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.