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The Impact of Toxic Waste Sites on the Health of Bay Area Youth
Tina Cosentino and Simone Brown, community organizers for Communities for a Better Environment
October 24, 2000

How would you like to live right next to an oil refinery? How about a hazardous waste dump? Many people in the Bay Area do, and their health is impacted. These areas have high rates of asthma, nerve disorders and cancer, among other things. What can we do about it? Lots, it turns out. Young people are especially active.

Tina Cosentino is a full-time organizer for Communities for a Better Environment. CBE, founded in 1978, is an environmental health and justice organization that works with communities directly affected by industrial pollution. CBE provides organizing skills and legal, technical and scientific resources that assist these communities in taking control of the decisions that affect their quality of life. Tina works with CBE's Petrochemical Neighborhood Justice Project (PNJP). PNJP has worked in Contra Costa County for the past 20 years helping residents win pollution prevention measures. She also coordinates KAEP—Kids Against Environmental Pollution, groups of junior and high school students fighting for their environmental rights. KAEP is also known as the "Youth Bucket Brigade" for their involvement with the community based air sampling project called the "Bucket Brigade."

Simone Brown is KAEP's Youth Leader and has been involved with KAEP for three years. She is currently a junior at John Sweett High School in Crockett CA and lives in the Bayo Vista Housing Project directly adjacent to the Tosco Rodeo Oil Refinery.

CBE general web-site: www.igc.org/cbe

Contra Costa County Bucket Brigade: www.Bucketbrigade.org