
actively address these longstanding and systemic injustices. And when in
our last few minutes, I do want to talk about COVID.
I know that you have both been a COVID patient
and a COVID caregiver as a doctor. Could you talk
(15:21):
a little bit about your personal experiences with COVID and
those different those different ways that you've been in the
in the center of this crisis too. The biggest lessons
for me in regards to COVID are the parallels to Flint,
the same lessons that we learned in Flint in terms
of good governance and science and public health and equity
that need to be addressed, and that, if anything, what
(15:44):
we learned in Flint and what we've done in Michigan
can really serve as a playbook on how to move forward,
how to elect leaders who value public health, how to
have decisions that are driven by science, how to proactively
invest in public health infrastructure, and how to call lowed
in equities and then actively address in equities. For example,
in Michigan, quite quickly we created a racial disparity tax
(16:06):
force for COVID, and because of the active efforts of
that task force, we've been able to lessen those disparities.
We cannot regard this as a one off, just like
Flint wasn't a one off. Oh that was that one
city over there that didn't treat its bad properly. Know,
the lessons of Flint are everywhere. They're continue to be
communities that are suffering the exact same injustices where the
(16:27):
potential of their children are also best predicted by things
like zip code. That's throughout this nation and we can
absolutely do better, and COVID must be that opportunity for
us to think big, to reimagine, and to do better,
especially on behalf of our most vulnerable. Dr Bona, thank
you for being here and I hope to see you
in person as soon as it's safe soon. Thank you.
(16:50):
I can't wait to give you a hug. Dr Mona
has written about the Flint water crisis in her excellent
book But the Eyes don't see a story of crisis, resistance,
and hope in an American city. I highly recommend to
picking up a copy. While the story of what happened
in Flint is one of the more visible and recent
(17:11):
examples of environmental racism, there are sadly dozens of flints
all over the country. In Texas, predominant Latino communities like
Houston's Manchester neighborhood are suffering from increased rates of cancer
and other illnesses because of pollution along the Houston Ship Channel,
one of the biggest oil and gas manufacturing and transport
(17:31):
areas in the United States. One par Us has been
a community organizer and environmental justice advocate for decades. His organization, TAJAS,
was founded on the belief the quote everyone, regardless of
racer income, is entitled to live in a clean environment.
I was so glad to have the chance to listen
to him talk about what's happening in Texas and in
too many other places across America. Houston is often known
(17:56):
as the energy capital of the United States, sometimes even
the energy capital of the world. What does that mean though?
For people who live in Houston, who live in the
shadow of all of that energy being produced every day,
it's almost as if they don't exist. Nobody's addressing their
concerns and the issues. There's been a study done on
(18:20):
the Houston CYP channel that if you live within a
two mile rade use of the Houston GYP channel, there's
a fifty six probability of contacted childhood and kemia. There
was another study done by the City of Houston and
School of Public Health that says that in the Manchester community,
which is one of our main focus, that they're exposed
(18:41):
to twelve hesidous air pollutings. Seven of which are cancer costs.
They know the research is being done by you know,
credible and reliable sources institutions and universities, and yet uh,
they just dispelled it like, well, you know, we got
some good information and the best thing people ought to
do just relocate or move out of there. And we
(19:02):
feel like these well the public health department are not
taking as much interest as I feel that they should
to address just the earth toxins that actually caused leukemia. One,
why do you think that the public health authorities in
Houston or in Texas aren't responding more seriously to the
(19:24):
very serious health crisis as seen in the elevated rates
of leukemia in children and in so many other cancers
that affect kids and adults. One of the reasons that
I think they don't address it is because it is
confirming something that's going on in our communities, legitimize our concerns.
And then the other issue is that they blame it
(19:46):
also indict it's what you eat, and but they will
blame other issues on these environmental hasswards that we're facing
instead of saying, look, it's connected to the industry and
this COEs on what the nation is not just our munities.
Could you also tell us a little bit about TAJAS
and the work that your organization focuses on. Now, our
(20:06):
organization focuses primarily to environmental justice or injustice as some
of us call it, and our focus has been to
address all the air toxins. That there's numerous studies that
have been done along the Houston Chip Channel that in
the cap high levels of very toxics, and we're talking
about cumulative impacts and others. The evidence is overwhelming. The
(20:28):
environmental health impacts are not unknown. The consequences, especially for kids,
are not unknown. And yet you know, for years, for decades,
you've been pushing for establishing that evidence and then pushing
the local, state, the federal government to act on that evidence.
(20:48):
Do you ever get discouraged Because just listening to you
sound so measured and future oriented and action focused. I
would say we don't get discouraged because what it does,
it irri teakes you so much that you actually get
more agitated. You feel like, I'm just not gonna let
this happen to our communities. I'm not going to let
it happen to my family. Where you have to defend
(21:10):
your position against all thats on the happy with your
community and yourself and your families in your neighborhood, because otherwise,
you know, as they always say, if you don't stand
up for yourself, you're just going to be abused all
the time. So we are standing up for ourselves, were
speaking for our communities in a sense. Also, because we
deal with a lot of immigrant population, they're even afraid
(21:34):
to speak up, regardless of how better situation, because of
the fear of maybe immigration rate in their communities and
just grounding them up. There's a lot of things that
happen in our communities that are beyond the issues of
what we call environmental justice issues. One, given that you've
been in the trenches of this work now for so
(21:55):
many years, what gives you hope about the future. I'm
hoping that the future generations will have a better life
than we have. We need to address climate change and
somebody's got to speak up for it. You can just
be in the audience and say, well, let those kids
do it, or that you know has the organization doing it.
(22:17):
I think people are coming together to realize and that
this is a good cause. It's a cause that has
huge implications. It just takes a mindset to get to
that point because a lot of us, as they say,
lift paycheck to paycheck, and when you live paycheck to paycheck,
that's why you're trying to do, trying to survive. But
(22:37):
when you go a little bit beyond that and you
start realizing, well, look there's other things that are affecting
my way of life and how can I get involved
and how can I make a difference, That's part of
what we're trying to do. Just a final question, what
does environmental justice look like for the communities where Tejas works?
What would it look like for you to say, yes,
(23:00):
like this is environmental justice. Finally, bottom line is that
what we need to do is the e p A
at the national level has to have policies in place
that are federally regulated to impost good environmental regular issues.
If it's left up to individual states, we're going to
(23:20):
continue having issues with just local issues. And we need
to support of our congressional folks at the national level
as well. In the city of Houston, we really have
rarely our elected officials come out on defensive community saying, look,
we're going to support you on this until you know
(23:41):
we win this environmental concerns that you have, but you've
got to care. You've got to care about your community.
And if you don't care about your community, if you
don't you're not impacted by it, is like, well, you know,
that's out of sight, out of mind. Well one, thank
you so much for your time today, and certainly and
I hope that everyone take seriously the message of understanding
(24:02):
what's happening in our own communities and also listening to
people who are living in communities that are disproportionately affected
by pollution and more often than not, the twin problem
of environmental racism. To learn more about the important work
that Want and his fellow community organizers are doing in Houston,
(24:24):
please go to Tajous Barrios dot org. That's t e
j A S B A R r I O s
dot org. We're taking a quick break. Stay with us.
Local communities speaking out about environmental racism and taking on
(24:45):
powerful industries in the process are crucial to drawing attention
to injustices, but they can't solve these problems alone. We
need leadership on the local, state, and federal levels too.
When President By nominated then Congresswoman Deb Hollen to service
this secretary of the Interior was a major commitment to
environmental justice. As a member of Congress, she had introduced
(25:06):
legislation requiring the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture to
publicly report on their permitting processes. She had fought for
funding to address air pollution and historically marginalized communities, and
she has always been passionate about protecting our public lands
for everyone. As Secretary of the Interior, she's responsible not
only for our public parks, but also for preserving our
(25:28):
natural resources and building relationships with tribal governments. Secretary Holland
is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and a
thirty fifth generation New Mexican. It was particularly eager to
learn from her about how she hopes to address the
needs of Native American communities who have been at the
front lines of some of the biggest environmental justice battles
in our country. Thank you so much for talking with
(25:52):
us today. You know, first I just want to ask
how you're doing and how your first month as Secretary
of our Interior has been. Thank you, Chelsea. I'm honored
to be here and happy to have an opportunity to
speak with you on this important topic and let's see,
it's been busy. That's the understatement. I guess the thing
(26:12):
that I will tell you right now is I am
honored to be on a team of so many dedicated
public servants. The Department of the Interior has about sixty
five thousand employees who care for our public lands. They
care about our animals, they care about water and air
and renewable energy. And it is a true amazing honor
(26:35):
to serve alongside so many talented and dedicated individuals. I
read that your mother actually worked for the Bureau of
Indian Affairs many years ago, which is part of the
Department of the Interior. Do you remember your mom talking
about her work when you were growing up and did
you ever imagine that one day you might be the
Secretary of the Interior. No, I never imagined it. Quite frankly,
(26:59):
I know. I wasn't a kid that said, oh, I
want to be a congresswoman when I grow up, I
want to be the president. I never said any of that.
My mom was actually an office manager in Albuquerque for
the Superintendent of Education in the Southwest Region, and she
was responsible for student count She was responsible for counting
every single student in that system to make sure that
(27:21):
they had the funding that they needed, and she took
that job extremely seriously. So she's thrilled, Yes, but she
dedicated twenty five years of her career to Native American
students across the country and and so she's proud of
the work that she did. The Department of the Interior
is a big department. You oversee everything from the Endangered
(27:44):
Species Act to energy and mining to protecting cultural heritage.
Is there one thing that you wish more people understood
about your mission and why it's so important to you?
You know, I was very fortunate to grow up outdoors.
My dad he was an environment almost really and made
sure that we were in nature every chance we got.
(28:04):
And I know there's a lot of kids who don't
have those opportunities, and I'm hoping that somehow as a country,
we can provide folks with those opportunities, because I feel
like you learn about nature if you're in nature. I
completely agree. My parents, thankfully very much brought me into nature,
whether that were hikes on the weekends in Arkansas or
(28:26):
some of my earliest memories are going to Glacier National
Park or going to Yellowstone, like really being in some
of our most majestic spaces and places in our country,
and we have so much evidence that being in nature
is really good for our health. And so while I
bet a lot of Americans don't think of the Department
(28:47):
of the Interior first when they think of what part
of our government has stewardship for health, you actually have
such an important role in helping to protect our environment
and help people be in nature. Do you see public
health as part of your role as the Secretary of
the Interior. Absolutely. I remember reading an article about some
(29:10):
people on the Navajo Nation who didn't either they didn't
have running water or the water that they had is polluted,
so they would have to drive twenty miles to fill
water buckets up. I mean, and that is a responsibility
of the Department of the Interior. And so proud that
President Biden recognizes that we need to pay attention and
(29:31):
put resources toward cleaning up this environmental degradation so that
people have clean water to drink. It's a human right.
And during a pandemic, when everybody was washing their hands
and worried about that aspect, there were folks in this
country who couldn't do that. Likewise, a broadband internet service right.
(29:52):
There are Indian tribes right now, tribal governments who are
using dial up because they don't have access to a
broadband internet service. So those are issues that we care about,
that we're going to work on, that we need to
absolutely pay attention to. As I mentioned with this pandemic,
if folks, if more people had access to broadband internet,
(30:16):
folks living in those vast rural communities would have opportunities
for telehealth, for example. And so there are so many
ways that we can impact people's lives positively, and I'm
going to look for every single opportunity for us to
do that. When you were a Congresswoman Holland, you repeatedly
(30:36):
called out the role that the Department of the Interior
could be playing in helping to not only really combat
climate change, but also to really be a force to
combat environmental racism and a force for real environmental justice.
Now that you're on the inside, as it is, leading
(30:58):
the Department of the Interior, you think about translating all
that passionate energy of a real accountability into now action.
One thing I think about so often as I'm going
about my daily work. I'm from Laguna Pueblo and we
were home to the largest open pit uranium mine in
the world for thirty years, three open pit and nine
(31:22):
underground mines. When the company left, uranium was blowing around.
There's still people who are reckoning with the health impacts
of that massive project. And so I think about how
we absolutely need to make sure that communities who were
impacted by those kinds of issues have a way out,
(31:45):
have opportunities to thrive, to live clean lives, to breathe
clean air. And so of course we'll do whatever we
can with the leadership by this president and ensure that
that can unities that have been left behind are lifted
up and amount of secretary. So often it is the
(32:06):
communities who are most affected by environmental injustice who have
to raise the alarm, whether that is in Flint or
in your pueblo. How do you think about ensuring that
those voices are heard and listened to, especially from tribal government.
We need to make sure that tribes are genuinely consulted
(32:28):
when issues would impact their communities before any decisions are made,
so they actually have an opportunity to weigh in on decisions,
to make their voices known. Tribal consultation is not texting
a tribal leader two hours before a major impact to
one of their sacred sites. It's making sure that we
(32:50):
have meaningful consultation. I think that in the end it
will save the taxpayers money. It will make sure that
we are sending to folks on the ground and we
can change courses when we have that input. Sectry Holland,
we spoke a little bit about the disproportionate effects of
(33:13):
the COVID nineteen pandemic on communities of color in our country,
including on our Native and Indigenous communities. Do you think
that out of this moment you really and the Biden
administration really will have more momentum to tackle all of
those inequities and inequalities coherently. Well. I think President Biden
(33:33):
hit the ground running, and he came into office during
the height of this terrible pandemic. That was his main
priority to make sure that our country got their vaccinations,
that they were able to have the resources they need
to make sure their communities had masks and medical supplies,
but also vaccinations. If you look across the country to
(33:56):
some of those communities, Native American communities, for example, have
done an amazing job. The Navajo Nation on some days
has had the highest per capita vaccination rate of any
community in our country. Yes, the Navajo Nation, the Cherokee Nation,
New Mexico's Pueblos Native American communities there seemingly the most organized. Yes, yes,
(34:18):
ma'am using those traditional communication skills and organizing skills to
get vaccinations done. They were even inviting people from outside
of their communities. Call your friends and tell them we
have vaccinations for them. And so I feel that we
need to continue on this trajectory making sure that we
are vaccinating the country. And when we're healthy, when we
(34:43):
can venture out, then our economy will get moving again.
Montor Secretaries, is there anything else that you would want
anyone listening to understand about your work or about Really
it sounds like your mission at the Department of Interior
and how it connects to environmental justice and to public holistically.
This kind of goes back to a question you asked
(35:04):
me earlier. We all benefit from our knowledge of the
natural world. You're not going to care about things you
don't know about. I just want every single American to
know that our public lands belong to you, and I
want people to get out there. I want people to
experience nature and realize how important it is that we
(35:26):
protect these things. Go for a hike, take a deep breath,
and be there to take a deep breath and be
in nature. Secredy Holland, thank you so much for your
time today, and I certainly am looking forward to taking
my kids to National Parker to this summer and hopefully
seeing you when it is safe. Thank you again, so
very much for your time. To learn more about Secretary
(35:49):
Holland's plans for the Department of the Interior, please go
to d o I dot gov and follow her at
secdeb Holland. Whether we're talking about lead and drinking water
or COVID nineteen, the effects of public health crises are
rarely felt equally across communities. Systemic racism and the other
inequities that affect people's lives every day have a lot
(36:11):
to do with who gets hurt, who gets sick, and
who gets the resources they need to address a problem.
It also influences whether or not people in a position
of power or paying attention in the first place. So
what can we do for starters. We can name and
recognize these challenges. We can hold our elected officials and
leaders accountable and we can always amplify the voices of
(36:32):
people who are speaking out when it comes to environmental justice.
The good news is that there are lots of organizations
already working at the local levels all across our country,
so finding one near you tackling a challenge you care
about is an excellent way to join the fight. If
you're concerned about a specific environmental issue near you, contact
your member of Congress or file a complaint through the
(36:52):
Environmental Protection Agency. You can do that at e C
h O dot e p A dot gov, slash report
dash Environmental dash Violations. In Fact is brought to you
by iHeart Radio, reproduced by Erica Goodmanson, Lauren Peterson, Cathy Russo,
Julie Subrian, and Justin Wright, with help from the Hidden
(37:14):
Light team of Barry Lurie, Sarah Horowitz, Nicki Huggett, Emily Young,
and hum Abodeen, with additional support from Lindsay Hoffman. Original
music is by Justin Wright. If you liked this episode
of In Fact, please make sure to subscribe so you
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us out, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks
(37:37):
again for listening, and see you next week.
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