This Mother’s Day, I want to share the story of some young women who would make any mother proud -- but you don’t have to be a parent to be inspired by the Girl Scouts of Troop 6195 in Illinois. These young women have been environmental leaders for years now, planting gardens for migrating butterflies, speaking up for clean energy, setting up bat habitats, and more. They’ve worked closely with the Illinois Sierra Club on a number of issues -- and recently that collaboration brought two of them all the way to Washington, DC, to call for strong federal safety standards for coal ash, where I had the pleasure of spending time with them.
Alivia (8) and Ameilia (13) first spent a day meeting with elected officials from Illinois -- from Representatve Cheri Bustos to Senator Dick Durbin -- to discuss the dangers of coal ash. Coal ash is the toxic waste left over from coal-burning power plants and contains some of some of the deadliest known toxic chemicals, including heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury, and chromium.
For decades, coal ash disposal was subject to no EPA oversight, and this waste was dumped into giant unlined pits, where toxic chemicals then seeped into water and soil and blew into the air in many communities nationwide -- including Ameilia and Alivia’s community back in Illinois. Exposure to these toxics raise the risk for cancer, heart disease, and stroke, and can inflict permanent brain damage on children.
After a successful (and tiring!) day of meeting with elected officials, the next day was spent in Virginia with a great crowd of people testifying at an Environmental Protection Agency hearing on coal ash standards. In March, the EPA announced a proposal to repeal safeguards that had required this coal ash pollution data to be tracked and released.
You could have heard a pin drop in the hearing room, when Ameilia and Alivia bravely testified in front of the panel of EPA staff about their worries related to coal ash and their hometown. I was moved and inspired by their ease in speaking in public and their command of the issue. They are already amazing leaders at such a young age -- we should all be so lucky to have clean air and water advocates like Ameilia and Alivia in our communities!
They join a wonderful community nationwide who want strong federal safeguards for disposal of toxic coal ash. Our clean water coalition submitted more than 56,000 comments to the EPA in favor of stronger standards. Many people are also taking action as shareholders of coal utilities -- just this week, Ameren shareholders successfully passed a resolution demanding coal ash cleanup standards and transparency.
Thank you and keep up the great work, Alivia and Ameilia. You are an inspiration to me and to all the moms out there -- on Mother’s Day and every day!