Lula Bishop thought she had found the perfect place to raise her three children: a housing project in the rolling hills of southern San Francisco. Here in Midway Village, her kids would have plenty of space to play. As far as Lula could tell, the only downside to her new home was the view: a Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) project site stood next door.

After about two years, Lula started to think something else was wrong. Her kids were always getting sick. It started with rashes and moved on to bloody noses, breathing problems, upset stomachs, and diarrhea. Then came the day that changed Lula's life forever. Her son awoke with his left eye crossed. Lula rushed him to the hospital. To her horror, doctors discovered a cyst sitting on his optic nerve. Two weeks later, he underwent major brain surgery. Thankfully, he made a full recovery, but the doctors swore they'd never seen anything like it.

"Not long after, I went to a neighborhood meeting and told them about my son," Lula said. "One of the neighbors turned to me and said 'The same thing happened to my daughter, only by the time we got her to the hospital, she was gone.'"

The more Lula talked with her neighbors, the more she realized something was terribly wrong. Everybody had the same strange symptoms - dry mouth, burning eyes, breathing problems, nosebleeds - but what was the cause? Lula started researching and made a chilling discovery: her housing project had been built on contaminated soil.

I thought saving the environment meant saving the whales and rainforests. But I found out that people of color are also endangered- especially those without a lot of money, like Lula. It's called "Environmental Racism" and it is everywhere in our country.

In 1987, the Commission for Racial Justice said that toxic waste dumps were almost always put near people without a lot of money. The report showed that people of color were more likely to live near polluting facilities, eat toxic fish, and be employed in risky jobs than whites.

PG&E tried to dump radioactive waste on a sacred piece of Native American land in the Mojave Desert in 1997. The nuclear waste dump could have easily trickled into the nearby Colorado River. The river provides drinking water for more than twenty million people. Bradley Angel formed a group called Greenaction that would fight companies like PG&E who thought they could put their waste anywhere they wanted. Together with Native Nations and hundreds of other supporters, Greenaction set up roadblocks. They did not allow any waste-carrying trucks to pass through to the dump site. After a 113-day occupation, they won their battle.

Greenaction has also helped Lula and her neighbors fight PG&E in Midway Village. Right now, they are working to obtain medical evidence for a lawsuit. Their findings have been frightening, including high rates of breast cancer.

By this point, Nick and I were pretty overwhelmed. As left Lula's home, she had some advice: “Don't be surprised if you come down with some of the symptoms in an hour or two. If you get a headache, take an Advil. If your eyes get to burning, use Visine. If you have any questions, give me a call. I know what to do.”

Lula laughed, but she wasn't joking. These problems are a part of her daily life. When I hugged her goodbye, I felt like I was somehow abandoning her, like I was leaving her on a deserted island with no way to call for help.

As Nick and I drove past the huge PG&E site belching pollution into the sky, I realized - in a way, I was.

Stephanie