The Scientists

E-LAW’s unique electronic network links hundreds of grassroots attorneys in 60 countries. More than a dozen public interest scientists participate directly in this network, including Elsa Nivia, a Colombian scientist and pesticides expert, and Ram Charitra Sah, a Nepali scientist with expertise in forestry and watershed ecology. E-LAW U.S. Staff Scientist Mark Chernaik and E-LAW U.S. Science Circuit Rider Meche Lu collaborate with Elsa, Ram, and more than 100 U.S. pro bono scientists to give grassroots attorneys and the communities they work with the information they need to protect public health and ecosystems.

Mark Chernaik

Mark and his daughter Oliva

Mark Chernaik has brought his scientific expertise to bear on hundreds of environmental challenges. Working as E-LAW U.S. Staff Scientist since 1992, he has witnessed firsthand the environmental threats that communities face around the world through his travel to work with advocates in Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Ukraine, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Israel, Peru, and Argentina.

In Dhaka, Mark visited a community next to a local tannery. Advocates from the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) were filing a case to force the tannery owners to treat their effluent before discharging it.

"I saw half-naked children playing in pools of raw tannery effluent. I was well aware of the chemical and biological hazards. My heart sank and I was reminded of the urgency of our work and its human dimension."

Mark received a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Johns Hopkins University. He also holds a law degree from the University of Oregon School of Law. His work has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He has worked on litigation challenging pollution from pulp mills in the Pacific Northwest.

Mercedes "Meche" Lu

Mercedes "Meche" Lu, Peru

Meche Lu is E-LAW U.S. Science Circuit Rider for Latin America. She is based in Peru and travels to work with advocates throughout the region to help protect citizens from the health impacts of industrial pollution, oil exploitation, mining, leaded gas, and toxic pesticides. Meche collaborates daily with Mark Chernaik and E-LAW advocates around the world through E-LAW’s electronic network.

In the past two years, Meche has traveled to work with E-LAW advocates in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, and Chile.

Reflecting on her field visits, she says: "I am always struck by the isolation of communities suffering the effects of pollution -- Arica, Chile; the Kuna and Embera indigenous people of Lake Bayano, Panama; Talamanca, Costa Rica; and La Oroya, Peru. These remote communities share an urgent need for help. They rely on us for the scientific and legal support they need to fight for their right to live in a healthy environment."

In the seaside town of Arica, in northern Chile, Meche helped E-LAW advocates at Fiscalia del Medio Ambiente (FIMA) conduct a workshop to educate communities about arsenic and lead contamination. In the mid-1980’s, a Chilean company imported 20,000 tons of lead- and arsenic-laced mining wastes to Arica for reprocessing. The company later abandoned the wastes and a low-income housing development grew up around the piles of scrap metal. Later, local children were found to have dangerously high levels of lead and arsenic in their blood.

Meche and E-LAW U.S. worked with FIMA as they filed a case in local court to force authorities to remediate the contaminated area and compensate the affected citizens. Although the government moved the waste piles to a ravine just outside of Arica, a substantial amount of contaminated soil was left behind.

At the workshop, Meche helped educate local residents about the health effects of lead and arsenic contamination. Before leaving Arica, Meche collected a soil sample from an affected neighborhood for analysis at a laboratory in Oregon. The sample was found to contain lead and arsenic levels far above those considered safe by the World Health Organization. Meche returned to Arica with FIMA attorney Francisco Ferrada to testify in court about the results of the soil analysis. She informed the court about the continuing risks of contamination in the affected neighborhoods.

Meche earned degrees in biochemistry and pharmacy from the National University of San Marcos and studied environmental management and ecology at Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, Peru. She is a founding member of the Peruvian Toxicology Association. She helped found E-LAW Peru in 1991.

Pro Bono Scientists

Professor Howard Mielke and his students, Eric Powell and Alia Shah, helped design a soil sampling protocol for La Oroya, Peru (Photo: Patricia Beck/Detroit Free Press)

A key to E-LAW’s high impact work is the dedicated scientific experts who provide pro bono assistance to E-LAW advocates around the world. These experts are some of the nation’s foremost authorities in fields such as environmental chemistry, microbiology, and epidemiology.

By providing free help to our partners around the world, these scientists help E-LAW achieve big impacts at low cost. In addition, E-LAW’s pro bono scientists magnify the benefits of their good work for the environment in the U.S. to communities in other countries.

These experts provide thousands of dollars worth of free scientific support, including everything from analyzing technical portions of environmental impact assessments to signing affidavits and providing expert opinions in court cases.

Mark and Meche work with more than 100 U.S. pro bono scientists, including E-LAW U.S. board member Glenn Miller and Howard Mielke at Xavier University. The following are brief profiles of the support E-LAW U.S. has received from Glenn and Howard.

Howard Mielke

Professor Howard Mielke at Xavier University in New Orleans is an environmental toxicologist specializing in metal contamination of urban environments. He serves as the program director and is a principal investigator of a multimedia study of metals in the urban and rural environment as part of a cooperative agreement with the Minority Health Professions Foundation and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Howard helped Mark and Meche design a soil sampling protocol for a community near a U.S. owned smelter in La Oroya in the Peruvian Andes. Residents of La Oroya are gravely affected by lead, arsenic, and cadmium emissions from Doe Run`s polymetallic smelter operation. Despite the fact that hundreds of children suffer from high blood lead levels -- in some cases four times higher than World Health Organization standards -- Doe Run has denied full responsibility for the contamination, claiming that vehicle traffic is a key source of lead in the environment.

Howard and three of his students worked with E-LAW U.S. to develop a soil and dust sampling plan for 10 locations in La Oroya. Samples were split in half and analyzed independently at certified laboratories in Lima, Peru, and at Xavier University. The laboratory results paint a bleak picture: Every sample contained lead and arsenic far above safe levels. Moreover, the strong co-variance of lead and arsenic levels revealed that the smelter and its associated facilities are the primary sources of lead and arsenic in La Oroya. With this information, advocates for the community, government officials, and the company should be able to work together to develop a plan that will reduce emissions and clean up contamination.

Glenn Miller

Glenn Miller

E-LAW U.S. Director Glenn Miller has had a lifelong commitment to using science on behalf of the public interest. He has provided tremendous pro bono assistance to E-LAW advocates in Panama, South Africa, and Peru who challenged bad mining practices in those countries.

Glenn is Director of the Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences and Health at the University of Nevada at Reno, where his research interests include the effects of mine waste on aquatic systems, the fate and transport of organic compounds in soils and the atmosphere, photochemical transformation of organic contaminants on soil surfaces, and remediation of mine waste contamination. Glenn has served as Co-Chair of the Sierra Club Mining Committee, and is active in numerous other efforts to protect the environment, including present service on the Board of Directors of the League to Save Lake Tahoe; the Tahoe-Baikal Institute; the Mineral Policy Center; the Great Basin Mine Watch; and the Great Basin Institute.

Headlines: E-LAW in the News, Winter 2003

Uganda Tobacco Victory

January 30, 2003 -- The New York Times reports on how Ugandan E-LAW advocate Phillip Karugaba is taking on the tobacco giants in Africa -- and winning!

Reporter Marc Lacey writes: “President Yoweri Museveni said recently that his prayers would be answered if a thousand major cigarette companies operated in Uganda instead of just one.”

Lacey reports how Phillip`s commitment to protecting his fellow citizens from the dangers of tobacco is making a difference, even when the president disagrees.

In December, Phillip and his organization, The Environmental Action Network (TEAN), won a landmark victory in High Court declaring smoking in public places a violation of non-smokers` constitutional rights to life and to a clean and healthy environment. The judge ordered Uganda’s National Environment Management Authority to make regulations to prohibit smoking in public places within one year.

Phillip wrote to us recently: “E-LAW is where it all began. You gave me the cases and the support. You made it happen.”

Controversial Power Plants Slated for U.S. Mexico Border

January 2, 2003 -- The Lehrer News Hour reports that huge power plants designed to feed U.S. energy demands are under construction three miles south of the U.S. border and generating a tense cross-border dispute between environmentalists and big power companies. E-LAW Advocate, Carla Garcia Zendejas, is featured in this report. Carla is a Mexican public interest attorney working with the Border Power Plant Working Group to provide local communities with accurate information on the environmental impact of power plants, liquified natural gas (LNG) pipelines, and LNG terminals. Carla has worked with E-LAW since 1998.

Chile’s Native Forests Threatened

January 1, 2003 -- “The Chilean government is protecting corporate profits instead of our forests,” says E-LAW advocate Miguel Fredes in the International Environment Reporter. Miguel is representing a property owner in Chile’s southern Lakes Region who alleges people have illegally cut endangered alerce trees on his property, for export to the U.S. and Japan. The alerce, the world’s second oldest living tree, has been declared a national monument in Chile and live trees are protected from cutting.

Ugandan Advocates Seek to Prohibit Environmentally Dangerous Plastics

December 27, 2002 -- The Monitor (Uganda) reports that E-LAW Advocate Kenneth Kakuru and his organization, Greenwatch, have filed a petition in Kampala’s High Court seeking to prohibit the manufacture, use, sale, and disposal of thin polythene plastic bags.

The Governments of Bangladesh, Ireland, South Africa, Taiwan, and several States of India have enacted laws banning plastic bags (less than 100 microns thick) for consumer use. Indiscriminate disposal of these bags has resulted in unsightly litter and the clogging of drains in urban areas, and other ills.

Greenwatch’s petition claims that the plastic waste is a violation of a citizen’s right to a clean and healthy environment.

E-LAW U.S. has worked with Greenwatch for several years to protect the environment through law in Uganda.

A Small Town Pays For Lead

December 12, 2002 -- KMOV-TV (St. Louis) reports that a polymetallic smelter owned by Doe Run is having negative health impacts on the community of La Oroya in the Peruvian Andes. Children in La Oroya have dangerously high blood lead levels attributed to toxic smelter emissions. E-LAW advocates in Peru have worked for many years to defend the health of residents in La Oroya.

Advocate in Argentina Designated “Most Important Leader”

December 8, 2002 -- La Nacion (Argentina) reports that E-LAW advocate Carolota Sánchez Aizcorbe has been designated one of Argentina’s 100 most important leaders. Carlota has devoted herself to the protection of the Rio de la Plata Tigre River Basin (near Buenos Aires) since 1983.

Carlota works with local community representatives and environmental groups to defend water resources through the Fundacion ProTigre y Cuenca de la Plata, where she serves as president. She has worked with E-LAW U.S. since 1995.

Chileans Challenge Proposed Aluminum Plant

Fernando Dougnac, Chile

October 19, 2002 -- El Diario de Aysén (Chile) reports that E-LAW advocates at Fiscalia del Medio Ambiente (FIMA) will appeal the Government of Chile’s decision to move ahead with an ill-advised project to build an aluminum plant in the sparsely populated Aysén region in southern Chile. The proposed Alumysa-Noranda project includes construction of three hydroelectric dams that would destroy lakes used by the public.

The court at Puerto Aysen rejected a petition filed by FIMA on July 2, 2002 on behalf of local citizens who oppose destruction of lakes Yulton, Meullin, and the Quetro Lagoon.

“Personally, I have no doubts that this decision will be overturned by the Court of Appeals at Coyhaique,” said Fernando Dougnac, president of FIMA. “We will appeal and get the final judgment to enforce the law correctly.”

E-LAW U.S. has worked with advocates at FIMA since 1994. FIMA is doing outstanding and precedent-setting legal work on key cases to establish environmental law as a powerful instrument for the defense of the public interest in Chile.

Inside E-LAW: Welcome Kalindi, Thanks Micah, Goodbye Kim, Yachats 2003

Welcome

Kalindi Devi-Dasi Micah LeBank

We are pleased to welcome Kalindi Devi-Dasi back to E-LAW U.S. Kalindi first began working for E-LAW U.S. as Office Manger in 1996. In 1997, she left to pursue other interests while continuing to work part-time as Bookkeeper. She has now returned as full-time Office Manager and Bookkeeper. Kalindi graduated from the University of Oregon in 1995 with a B.A. in Political Science and Spanish with a minor in Environmental Studies. She has lived in or traveled to Sweden, Japan, Mexico and Ecuador.

Thanks

E-LAW U.S. thanks Micah LeBank for his tireless service to E-LAW U.S. Micah began volunteering at E-LAW U.S. in 2002 and is now Program Assistant. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in environmental studies and brings his passion for the outdoors to E-LAW U.S. He has taken E-LAW U.S. visitors skiing for the first time and enjoys introducing guests to Oregon’s great outdoors.

Moving on

A fond farewell to Kim Miller, who leaves E-LAW U.S. to pursue other interests. Kim joined E-LAW U.S. in 1997 as part-time Office Manager. She proved invaluable and soon began working full-time and took on the added responsibilities of coordinating the internship program. She has helped grassroots advocates around the world get the support they need from E-LAW U.S. Though Kim has left E-LAW U.S., she continues to provide valuable support as a volunteer.

Yachats 2003

E-LAW U.S. hosted this year’s 2003 E-LAW Annual International Meeting, March 2-6, in Yachats, Oregon. Fifty-six grassroots advocates from 34 countries participated in working groups, project circles, and strengthened the ties that make the E-LAW network strong. Look for a full report on this exciting gathering in the next E-LAW Advocate.