Building a Fossil-Free Eugene
The summer of 2023, I interned at Beyond Toxics, a nonprofit organization dedicated to pursuing community-driven environmental justice across Oregon. Beyond Toxics works in a variety of areas, including public health, food security, forest preservation, pesticide reform and clean energy, and institutes change through several approaches, such as advocating for more sustainable policies, creating informed communities and holding polluting companies accountable.
I spent my time at Beyond Toxics working under its fossil-free Eugene campaign. More specifically, I was looking into Underground Storage Tanks (USTs) — massive, submarine-sized tanks that hold hazardous substances like petroleum and have a propensity to leak. I catalogued 303 confirmed releases from USTs in Eugene, examining how long the cleanup took, whether there was contamination left in place and bodies of water threatened by the release, among other factors.
With that data, alongside additional reporting, I wrote an article that overviews the fraught history of USTs and how poorly they've been regulated. Read the full version below, or on Beyond Toxics' website. Beyond Toxics will use my research and writing to push for a moratorium on the construction of new gas stations, a move that is beneficial to public health and environmental sanctity, in part, due to the dangers of USTs. Read the report that I co-authored with Beyond Toxics about the threat of gas stations here.