Women on Power -Leadership Redefined

Penny Newman is the Executive Director of Community Coalition for Environmental Justice. Thirty five years ago she joined a group of moms who gathered together to decide how they were going to stop the exposures from the Stringfellow Acid Pits, which was a permitted Class 1 toxic dump site that accepted chemical wastes from throughout California. They did this in response to an incident where the State of California, during a heavy rain period, released over one million gallons of liquid toxic waste into the community where they were raising their families. This release was done in order to relieve pressure on a dam that was holding back 34 million gallons of hazardous waste. This was done without informing residents and caused many flooded streets. Children were splashing in the puddles of this waste, and played in the frothy mounds of what was later discovered was gray toxic foam.

When these concerned mothers realized what was happening they decided to do something about it. They formed an organization called Concerned Neighbors in Action (CNA). By 1980, rumors of communities that were experiencing similar problems started to surface. Places like Love Canal and Times Beach, to name a few. Putting their heads together they launched a decade long battle to try and make the system respond to the health crisis that these communities were experiencing. The efforts of these mothers changed laws, developed legal precedent and created new institutions.

In 1993, after stopping the exposures of these hazardous materials and winning a personal injury lawsuit with a $114 million settlement, CNA became what we know today as the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ). The hope was that they could broaden their work and bring focus to the underlying factors of polluted communities. They learned that these situations