Spokane River Health Risk Advisories Given to Low-Income and Immigrant Communities in Spokane
By Amber Waldref, from Earth Share of Washington organization The Lands Council
Although you may not see them, almost every day in the past five months, staff and representatives of The Lands Council (TLC) has been out working within and among a diverse cross section of Spokane community members. Their goal is to form new partnerships to increase public awareness about health risks posed by contaminants in the Spokane River, including the effects of exposure to heavy metals and PCBs (industrial chemicals) found in shoreline soils and fish.
TLC has been reaching out to educate members of our low-income and recent immigrant communities who are known to fish and recreate in and along the Spokane River; specifically, Hispanic, Hmong, Vietnamese and Slavic residents. This work has been funded by a grant from the Washington State Dept. of Ecology.
The Lands Council is lucky to have found excellent community educators who are able to use their native language and translated materials to get the health advisories into the right hands. Two of their most active community educators, Tatyana Bistrevsky (Slavic community) and Henry Ponnefz (Hispanic community) are making tremendous efforts. So far, Tatyana and her husband have reached over 1000 members of the Slavic community by visiting churches, ESL classes, community centers and calling phone contacts. Henry has made over 400 contacts in the Hispanic community through his efforts at Hispanic grocery stores, restaurants, fairs, and community clinics.
One of the ways TLC hopes to continue working on this project and improving upon it is by surveying members of these communities to find out how many people actually know about the health risks associated with increased contact with heavy metals in soils or eating fish containing industrial chemicals. The initial results of our surveys tell us that the Hispanic community is very isolated from general information sources about Spokane River contamination because of language barriers. The Slavic and Hong communities have more bilingual speakers and tend to have a greater awareness of health risks. The Slavic community, however, tends to use the river more, which could mean higher exposures.
In late July, TLC partnered with Washington State Dept. of Health, Ecology, and the Spokane Regional Health District to do four fish cleaning demonstrations with Slavic community members. These demos were a great success. TLC hopes to do more in the upcoming year for all the communities involved with this project.
Through TLC outreach efforts, they have reached over 1600 members of these targeted communities in just 5 months! Their work will continue to increase public support for cleanup of the Coeur d'Alene Basin and Spokane River mining wastes and PCBs - vital to the long-term environmental and human health of this region. For more information, or ways to get involved with this project, please contact Amber Waldref at awaldref@landscouncil.org.