Pollution where you'd least expect it.
Seattle prides itself on being green, yet its only river is unsafe for fishing. Boeing and other polluters have been polluting the Duwamish with lead, mercury, and toxic PCBs for years -- but local residents are fighting back, and they need your help.
Paulina Lopez lives near the river with her young family, and worries about their health: "My dream is to leave my children a beautiful, clean river where it is safe for everyone to swim, to fish, to work, and to play." Standing with Paulina is Macklemore, the Seattle musician. He may have had a rapid rise to fame, but he still cares about his hometown and our shared environment.
The EPA is finalizing its cleanup plan. Because the plan will set a national precedent, the agency has heard a lot from profit-hungry polluters -- but not much from Seattle's new mayor, Ed Murray. If residents like Paulina are going to win, they'll need your help getting Murray on their side. If this petition gets 35,000 signatures from across the nation by Monday, the mayor will know the whole country is watching!
Stand with Paulina and Macklemore, and sign the petition to Ed Murray: Side with your citizens, not the polluters. Use your influence with the EPA to demand a cleaner Duwamish River!
More from the Duwamish Tribe and Macklemore after the jump.
Macklemore told the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, "We are Seattle... This is our home, our people, and our community. This is our city's only river, and I want to do my part to make sure that it's safe for all that reside here. I stand in solidarity with community leaders and families who have organized for years to right this injustice."
Macklemore's right. Cleaning up the Duwamish River isn't just about fighting pollution -- it's about finding justice. The river winds its way through several low-income communities that are 55% minority, with a median income of just half Seattle's average.
Several American Indian tribes depend on the river for subsistence fishing, and this industrial pollution threatens their way of life. Cecile Hansen, the Chairwoman of the Duwamish Tribe, says, "The Duwamish Tribe is forever connected to the river -- it is who we have been for thousands of years. We cannot change who we are... we are still here today!"
This is clearly a story of corporate polluters putting their profits ahead of community needs. It gets worse -- Boeing claims that the EPA's proposed standards will be hard to meet, but they just successfully completed a similar cleanup elsewhere on the river! Their own success undermines their greedy arguments.
Seattle's new mayor hasn't announced his support for a strong cleanup yet, but if residents are going to beat the polluters and convince the EPA to set an important national precedent, he needs to do so now.
Tell Mayor Murray that all eyes are on his city -- it's time for him to push the EPA and side with public health and the environment, not the corporate polluters!