Legacy Environmental Justice, pt. 3 - Environmental Impacts of Kodak on the People of Rochester, NY

In this continuation of our series on Legacy Environmental Justice, we shift our focus from Kodak to the people of Rochester - the communities that lived in the shadow of the factory, bore the brunt of its pollution, and are still dealing with its lasting effects today. Savannah unpacks eye-opening statistics from the latest census, revealing how economic hardship, failing school systems, and environmental degradation have shaped the city over time.

At the heart of this episode lies in the deeply human impact of Kodak’s environmental footprint. From toxic spills near elementary schools to alarmingly high cancer rates in women and children, we discuss how systemic neglect and corporate irresponsibility continue to haunt Rochester long after Kodak's decline.

How does a community recover from a century of environmental injustice? What can be done to protect future generations? And is anyone still being held accountable? This is a conversation about resilience, accountability, and the fight for justice. If you want to learn more about environmental equity and the real-life consequences of corporate pollution, this is an episode you don’t want to miss.

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Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to the Environmental Justice Lab. I am your host,
Doctor Lency Joseph. Thank you so much for joining us,
because once again we have with us Savannah Dominic Ohio,
Wesley University students and all around great human being who
has been sharing and talking with us about legacy environmental injustice. Savannah,

(00:43):
how are you doing today?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
I am doing aoka today. It's a bit rainy where
I'm at, but stay and drive with my umbrella.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Very nice, very nice. You know, last week in suth
Kund we had snow, so that was very different for
all of us down here. We didn't know what to do,
how to drive, We didn't know what to do with schools,
should we close to our delay work from home, and
so there was a lot of confusion. And so I'm
glad you're dry. I survived the snow in South Carolina.

(01:14):
So we're all here and it's a good thing.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
And so last time we were together, we spent a lot
of time talking about Kodak, specifically the company, its background,
its history, the way it kind of infused itself with
the community, and ultimately it's downfall, it's bankruptcy, and what

(01:38):
it's become now that their products aren't as popular, and
they kind of didn't pivot well in a business sense.
But on this episode, I understand that you want to
say a little bit more about the community in Rochester,
not just the factory itself, not just it's kind of

(01:59):
engagement dire, but the community as a whole. So tell
us some of the things that you want us to
know about Rochester that you think you may not have
given us on their previous episodes.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, definitely. I think in the previous episodes I focus
more on I think stories. I think stories are great
for some people, but I also find that like sometimes
also like for the statistics can also be helpful when
trying to understand the community. So I look back at, like,
you know, the twenty twenty census and the US Census Bureau,
which anytime I always like look at the centers, BUIOU data.
I got to keep a few things in mind. One,

(02:33):
you're missing tons of people, especially sometimes people who live
in cities. They don't feel comfortable answering the survey, the
don't know how to fill it out properly, all types
of things. Never mind you it was you know, it
was COVID time. And if it's one of those times
the whole sentence was all wonky and everything and extended,
YadA YadA. But what I try to look at Rochester

(02:55):
is one from like two from the previous census. We
see that the overall pop relation of the city is defining,
which not entirely surprising. A lot of people are moving
on to the suburbs nowadays. But we also see a
lot of statistics that are associated with unfortunately poverty in
the city. So for example, the medium household income it's

(03:16):
four hundred, so it's forty four thousand, which forty four thousand.
I mean, it's it's something, but it's not like a ton.
In addition, we see that well seventy one percent live
in a family household. Only eighteen percent of family households
are married, so the rest of the family households are single.
And I have total respective, you know, you know the

(03:37):
single moms out there, the single dad's out there. But
it kind of it's really hard to be a single
parent sometimes it be a single caregiver solely because you
know you're caring for all these people. If you have
one more one children, two children, three children on one income.
It's so hard because I know, like my parents wanted
to give me opportunities to you know, maybe like do

(03:59):
a little after school activity, but that there's nobody to
pick me up after school because you know, they're working,
You're they're using on opportunities. And then also continuing on
poverty Rochester, the child poverty rate is forty percent, which
is the fifth highest in the nation amongst stities of excise,
which is which is which is just huge. It's just

(04:20):
very sad to see that. And then we also see unfortunately,
reflecting this child poverty rate is the fact that in
twenty twenty only fifty seven percent graduated from high school,
which I mean for me, that's like that that's that's
really really concerning because I don't know if it's like, well,
maybe they'll go back and get to GED someday, but

(04:43):
a lot of like companies will like at least want
a high school diploma for you to work for them.
Like I think like sometimes like somebody comes with McDonald
will not want you if you don't know you don't
have your high your your GED. And I think that
really they make tuemployment opportunities well in the city. And
in addition, I think about you know who lives in

(05:05):
this city, what are the demographics? So demographically it's thirty
eight percent black or African American pretentious bureau, which means
we have an over representation of people essentially, which is
not una surprising. It's a city after all, you know.
And then with no forty percent it's like white alounge
or not like white in Hispanic, which is lower than

(05:27):
the average, again not surprising. But it's just like all
these statistics. The reason I say them is just because,
like I think, sometimes it can be hard, just like
comprehend the whole city based on a story like I
was doing earlier, but statistics seem really help you to
realize like, oh, like one or of two people almost
don't graduate white high school or you know, only like

(05:50):
what are the two out of ten people you know
live in a household with more than one parent or guardian,
which is like shocking at least to me, I mean,
I happened. I'm not like in urban studies expert by
any matters, but for me, like this is very concerning
a whome ownership rate of like less than forty percent
not not great either, And I think it's to these

(06:13):
like statistics and ultimately obso see like the change over
the years as well that we see, unfortunately, with the
exceptions of like the very very gentrified areas, the quote
unquote nice upcoming areas if you will, that these demographics
are shifting to be unfortunately poorer like them ultimately because

(06:35):
city is a whole, ultimately, you know, becoming poorer. And
we see as that, we see white flight due to
you know, they can move to the suburbs. Suburbs, They've
got plenty of suburbs. And then also just this is
the city school district outcomes. I mean, I've had plenty
of friends who are like, I don't want to go to,
you know, the Rochester City School District schools because they're

(06:57):
not great. So you know, my parents can afford me
to put me and like you, maybe a charter school,
maybe it's a nice, like built private school, but like you, no,
every parent wants the best for your kids. I know
that you're a parent. You don't want your kid to
go to like a really really bad school with no
resources and stuff like that. And yet this is what
we have in the city.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Oh that's interesting. There was a lot there. So for
those of you listening, you know that we talk a
lot about what we would call environmental justice communities. These
are the This is the idea that there are places
that are vulnerable because of their different demographics, because of
their economic standing, because of a lot of different aspects

(07:41):
of the community itself. It leaves the population they're vulnerable
to exploitation, to environmental harm, to injustice of various forms.
And so what it sounds like is Rochester is if
they're not they're quickly approaching environmental justice community status because

(08:02):
it sounds like you have an overrepresentation of people of color,
you have higher povery rates, you have failing school systems,
so many different components that would lead us someone like
me to believe that, hey, if we're not paying close
attention and really focused in on what's happening there, they

(08:24):
could be very vulnerable to environmental harm and damage. And
so that is very good context to have when we
talk about Kodak and we talk about these different facilities
in this city, because their harm and their pollution would
disproportionately impact people in this type of community versus other

(08:48):
places who have more resources and more opportunities to protect
themselves and care for their families. I want you to
say more about this because we talk a lot about
redlining and how redline community these are communities where only
certain people could live there because they wouldn't give loans out,
and there was this whole system in place to basically
segregate the cities and the communities to ensure that more affluent,

(09:15):
whder Americans got the best. But you make a note
here in my notes about yellow lining and red lining,
So can you talk more about what that is, because
I think it's a little bit different than what I've
seen and read about.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yes, so I found a map from the nineteen thirties.
I tried to findings in more recent but very hard
to find that in the first place. So redline communities
are typically like you know, the worst of the worst.
Now ever, give anybody alone to live there. So yellow
lining is basically a step above red lining, like redline community.
So it's like this isn't a great community to live in.

(09:48):
It's rapidly degrading. I feel that, just call it. So
in this nineteen thirties map there is you have your
green line community, so like, wow, the Top Knox great
to live here. You have your blue line community, so
it's like pretty nice to live here, but like it's
like eh, and then you have yalow lineses like we're
rapidly degrading. One day it would become a red line community.
Things are falling apart kind of thing. And then we

(10:09):
of course have those red line communities. So seeing like
the area surrounding Kodak Park, we see there is like
the yellow line communities are directly next to Kodak Park.
Typically it's because it's like they said, I was reading
the descriptions, it's like the pride of ownership is nonexistent
to quote to quote this map that I found. And

(10:30):
then they also found a lot of like I think
there's like there are too many Atalians living here, or
you know, there's too too many black people living here,
Like the statistics would be right there and it's like
owners too many. And then we see also beyond these
yellow line communities which directly border Kodak Park, we see
the red line communities right the next right next door over.

(10:53):
So my theory, at least I can't confirm this I
wasn't alive in the nineteen thirties obviously, is that these
communities are yellow line because if like why you live
very close to your work site kind of thing. So
you have a little bit of you not even just
like walk right over to your work site. So it's
just a little preferable because of that. And then for
those online communities, it's like you don't live next to it.
And the only reason those other communities were even like

(11:13):
yellow to begin with was because like maybe like commutability,
you guys a terrible For example, like one of the
communities was like it said it was like seventy five
percent black, which is like it was like terrible. Like
so you know, they're all pretty much all living right there,
and I do have to like give a little like

(11:34):
this context. So in the nineteen thirties, the entire population
of Rochester was only like one or two percent black
actually from what I could tell. So a lot of
this like rentlining grant you is because you know, we
have these other foreign groups like the Italians that we
don't want. Of course, there are you know, black folks

(11:55):
as well who are making these communities you know, undesirable,
so undesirable. But and then NBC like I looked at
like I overlay this map currently and I'm like, these
are basically the exact neighborhood that exists today. And you know,
actually the predominantly seventy five percent no black community. Back

(12:16):
back then, it's like an upcoming arch district, if you will.
It's predominantly white. Nowadays, they've been they've been either kicked out,
pushed out, moved out, and now they're you know, living
actually in those well yellow line communities nowadays.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Oh that's interesting, would you say? Okay? So let me
get the hierarchy, right, So there's a green line, blue line,
yellow line, red line.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
And so when you have Kodak Park. So we talked
about last time how huge this park was. I think
it's like four miles about four miles. It was huge
to had its own infrastructure. Is on You said it
was like a little city inside the city. Are you
saying that the communities that were directly adjacent to Kodak
Park were yellow lined? Yes, okay, and then communities that

(13:09):
were further away from those yello line communities were red lined.
Where were the blue and green line communities in relation
to Kodak Park? Where they just far away or were
there certain parts of the city where they were better placed?
Could I imagine part of the reason that they were
yell lined in red line was because of their proximity
to the pollution that the park was emitting, right, because

(13:31):
if you know there's smoke coming, you're not gonna want
to live near it. And so I wonder if that
was part of the way that they kind of decided
what neighborhoods would be lined in which color.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Definitely, So it's actually interesting, So directly south of Kodak
Park it's actually a blue line community. I thought that
was interesting, but it makes sense. So if you think
about the direction of the wind, like due to the
rotation of the Earth, the colonoler is the fact what
have you when predominantly blows to the east, which all
that pollution should be going to the east, so going

(14:04):
to the south, yeah, on occasion rarely. But we also
like you'd also see this in like the asthma levels.
So for example, like the east asthma levels is like
in the ninety eighth percentaile in the US, while in
like to like the west of Kodak Park, we're looking
at like mid eighties, which is like grant us still
not great for asthma, but it's a lot better compared

(14:24):
to like being the ninety eight percentile in the entire
of the US, which suggests to me that like we
have a bigger pollution problem because it's causing the health issues.
You know, toxic is just the air is like super
high in the east, not as high in the west.
In addition to like what those blue and green line
coming these are, they're actually past the Genesee River. So

(14:46):
if you recalled earlier, I said, the University of Rochester
lives to the east of the river. Those communities were
blue and green line. So and there's a few other
areas as well, but it's more like you live like
right on the lake for example, was like green line.
But I guess that's because you know you're gonna have
a nice beachfront home or whatever. Yeah, nice community.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah you're about of water. Of course, the water always
pushes up the value of anything, So yeah, I was
I was curious about that when I saw the different
colored communities. I just have not seen that kind of
stratification so specific in the city, So that was interesting.
I'm glad you shared that context too, because it does
help because there is this kind of basic understanding that hey,

(15:32):
big facility, nobody wants to live near it. It must
all be redlined and you know, left for dead. But
in this place, since this community was so embedded with
Kodak parking, with Kodak as an entity, it would make
sense that there would be some aspects that would be
more desirable than others. Very very interesting, and so with

(15:56):
that being said, let's talk about the pollution specific ways
in which CODEC as an entity harm the environment around
its facilities in the city of Rochester. The people that
live nearby tell us about the.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Pollution definitely, So I think the first thing I got
to do, and even though it's not the funniest thing
to do on our podcast, is some definition work. So
I know in the past I've talked about, you know,
methylne chloride. I think most people are like, oh, chloride,
know chloride in your pool, there's sodium chloride for your
table salt. But methylne chloride is so it's a solvent

(16:34):
which when mixed with cellulose acetate becomes the liquid which
is turned into film. So essentially it could be like
part of that like little like yellow teine layer that
they say a haide pressure when spoken the film like
makes image kind of thing m H. So very very
common in film because it's actually what makes film film
so super commonly used, and then another it's probably a

(16:58):
chemic coust more of a element, if you will. It's silver,
so silver, you know, silber coons way back in the
day so so, but silver was used to make the
silver high crystals pot the drunken of motion, the like
image you know, the domtic contrast and like the resolution
of the image. Silver, however, is you know, a toxic
metal when it's present into high quantities, which is what

(17:20):
we started to see the problems with because you might
have like you know, like touching a strip of filma
taken like give your like silver poisoning, but like day
after day, month after month, year after year of touching
the silver is the concern. And then the final definition
I'll give is something called diaxin. Diaction particularly came from

(17:42):
the insinegrators of codecs, so we're burning off all the
other chemical products. The action, depending on who you talk to,
has sometimes been called like the deadliest man made chemical.
It is cruscan agenic. And like anytime I ever see
something that's like it's crushan agenic, like it told me
that it's like really dangerous. Because they get that classification
takes like a lot of work to even get there

(18:05):
because like it could potentially be because we're not certain. No,
there's certain this is christinagenic. They know it can cause
envelopmental problems, they know what damages the immune system, they
know it can interview promones. So there's no question. It's
just like toxic toxic stuff. And then I guess like
to start off with like I think about like two

(18:26):
different pollution, I would say, we have the specific instances
and then like the I'll call it the day to
day stuff like yeah, I happened every day. So for
the interests, I know in the past we have we
talked about like the methyl chlorine pipespill in nineteen ninety eight.
I'm nineteen eighty eight, eighty eight. We might number is

(18:47):
not the greatest, but nineteen eighty eight, so expelled, you know,
thirty thirty thousand gallons of you know, methoming chloride by
little elementary school that's been like a thousand years way
so pretty close. You know, I've hit at the whole
school home for the day.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
Okay, wait, hold on, that was a spill near an
elementary school.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yes, near an elementary school.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
So because go ahead, they could see the spill like
they could see the chemicals coming from the plant while
they're at the school, coming like what like oozing towards them,
like what is happening here?

Speaker 2 (19:22):
So the pipes, so there's twenty there's twenty schools that
they're like as to be my radius of the plant
to begin with. So essentially my understanding is you got
a bunch of pipes, you know, working throughout the community
to direct it to different Like the wastewater treatment plant
was actually more to like the bottom of like the
Kodak Park facility, So you gotta like send those chemicals
through the pipes. Obviously the school was close enough to

(19:45):
that pipe, which you know won't open, and then you
can see like, oh what's in the parking lot? Uh
oh kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Wow, Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
So okay, and then it's the same. I think I
started to move out after that because it's like when
you're like contaminating in your kid's school place with a
bunch of chemicals, is is not the greatest at all.
And then the next year I think I've talked about
the nineteen eighty nine vapor cloud. So it was caused

(20:17):
by I got the name of the chemical, but it
is thirty four letters long, and I can't pronounce it,
So we're going to move on past that. You know,
if they kind of like when you read those like
food labels, and it's like, if you can't pronounce it,
you probably wouldn't be ety kind of things. Kind of
one of those DearS probably, And so the three miles
where you know, radius around the plant, you know, had

(20:37):
to shut down the highways emergency broadcast system as they activated,
and then the more new stuff as well. It's like
so in nineteen ninety five, they had like a Folky
vent at like one of the like incinerators which released
thirty tons of solvent not sure which one if folks
don't say, into the air, but in that thirty tons
was ten tons of methylne floride right into the air

(21:00):
over a period of seven months. So grant you it
took them a while to figure out, oh, we have
a Folky event and were viewing chemicals every year, and
then two years later this is not an incident. We
have another you know, Folky scripting system, and we get
a ton of methoding fluoride into the air in just
six hours. So that would call it a faster because

(21:22):
it's like rapid spewing out and these are just like
the really noticeable incidences. So Kodak had an average of
one hundred acts that new spills and releases every single year.
So we took just like the big ones that like
you know, made the news if you will, but they're like, oh,
we stilled five gallons here, it's like not super noticeable,

(21:43):
like notable, but like these things still do have impaths.
And then I guess the final thing I'll say about
the instances is, so the EPA was founded in nineteen seventy, right,
and then the Emergency Planning Community Right to No Act
was founded, uh sixteen years later, nineteen eighty six, without
like these like the EPA or like this like right

(22:05):
to Know. I really wonder if people have even known
about like these like faulty events, these chemical spills, because really,
like the history only like dates a couple of years
after like this Right to Know actors passed, So I'm like,
what happened beforehand? I can't, like I have a hard
time believing that, like the first issue was in nineteen
eighty eight and like we had all these issues afterwards.

(22:28):
I for me, it's I think there was things before
this like right to know actors past that happened, but
it was like, you don't have the right to know,
so we don't have to tell you a kind of thing.
So it's like, what are we missing as well?

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. So so that speaks
a lot to the need for enforcement, the need for
an actual protection agency, someone who actually holds, to the
best of their ability, people accountable for what they're doing
to the environment. So I completely agree with you. There's
no way that this plant has been in operation since

(23:04):
the seventies or before.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Then eighteen ninety six, Oh, since.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
The eighteen hundreds, yes, and then the first time they
have a major incident is in nineteen eighty eight, and
then eighty nine, and then ninety five and then ninety seven. No,
it's been happening clearly for a very long time. And
so for all of you listening, we are fortunate in

(23:30):
the US to have an agency that actually does that
monitoring and has that right to embedded into its law,
so that we actually have the right to know, Like,
you can't hide and you can't conceal the ways in
which you are harming the community and the environment around us,
and those are just specific instances that those are just

(23:51):
major kind of news breaking spills and accidents that have occurred.
But you were about to before I cut you off.
You about to tell me that they have just what
is just like every day spills and just common part
of operating is just making a mess everywhere we go,
like on a daily basis, Like, tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, definitely, So I didn't think it's like every day
we make a mess, if you will, So waiting. Kodec
with New York States number one source for toxicants and
neurotoxins like releases for the state for a very very
long time up until two thousand actually, and I even
I could think that, Like so from nineteen eighty seven

(24:36):
to two thousand, so in general, Rochester, which consisted of
Kodak and a couple of other companies as well, was
number one in the entire US for considering carcinergenic releases. Wooo,
that's not what we celebrate, not at all. It's really
really bad. And even like the problem is like even
after nineteen eighty seven, Kodak's business is starting to decline,

(24:58):
but yet there's still but now all these chemicals they
still are showing that they just they don't care. I
was reading an article from it was actually a stupid newspaper,
and I was talking about how Kodak wanted to increase
it permits to they continue with the admissions. Basically they
could admit more. This was in the early two thousands,
mind you. They wanted to limit the monitoring of the

(25:21):
machine sources because it was too costly, and they wanted
to limit the community's ability to hold them accountable. So
it's like it's terrible, Like this is like environmental injustice,
like awful. Yeah, and then it's it's not just like
inside outside of the facility, it's also inside of it. Uh.

(25:41):
I think in the past, and we talked about like asbestos,
so like we had asbestos in the drywall, the insallation,
this demand, the the the heat in chemical clothes that
they're supposed to be wearing to protest themselves. They gloves,
the pomps, the turbines, that everything. So you know, obsbesto
should get it on your clothes, you take it home
with you and then all of a sudden, you know

(26:02):
how just compandianded with it. Now we got metal, theorioma,
and it's it's no surprise that like if you were
to Google not just during New York one of the
raddics that there is out there, so for those who
don't know, redxs of like kind of like sub forum
that people can like post and talk about things on it.
It's every few years you'll see like I'm moving into
the community, I'm worried about cancer and safety, which I mean,

(26:25):
they have every right to be worried about cancered and
safety given all the stuff that's going on. At least
in my opinion, a lot of the harm that CODEC
has done is like they're not like actively like polluting
the skies anymore to do that they used to be,
So it's not much of a risk, but it just
shows you that like people like moving into this community
were like I don't want to get cancer, which is

(26:46):
totally fair. No one wants to get canced. And then
in addition, like besides what I would call like this
just like just like general like me toxins toxic releases,
who also have methal chloride releases? Right, So I talked
about that. So the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation,
which is kind of like the state version of the
Federal Environment for Protection Agency kind of thing. They said,

(27:10):
we don't want this release of this chemical to be
any more than point six parks pavilion because that's like
the minimum risk level. So something's higher than that. You know,
you're a repch for like getting like the negative effects
associated with my puling chloride. They did a bunch of
air monitoring outside the community and they found it. They found,
like the ANI rated this was twenty three parks pa billion,

(27:32):
which is a lot higher than point six perks pavilion.
So they're literally breathing unsafe air of these communities every
single day while the factory was like in ex full
production mode, which is like this shocking to me.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Okay, so wait, hold on, hold on. So the minimum
set by the state agency was point six.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
The minimum risk level.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
So like this a risk level, Yes, okay, the Membor
risk level is point six. Away, they're saying, is above
point six, you're at risk for the impacts that met
card has below point six, is okay?

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Correct?

Speaker 1 (28:11):
At the fence it was twenty three twenty three, yes,
and it was consistently twenty three. It wasn't like something
happened it spiked up twenty three and came back down later.
It was just no.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
On average, yes, on average twenty yes.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Well yeah, I mean you say average, so it could
be it could be higher one day, lower another day.
But average it was twenty three, which I mean for
those of you who are counting, I mean I can
do math. I mean, that's like thirty forty times higher
than what the level is that's set by the state.
And so is Kodak or was Kodak allowed to operate

(28:51):
at that level? Like was there no repercussions for having
air quality that bad consistently around the planet?

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Unfortunately? Not really. It was more like, oh, please fix it,
you know, please. They were fined a few times. You
have a few thousand dollars here, a million dollars there.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
But the thing is when you're like a very very
rich company which I obviously I don't know the the
you know, estimated worth of Kodak I and then you
have to ask an account for inflation if you will.
But I would see like a little bit will be
called a billion dollar company, a million dollars just like
a you know, expensive holiday party.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
It's a tax rite off. I mean it's not much
at all. So, oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
So we have.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Kodak as the number the state's leading neurotoxin emitter. At
some point, you were number one in the country in
emitting neurotoxins out of Rochester, New York. And we have
a methylene chloride level that's light years above the minimum
risk level set by the state, which, for those of

(30:04):
you who don't know, the states aren't always the most
progressive in terms of their regulatory policies. And so it's
not as though this was this hard line meant to
really ensure highest quality risk level. It's just the minimum.
It's like, just please, if you can get to this,
we'd appreciate it. This is the minimum that we would
require who would ask of you? And they still shot

(30:27):
way past it. And so what does that do to
the community, their health, their well being, the quality of life? Like,
how would you describe or what have you learned about
how these ways of operating has impacted them on a
day to day basis definitely.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
So one thing that's really noticeable in this community is
the high levels of childhood brain and final cancer, which
is not surprising as it interferes with you know, your brain,
and you know it's a very unusual cancer. Between nineteen
seventy six they try to get like, there was a
lawsuit that happened, so they're trying to get ITALI of

(31:08):
how many you know, children have been affected, and they
found that like sixty eight had been affected. It was
in a span of like twenty years, which is like,
it's kind of odd, grant you. When they did their
full investigation, like their eighteen months investigation, they went, there
is no possible way that methodine chlora you know, impacted
these kids and gave them cancer, which is like, like

(31:31):
cancers cluster studies are just very difficult because it's very
hard to prove a cancer cluster to begin with. First
of all, you need a big enough sample size, which
we may have. We may have had a big enough
sample size. Cancer gonna have a latency period spanning years
even decades. And it's also just really hard to prove
because of an environmental factor. And there was a lawsuit

(31:52):
that was brought by the families of six kids with cancer,
one of whom unfortunately died pretty quickly, and unfortunately nothing
came out of that. But it also like makes me
think about like why didn't like more people like say
anything about this, And the best answer that I can
find these people were afraid of codecs. They're like, this

(32:12):
is the huge employer of the community. Were a company town.
They give us jobs, they give us insurance, and yeah,
some kids gap sick and it's very sad. But it's
like we're not when we as lawyers aren't willing to
take on the rest of taking on this big powerful
company who you know, we probably have used to the
probably they probably been a fright before. So we don't

(32:33):
want to do that and make you know, palm out
reputation or anything. And then even I think, uh, the
Department of Health, So if us Department of help we
use some like cancer maps as well, why like show
but like, hey, the cancer isn't as bad people, they
actually invertedly by kind of hide the fact that the
cancer was bad, did show that it was above levels

(32:55):
the Channe. What they did is in their cancer maps
they emitted the cancers that are so sated with the
chemicals admitted by CODEC and they also admitted the cancers
that were of concern to parents who have like kids
living near the park. So essentially they took out the
cancer that we actually like figure care about if you will,
and having all the other ones. So then it's like, oh,

(33:17):
you know what you're doing, okay, because we'd be put
completely different cancers and these chemicals are affecting. Even still
though it was shown that like these cancer rates for
like the county the city were higher than the average,
even though they were trying to like hide this information
by purposely excluding certain cancers and then using like they

(33:37):
call like broad gradations. So instead of like, you know,
if you live in this area, you have like a
ten percent between like zero and ten percent, chairs ten
twenty percent, they pertically made those gradations like twenty and
forty or forty and sixty kind of things, so that
way it's like you it could be forty or it
could be sixty, but you don't know because it's all

(33:58):
like aggregated data, and typically they would do that ten percent.
So it's like for me, it's like they're they're clearly
trying to hide something. I'm sure that this is somebody
benefited by that information being hidden, whether it was maybe
it was definitely it was CODAF, but maybe also someone
in the state who you know, was in like Kodak

(34:18):
pockast kind of thing. And unfortunately, you know, we got
we got sick and dying children because of that. We
also have sick women because of that. Like there's higher
pancreatic cancer rates in Rochester, New York, for example. And
I think about it, like Kodak did a study and
they found that their own workers were likely to have
high risks of pancreatic cancer because of their exposure to

(34:42):
methanine for right, just got published in the Journal of
Occupational Medicine. But the thing is like, well, like, well
it's said, you know, it's very difficult sometimes to corroborate
like a workplace harme, where you know you're being exposed
to like this much of it because you work with
it directly every day and the environmental hearts so ip.
Certainly the connection was never made. But like women are

(35:05):
choice just like me to get pancreatic cancer than in Rochester,
New York. Theres anywhere else in the rest of the county,
as in like Mono County. You were Rochester side.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
It's interesting that you talked about the fact that women
in particular had higher cancer rates in Rochester than parts
of the county. I wonder if there are other very
specific disproportionate impacts from Kodak. Do you think that there
are I know you talked about cancer and women. Obviously,
if you live close to the plant, you're exposed more,

(35:38):
you have more possibilities for issues. And then of course
this childhood brain and spinal cord cancer. I've never heard
that before. Obviously it's in children. Is there anything else
that you can think of that you will remember reading
about that may have stood out in terms of some
of these impacts.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, so I do think about like for them, there's
a high also thy word cancer also in women as well,
So I'm not sure mass of something like gender going
on here, but like young girls especially more like we
have a like irish of thy word cancer or to
get it. In addition, it's also like neuropathy and then

(36:20):
like diabetes as well. It's like a common elements in
this community as well. Though there's like neuropathy and diabetes
is more associated with dioxin than with methylene. And the
reason we only know no go.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Ahead, no, go ahead. We haven't talked about doxin yet,
so go ahead, talk about doxin two and what it does.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Definitely, So dioxin was coming from these incinerators and they
were just piling like pewing out of them. So I
found this one really interesting quote from the New York
Department of Environment of Conservation, and it was like a
nineteen ninety two trial burne of codex and cerators released

(37:00):
more diaxin into the environment than all of New York's
other tested environmental patardous waste incinerators combined. One inciderator is
greater than every other incinerator in the entirety of New
York State. That is like push mind blowing, if you will.
And I did some maths, so their incinerators to at

(37:23):
least five hundred forty four million adult doses of diox
in a year. So like what we like kind of
like safe, that the mathem amount of safeness. And so
if every New Yorker during the heighth of CODEAC, which
was about seventeen million according to the census that I
looked at, took an equal share of the diaction, each
person would approximately receive thirty times more than the EPA's

(37:44):
acceptable dose. And that's the entirety of New York State. Now,
would we boil that down to get who's living in
Rochester at that time, which was about two hundred and
eighty thousand people, That that's a huge amount of unacceptable
levels of dioxin. And the reason the diactions also attributed
to thyroid cancers and pancreatic cancers as well as you know,

(38:06):
diabetes and neuropathy. And the reason that we have suspicions
that it is in fact dioxin causing these health issues
is if you like think way back to like agent
owners back in the day, the mean ingredient in aiding
ornage is dioxin actually, and they have the citizens of
you know, roxyter in New York and your Kodak Park
have the same exact ailments, if you will, then like

(38:28):
the Vietnam veterans who were exposed to it. So it's
like this interesting connection where you can see, like we
have two groups the same exact symptoms and they're both
exposed to the same as that chemicals. It's most likely
dioxine acts causing You can't like obviously submit similar to
the experimentation of like let's give you a bunch of
dioxin and see what happens to you. But we can

(38:48):
say there's a very very good correlation between the two.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Wow. Wow, the same chemical, the same outcome that we
saw in the Vietnam War is happening in Rochester, New
York at this time. That's wild and crazy, and you're right.
I mean, there's no getting around that reality. You can't
weasel your way out, you can't talk your way out
of that one. I know people like to say, you know,

(39:15):
causation and correlation aren't the same thing, but in this case,
there's too much evidence to suggest that that's what's happening there.
And so these chemicals and these releases in this exposure.
Is this all airborne? Is it in the water? Is
it How are people physically exposed to these chemicals just

(39:37):
by breathing the air or is it the drinking water
in other parts of their environment they're exposed to? What
do you think? What do you think?

Speaker 2 (39:44):
So I would say mostly airborne. So like we know
the method employing wars airborne. The dayosidin was definitely airborne
because I was just there. Actually was primarily only from
the incinerators. And then we also have concerns like for example,
you mentioned like was it in the water, So we
know the water was polluted with soil both the Genese
River and also the ground A little of the groundwater,

(40:07):
so the Genesee River flows directly into Lake Ontario, which
is one of the five major grape lights. So if
you are on Superior, Michigan, Erie and Ontario, and it
provides a drinking water for the community. And we know
that the river in some areas had sediments like sediments
that were testing its high take one hundred ppm for silk,
so too high for consumption. However, obviously in the US

(40:33):
at least we like as you know, we treat you know,
lake water before we go to drink it. So I
do not know the extent to which you know, treating
that drinking water was removing all that silver that was
like coming out of the river then flowing into the lake,
but it's likely to say that there was definitely probably
elevated of silver in like people drinking water as well.

(40:54):
The key concern for the silver in the Genesee River
was more about like the fish, the fish were accumulating
the silver, and then you have like you know, she
has some like local fisher people who are you know, fishing,
and it's like you can't be eating your fishing, or
it's like, please only have one fish every month, no
more like for me, like if I can, if I

(41:14):
should only even think of once a month. Actually be
having that at all. That's just my opinion. I know
some people are like really are passionate about you know,
eating the fish they catch them, and then they did,
like thankfully, like repair the river. They you know, all
of that like silver contaminated sediment. But I think, for
me when I see this, the New York Department Environmental

(41:35):
Conservation was the lead on removing the silver because the
river had a bunch of like beneficial users had ecosystem services,
so I can find out a ton of information about
like cleaning up the river of its silver because it's
not coming from Kodak, which was responsible for many it
was other clean up cleaning up that had to happen.
This was pretty much spearheaded by you know, New York State.

(41:59):
And then furthermore, even though what Kodak paid for half
of the river, they paid forty nine million for the river,
taxpayers tried to the other forty nine millions because the
EPA was not convinced that the forty nine million that
Kodak contributed via ex trust fund was going to be
enough for cleaning everything up, So they had a dip
into some lovely tax payer funded money.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Oh goodness, goodness, gracious so okay, so all this pollution
is happening, all these places are being contaminated. Now, the
average person would say, sure, Savannah, doctor Joseph, we hear
what you're saying. But you said last week that the
plant's gone and that the pollution stopped. So mission accomplished, right,

(42:45):
I mean, although it took this long time people were
exposed and had these issues, we've gotten rid of the facility,
We've removed the pollution sources, We've eliminated these discharges and
these spills, and this consistent ongoing operation that was harming
the environment. So we should be fine, right, And so

(43:08):
I would say, of course, no, this is the Legacy
Environmental Justice series, So clearly there's more to the story.
And so how would you describe the legacy that was
left behind from Kodak, the pollution that they've just dumped
into this community for so long? And what do you

(43:33):
think should happen next as a result of knowing all
this about what's happened.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Definitely, So I would say, first of all, that there's
a lot of the pollution they may for them with
the river. They cleaned up the river in twenty twenty one,
which is nine years after Kodak won bankrupt, So it's
not like it was like, oh, but next year, everything's
all fictionality to go. People were still suffering from the
effect of that river being contaminated for a very long time.

(44:00):
In addition, while the river was able to be cleaned up,
not all of their pollution was able to be cleaned up.
I believe in the past we've talked about, you know,
the groundwater pollution. It was polluted with methanol, benzene, ethyl benzolines, petroleum,
methyl chlorine. Of course, right the levels of methyl chlorine
concentrations in the groundwater were found to be as high

(44:21):
as three million, six hundred thousand parts per billion. The
legal limit is five, which is yeah, seven hundred and
twenty thousand times greater than the legal limit. And I know,
like I know, I know you're an engineer, and so
like basically, they put like a bunch of like infrastructure
in place to make sure it never leaves. I'm sure

(44:41):
you probably know more about like you know, you know,
pump hydraulic pumps. You know, we're outing it's basins, aquapor
liners to make sure it never seeps in to like
the underneath aquafor contaminating everything, but they can't fix the groundwater.
It's just it's too bad. It's too bad to fix it,
which is I think, of course very important. Can't remediate

(45:04):
it because you know, there were one directly putting chemicals
into the groundwater, because like how it was under our feet,
it's gone solution, like problem solved. And it wasn't like
not to how like leaking Sewe lined pipes that were
like just like leaking chemicals everywhere, kind of like with
the elementary school, but it was more like you know,
a slow lea so you're not going to notice it

(45:24):
because it's like not huge.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Oh I forgot about that. So the actual piping systems
were still in place. They left them there.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
They're still there.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
They're still there.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
They're still there.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Oh wow, are there plans to deal with that, to
remove those polluted pipes.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
No, from my understanding, it's just like the it's not
even money for long term monitoring, honestly, So it's more
like let's just stretch the big issues and then the
laun term monitoring that can be whoever decides to like
have their building their necks, they can deal with a
little pipework under their plant, which is I think incredibly
problematic because if you still have these pipes underneath there,

(46:04):
who knows what they're doing, grant you like somebody's making
I'm sure somebody's making sure that like the water stays contained,
but it's probably still getting I believe it probably still
getting more contaminated to this day. Is because they only
cleaned up the big things. They so they don't cleaned
up the contaminated soil, the contaminated river. They out here
shut down the incinerators because they you know, closed up shop.

(46:27):
But what about always field kind of like small infancies,
so like that like forgotten chemicals sitting somewhere in a basement.
For example, they found like at one point, like weapons
grade uranium sitting in their basement, whatever things are in
that basement whatever. Like waste dumps are like leaving like
CODEC connects own wayte dump on site. For me, at least,
just given their history, I'm inclined to believe that their

(46:49):
liner on that waste dump is probably leaking into the
ground water as well, and no one's going to manage
that because well, Kodax closed the trust fund that I
mentioned earlier with the river basically white washed the hands
of any environmental liability. It's all the trust Fund's responsibility now,
and once the trust funds out of money, taxpayers please

(47:09):
come support us kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
So when they shut down went bankrupt, all of the
actual infrastructure stayed in place. So this dump site, the
piping storage units, all the things that they were using
or that facilitated some of these contaminision events just remained.

(47:34):
And from what you're telling me, nobody's actually checking to
see if they're still causing problems. They're just there and
they're just hoping for the best. Or is there an
assumption about what's happening or I don't understand it because
they knew what was happening while they were in operation.
There's no reason to believe that once they shut down

(47:57):
all of this infrastructure is going to be fine and
to leave in place, because we know what it's holding
and what it's leaking, and so there's just there's just nothing,
nobody anywhere doing anything.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
So there is a company that has taken over part
of the Kodak Park area. It's called Red Rochester and
then well you've focused on the wastewater system as well
as power generation, so they're taken over like the wastewater
system a part of it and replaced a bunch of
pipes for the waste walk. Obviously, sometimes chemical pipelines are
not always the same thing as wastewater pipelines. I try to,

(48:34):
like look on their website, and their website is so
planned it absolutely nothing besides some nice pretty videos. They
are aware of some of them, like seven the facilities,
I would say, are no longer there. So there's plenty
of videos online. You can find them imploding codec buildings.
It's a great, you know, great video to walk. You
can need to want something blow up, I guess, but

(48:56):
I would say so it depends on what area. So
I think the groundwack. The EPA knows about it, so
they're gonna make sure that the state is contained. I
don't think they care about that it gets more contaminated.
It's just more like, oh, it's there on a facility
kind of thing. For like the contaminated soil. The thing
is we tried our best. We're gonna hope that's good.

(49:16):
Like for example, like the river, they couldn't obviously get
all the silver out of the river. They sealed the
remainder remaining silver inside the river. There is no plans
to follow up to make sure that the river, that
the that seal on that silver in the river is
not making It's more like we did the best that
we could. We cleaned it up according to the standards

(49:38):
that be, and therefore it is resolved. It is it is.
It is done because it is cleaned up. Never mind
you that I believe some long term monitoring would be
very beneficial, but unfortunately the money's not there for that
because I mean, I understand the New York uh, New
York Department, right I'm in a contravation, does not want
to pay for Kodak's mistakes. They don't want tax take

(50:00):
to do it Either're in such Kodak, you know, they
give the forty nine million dollars that they agree to
and that's that's gonna have to cut it.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Wow. No, I mean, I mean, you're right, you're right.
I mean, when somebody's looking at it from the outside,
I mean, are we going to just spend money in
definitely to monitor something. The idea is that you cleaned
up so you don't have to monitor it anymore. But
that was their approach. And for those of you listening
who aren't familiar with these large facilities. Savannah is right.

(50:29):
So when she says things like wastewater system, chemical system,
what she's alluding to is the reality that on the
site you have different standards in different systems set up
based on what your facility does and how it operates.
So I imagine they have your standard wastewater system where
you have just water from sinks and from bathrooms going

(50:53):
down the drain into a typical wastewater treatment facility to
get treated and cleaned up. But there's also chemicals systems
where you actually have to move the chemical around the plant.
You have special piping, have to be up to certain
codes to transport certain chemicals. Whebably have processed water systems
where you have the hot water or the cold water

(51:13):
that's used to kind of manage the cooling systems on site.
It has its own system. All of these different systems
are built differently, have different hazards associated with them, have
different concerns for potential environmental contamination, and so you have
to monitor and manage them differently. And the idea that

(51:34):
a chemical plant would shut down and you're only concerned
about the waste water system, which is your basic generic
waste wark that we all deal with versus these industrial
toxic carcinogens in these other systems that you're just leaving
alone says a lot about the priorities of whoever is

(51:56):
making decisions on how to move forward, and so that's disappointing,
But it goes to the point earlier about the idea
of legacy injustice. Right, this is part of what we've
been talking about, part of what we're seeing in the
way that either Kodak is operating, or the regulators or
the people who are responsible for making decisions, they're not helping.

(52:21):
And so with that being said, what do you believe
should happen to ensure people are protected from the legacy
of this Kodak facility. We know about when it was
in operations, what was going on. But now if I'm
a community, I mean, I'm not organizing against Kodak. They're
not there anymore, right, I'm not talking about them reducing

(52:44):
their polution. They're not there anymore. So what should people
in that in those yellow line and redline communities be
advocating for in terms of how to address this legacy issue?

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Definitely, so a few categories. I think one could be
like remediation, another one to be like long term monitoring
even like education as well, so for like remediation, like
I think about like I would like to see some
more like wetlands personally built. So a lot of the
a lot of our chich in New York actually used
to be a wetland. New York City as a whole

(53:19):
has lost over half of extra Stork wetlands due to
filling and draining. So I think constructing some wetlands working
really really good. For like one, fowting grown water and
then also protecting the river from contaminated runoff could be great.
It also might like solve some of the fac that
contamination problem. We're also helping to alleviate potentially new hazardous

(53:39):
ways that is coming from the sights that have moved
in since Kodak left. I think also I would like
to like get like another opinion based like what's going on,
because the thing is, there's only so many refurces out there,
and once the EPI did their part, their hands they
were putty much kind of like hands off kind of thing.
So I think it'd be great to understand, like, Okay,

(54:00):
what is like the status of like you know, the
coolant like types that are going through the plants, what
exactly is that because while we we don't know like
are the like really really bad corolla that it's like
imminent danger or like, oh, I guess I have some
corrosion that need to be replaced in like five years
kind of thing. We don't know the exact condition because
it's like I said, nobody seems to like really care

(54:24):
about it, or if they do care about it, they
don't have the resolcials to like essentially show that care.
And then also, like thing earlier, just like try to
find like the smaller site. I'm sure that Kodak left
some like skeletons in their basement if you wear skeletons
in their apploset that need to be cleaned up. Both
of this, Who's going to pay for that is the issue?

(54:46):
And I think the community needs to organize and be
like city council, Department of Department of Environmental Conservation, whoever's listen,
we want something to be done about this. And then
for like you know we talked about mind Sing. I
would love to see some monitoring of silver in the river,
even like the groundwater that's like outside of the plant,

(55:07):
to ensure that that that that contaminated water that is
like living that continuated groundwater that's inside the boundaries of
the Kodak Park is not escaping and detaminating all the
other groundwater. Great. You I know a lot of people
in the city do not use wells, but into like
the more like rural suburbs, it turns into well water.

(55:28):
And the aglifers church, you know, for a bouge cano,
they can stretch miles and connect even totally different cities
together because it's like one giant pot essentially. So I
would hate to see that like pot that people are
pulling for for the world water to be contaminated. And
then I even even if like having people geting about
the water in the community, like at least to like

(55:50):
my like fifth grade curriculum learned a lot about like
the history of one day Americas in general, and they
move into like New York State and even like our
local area as well. I think what I would love
to see some history rythms talk about. Oh, let's talk
about like we all have referred to earlier. We're all
proud that we're from the area that Kodak is from
because they used to be known for something that was

(56:11):
really important kind of so maybe we could talk about
like okay, and like here's also like what they're left behind,
so we can understand like the pluses and the minuses
of industry. I'm just like a really nuanced view as well.
There could even be things like a new hour, like
like a new like the communities, some of them have
associations already existing, a new to talk about like you know,

(56:35):
here's the plant, here's Fabric's doing. The problem is where
you're gonna get this information from, and currently there is
really no place to get that information from, which is
kind of the issue with like like the news letter,
like people don't know. People need to know about what's
really going on because like even if during my research,
I there's so many different sources of different interviews, just

(56:56):
takes a lot of time to find out about what's
going on now it's just like thirty seven years in
the past. And then I would also say make sure
that's have associations, community coalitions engaging with the new companies
that have moved in as well. So well, yes, Kodak
might be gone, there's still new companies there that I

(57:16):
think could of course be benefit for the company to
have them under a watchful eye if you will, to
make sure you know the property maintaining. They're part of
the grounds that there's a major issues going on. And
ultimately they does try to prevent another giant, if you will,
from filling the Kodak shoot. I don't think anybody could

(57:37):
possibly do that in this day and age. But you don't.
You don't even want like a baby giant. You don't
want something at all. Finally, you know, have those community
accountability group saying like, we don't want talking pollution in
our community. I grant you, it's im still going to
go somewhere. Just part of the issue of environmental justice.
You can say, you know, nimbe not in my backyard,

(57:57):
and then it goes with somebody else's backyard. Who can
you know, afford to have it somewhere else or they've
been you know, historically discriminated against in terms of environmental
pollution and they have an indo backyard while you're, you know,
your backyard is nicer. Which it's really unfortunate that that
our capitalist society is so much into consuming things, because

(58:18):
I feel like if we consumed a lot less, we
will not have all this crazy pollutions like codec cameras
weren't disposable, so you had to keep buying that. You
had to keep buying the film you can't use you
can't you use the filming bry to keep making a
new film, And that means it's endless pollution.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yeah, Nope, You're absolutely right. It's a really in some
ways it's complex, but in some ways it really isn't right.
I mean, there are very specific ways to make sure
people are protected and safe from the legacy of a
place like Kodak. And so I like all your suggestions.
You know, we're pushing up against an hour because if

(58:55):
we had more time, right we had more discussions about
health and health care and equity in this community. Or
do it next time, Sanavana, and do it next time.
So before we go, though, is there anything else you
want us to know? And then you want to share
that you may have thought about maybe you didn't know

(59:16):
where to put it, where to discuss it. You can
talk about it now, definitely.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
I to think like even though currently, like I'm like
situated Ohio Was University. I'm like six and a half
hour drive from Rochester, New York. It's like, what can
I do about the issue of like this legacy environmental
justice pollution particularly so like for me at least, like
I want to like get like a master's degree in

(59:41):
like waters such as management or environmental management. I want
do something that's like remediation, planning and monitoring for these communities.
Unfortunately I have no training, so like I can't do that,
but I think it'd be like it would be it
be so amazing if like one day, like ten years
down the road that like I could like do like
do some monitoring on that site to see what's really
going on there. I'm hoping that maybe somebody else will

(01:00:03):
do it, you know before I get you know trained
and off into like my bigger career, if you will.
But like even like being educated myself so I can
try to help other communities, maybe not even my home community,
who are suffering from these issues of left behind pollution.
And it also like I refer to earlier like consumerism
like buying things, like not buying things that like I

(01:00:25):
don't need, Like I think back to it was like
there's a giant like National Action Day of Clean Air
for CODEC. People were protesting CODECT, like we don't want
to buy your film. We don't want to buy your
other products that you sell, so who want to like
think back to that as well, to be like I
don't support what you're doing, so therefore I'm not going
to buy your product. It gets it gets difficult because like,

(01:00:48):
for example, I know what like in the Passion talks
about like Palestine issues on this podcast, like BDS, boycott,
devesting sanction. Like it's very very hard to completely star
up Amazon or Google because they're like so deeply entrenched
into everything. But maybe like those smaller companies that like
we can be like, Okay, I'm not gonna buy your

(01:01:08):
candy her she's kind of thing because I don't support
what you're doing. And it's also a lot of research
that needs to happen. But I think like also like
I just like buying things that like I don't need
the contributing to like this environmental justice harm in these communities.
Also like maybe like we're using things like I mean
your tailor pair of pants you don't go buy and

(01:01:30):
if you should go buy a new pair of pants,
and you're like they need to fix it. You know,
there's still tailors. I have a great tailor, put compackage
on my clothes and you're off to the races. But
I think it's also like in matter and and I
just like pulling a thing to being like, you guys
didn't do that. You guys didn't do that, But also
are like putting the thumb back at myself and going, well,
what can I do? Obviously, when it comes to pollution,

(01:01:51):
a lot of unfortunately has already been done, and there's
I can't like be like mister Peabody and Sherman and
create a time machine, but it exists. But maybe I can,
you know, help to fix this after the solved problem,
or try to help to ensure this doesn't other communities exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
I mean that's the kind of attitude and approach that
we should all have, right We all have the power
to do something. We have the ability to make a
difference one way or another. And I'm excited about what
you're going to be doing and how you're going to
be making a different in an impact and everybody listening
to I hope you're doing the same thing wherever you are.
Just know that you do have agency, you do have

(01:02:31):
the ability the intellect to really make this world a
better place for all of us. And so we should
definitely do that we are up on our time. And
so Savannah, I want to thank you once again for
taking this time, sharing your thoughts, your research, your perspective,
your views, your advocacy, your activism. It's infectious and I'm

(01:02:56):
so thankful that you shared it with us on the podcast.
Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Thank you for having me for a complete pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Absolutely. So next time, when we come back again, Savannah
will give us some more discussion. I think we're going
to talk about healthcare and talk about the community and
how that's related to what's been happening there. But maybe
something else we'll see. I mean, I'm not sure, but
I'm excited about it. And so thank you all for
listening to this episode of the Environmental Justice Lab. Where

(01:03:24):
we are for the people and for the planet. We
will see you next time.