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It has been four years since high levels of lead were discovered in Flint, Michigan’s drinking water. Children have suffered the most dire health effects but the entire community has been in crisis. What happened in Flint? How did the federal, state and city regulatory framework fail? What issues of environmental justice contributed to the crisis? And what issues of environmental justice matter for today’s U.S. environmental policy– in Flint and in communities across the nation?
Former U.S. Health and Human Services Regional Director Kathleen Falk explains what happened in Flint and how the issues there are not unique. She argues that the crisis in Flint compels broad policy changes to prevent institutional environmental injustice in communities across the country.
About the speaker: A native of Wisconsin, attorney Kathleen Falk served as Dane County Executive and as Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Region Five. As the point person in HHS on the ground in Flint at the time of the crisis, Ms. Falk was responsible for coordinating a health safety net and new health services for affected citizens. She has been a candidate for both Governor and Attorney General of Wisconsin; she is the only woman to be elected Dane County Executive and was the first woman to seek a major party’s gubernatorial nomination in Wisconsin. A long-time environmental lawyer, Falk was an Assistant Attorney General in the WI Department of Justice and she also served as co-director and legal counsel of Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade, an advocacy organization. Falk earned her undergraduate degree at Stanford University in 1973 and her law degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1976. She currently teaches at Vermont Law School.
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