Our groundbreaking work centers on bringing the voices of Oregonians to the forefront of policy reform. We help people who want to speak “ground-truthing” to power; in other words, using their real experiences to expose corporate financed and secret backroom deals that allow industry polluters to mislead and harm the public.
Eugenians for Clean Air
Sometimes when I think about our Environmental Justice project, I think about the communities we are working with - West Eugene. And then I think to myself, is it really only West Eugene we are speaking about here? I mean, if you think about it, air certainly doesn’t stay within neighborhood boundaries.
Coal trains and beloved local spots
The coal industry wants us to believe that coal exports are inevitable, and that supporting continued mining and burning coal is our destiny. I would argue that a beautiful community and renewable energy future is our destiny, and obsolete coal is the doom and desperation of Big Dirty Coal.
Sighing with Delight…Over Honey!
Smooth and succulent. Translucent colors, amber and smoke. Made me pause and sigh with delight. Like a wine tasting, but without the alcohol. I’m talking honey tasting!
Victory for small (and honest) non-profits in the battle against the giant (and manipulative) coal industry!
In spring of this year, Beyond Toxics submitted a Public Records Request to the Port of Coos Bay to learn the details of plans to haul coal through Eugene for export to nations in the Far East? Remember that they demanded $22,000 to get what should be public information? If that wasn’t enough, the Port of Coos Bay tacked on a long list of intrusive questions, demanding the disclosure of our members’ names and addresses.
Stopping coal: A renewed moral imperative
I want to be clear: I am not against trains (I often travel by passenger train)! I am, however, critical about using our rail system to haul coal to coastal ports and then load the coal and ship it off to Asian destinations.
A Day of Protecting our Local Watershed
I was amazed that when I woke up this morning, my back and shoulders weren’t very sore, just my forearms. That was after a full day of watershed restoration work near Fish Creek, one of the salmon habitat streams in the Siuslaw Watershed in Western Lane County.
Bees and Our Future
Bees are really cool. I have two different bee families happily buzzing and sipping nectar in my backyard. One was a real surprise! I had put out a beautiful bird house that I bought from a vendor at Saturday Market. Instead of a family of finches, I attracted a batch of bumble bees. I see them going in and out of the opening into which they stuffed bits of fluff and string to give themselves privacy!
Taking Responsibility for Justice
Eugene, nationally recognized as a bike city, a community near nature and a place where we value sustainability, would not normally attract attention around environmental human rights and justice issues. Which is why for one day, Beyond Toxics and Centro LatinoAmericano invited city and agency officials, students and community leaders on an environmental justice bus tour to West Eugene where we got the opportunity to see how families live through the lens of “environmental justice”.
As if a wall of chemical gas is enveloping us...
Last week, Beyond Toxics hosted dozens of people who boarded two school buses and journeyed out to visit several key toxic hot spots, like Lark City Park, where air and ground water pollution harms Eugene families every day.
