The Land I Trust

Víctor Guzmán never expected to find himself in handcuffs. As a father and vocal community member of Salinas, Puerto Rico, Víctor wanted a safe and healthy home for his children and all Puerto Ricans. But when coal plants started dumping toxic coal ash near Salinas, Víctor organized the community to resist the coal ash trucks and confront the growing influence of big coal in Puerto Rico.

Russell Schiermeier runs an 800-acre farm in Bruneau, Idaho. Like much of Idaho, Russ’s farm is in a very arid climate, so irrigation is a must. As a result, Russ says Idaho farmers “live or die by our power costs." To address that, Russ installed solar in the pivot corners of his fields to pump water at lower cost than the grid.

Russ is now active in building awareness among other farmers of the benefits of installing solar. Russ doesn’t push solar for altruistic reasons, he advocates for farmers’ best interests. He speaks to how solar can increase the value of farmland, boost the competitiveness of Idaho agriculture, and improve the economic resiliency of farming. Now, Russ has the largest solar farm in Idaho Power’s net metering program.

When Teri Albright and her husband retired and bought their dream home in Texas' hill country, she thought they finally had it all...until this summer, when pipeline company Kinder Morgan, while building the Permian Highway pipeline, injected 36,000 gallons of drilling fluid containing toxic heavy metals into the groundwater supply, poisoning Teri’s water well so much that her taps ran thick like mud. Kinder Morgan denied that the drilling fluid was dangerous, despite the fluid producer saying the chemical causes cancer. Now, Teri and others whose once pristine water is now ruined are suing Kinder Morgan for violating the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Lucy Molina was a born fighter. Her grandmother, father and mother all marched for the rights of migrant farm workers alongside Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez. Lucy continues that fight by advocating for her home of Commerce City, Colorado, which, according to Lucy, lives up to its name… placing commercial interest above public interests like fresh air and clean water.

Just a few miles from downtown Mobile, Alabama, Africatown has a deep history that informs its name. It's home to descendants of enslaved people who were brought to this country aboard the last slave ship to enter the United States. When the Civil War ended, they purchased the land and called it Africatown. Today, the community is rich in history and culture, but it also suffers from decades of harmful environmental conditions. But Joe Womack is seeking environmental justice for his community and ancestors. He runs the Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition (MEJAC - mejac.wordpress.com) and Clean, Healthy, Educated, Safe, and Sustainable Communities (CHESS - facebook.com/AfricatownCHESS) which are working to clean up the mess and keep industry out, for good.

Lucia Urreta is a junior in high school from Houston. Growing up on the Gulf Coast, she was used to big storms and hurricanes. But she noticed they were getting scarier and more frequent. Then in September 2019, Tropical Storm Imelda hit, and Lucia knew it was time to take action. She organized a climate strike in front of city hall, spoke in front of the city council about the need for action, and started a petition to create a youth climate council for Houston. Lucia has been vocal about helping her community fight the climate crisis ever since.

Lucia also works with Climate Cardinals (climatecardinals.org), an organization that makes climate science accessible in over 100 languages.

Will Behm grew up in woodsy southwestern Pennsylvania where he hiked, camped, and caught crawfish in a local creek. Now the local coal plant is threatening the beloved creek that defined his youth.

Paul Wilson is the pastor of the Union Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Union Hill, Virginia a small, historically Black community. When he found out that Dominion Energy and Duke Energy wanted to build a compressor station for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in the middle of his community, it felt all too familiar. After organizing around protecting their community’s health from air and well water pollution from the station, Union Hill residents won their legal battle against the pipeline, leading to its cancellation in July 2020.

Casey Camp-Horinek is a member of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma and a longtime Native rights and environmental activist. She remembers what it was like to travel to South Dakota to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline and protect the sacred drinking water of the Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.

In North Minneapolis, the city’s largest Black neighborhood, a garbage incinerator burns nearly half the county’s waste to generate energy for corporations and businesses. The pollution from all those tons of burned trash stays right in North Minneapolis. Kyra Brown grew up near the incinerator without ever knowing about its damaging health effects. Now, Kyra is working to raise awareness and shut down the incinerator that has been polluting their community for years.