Goldman Environmental Prize winners work hard to protect planet

Lopez, 32, had witnessed too many empty gestures during the years he spent fighting pollution from a battery recycling plant to be party to a photo op for the governor. “I told him, ‘Tell the governor to come with money, or don’t come at all,’” Lopez said of the phone call before Brown’s visit to the largely Latino neighborhood. Lopez is one of six people who will be honored Monday with the Goldman Environmental Prize, given to leaders around the world who protect people and ecosystems against commercial exploitation. The award, he said, will inspire him to keep standing up to industries that exploit disadvantaged and immigrant communities. Lopez learned through his research that the plant was processing huge quantities of lead in the smelter — the equivalent of 40 truckloads of acid car batteries every day. The increase in production came without the needed equipment upgrades and the company refused to do anything about the noxious fumes it was spewing into the air, Lopez said. Lopez led bicycle tours of the plant, making such a stink that a federal grand jury began an investigation. [...] in March 2015, Exide agreed to shut the plant down. Largely as a result of his work, the Lead Acid Battery Recycling Act was passed in 2016, allocating up to $32 million annually to clean up closed smelter sites like the Exide factory. “I think it’s really important to note that there is no safe level of lead for humans, especially children, so it is important to expand testing,” he said. Lead affects brain function, impulse control and can lead to violence and crime, all problems in our community. The winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize include a game warden who risked his life fighting oil drilling in a national park in Africa, an activist who led a 12-year battle to stop an aluminum ore mine in India, an organic farmer who blocked a cement kiln in Slovenia, a woman who stopped a mining company from taking her family farm in Australia, and the leader of an indigenous tribe who kept a destructive nickel mine from destroying land in Guatemala. The award, established in 1989 by San Francisco philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman, recognizes average people around the world who have taken extraordinary action to win environmental victories. The award recipients were selected by an international jury from confidential nominations submitted by environmental organizations and individuals. Katembo, 41, was a warden at Virunga National Park in the Congo when he learned that the British company Soco International was planning to illegally extract oil from the park, further threatening the endangered mountain gorilla and risking contamination of Lake Edward, the headwaters of the Nile. In 2011, he went undercover, strapping hidden cameras to his body and secretly filming Soco agents and Congolese army intelligence officers offering bribes. Samantara, 65, started a grassroots campaign in 2004 to inform the 8,000 members of the indigenous Dongria Kondh about a plan by the Odisha State Mining Co. and London’s Vedanta Resources to build a $2 billion open-pit bauxite mine in their homeland, the Niyamgiri Hills of India. Samantara and the other protesters were harassed and intimidated by state police and Vedanta officials after filing a petition with the Supreme Court challenging the project for violating tribal rights. The village councils’ rejection of the mine and denials last year of mining company appeals ended a 12-year legal battle. Macerl, 48, who had long raised sheep on the family farm in the hills of Trbovlje, in Slovenia, began collecting emissions data after he learned in 2002 that the French company, Lafarge Cement, had acquired a 130-year-old concrete kiln near his property. Bowman, 83, had long been collecting data on the health hazards and pollution caused by the proliferation of coal mining in the Hunter Valley of Australia when she found in 2010 that her own 650-acre farm was in the crosshairs of the Chinese-owned mining company Yancoal. Bowman worked with environmental groups, filed lawsuits and spread information about the harmful impacts of mining on people’s health and the environment, all the while refusing to sell her land, which she lovingly called Rosedale. Private security forces hired by the mine began violently evicting families, burning houses and raping women in Q’eqchi villages in El Estor and Agua Caliente. Tot knew he had obtained land titles for the area, but discovered that somebody had torn out the pages that proved their ownership when he went to the national registry to fight the evictions. [...] the government has refused to enforce the court’s ruling and Tot’s battle took a horrifying turn in 2012 when one of his sons was shot to death and another was wounded while riding a bus to Guatemala City. Tot did not give up, helping organize a human blockade in 2014 that caused security forces to retreat after they again attempted to evict the people of Agua Caliente.