Extra Credit - Living Downstream

When the extra credit opportunity came up I was really not sure if I wanted to do it. Most college students don't want to spend their Friday evening in a film and discussion about the environment, but I decided the extra credit was worth it. I honestly was not looking forward to it, but after seeing Steingraber's film I was very happy that I went. It was very moving and full of a lot of information that I will further look into.

Sandra Steingraber is an environmental biologist from Pekin, Illinois that as a junior in college was diagnosed with a form of bladder cancer. Many of her family members before her had been diagnosed with a form of cancer, but this was not so normal in Sandra's case since she was adopted into her family. It was also noticed that her community had a cancer cluster among them. This was thought to be caused from the many factories and farming chemicals that ran off into the water. After surviving her cancer she devoted her life to studying about cancers and the roll that chemicals such as atrazine play in the cause. She has spent her time speaking across the nation to government officials and anyone who will listen to try to get laws passed about the use of chemicals and getting them all tested. Steingraber stated that "when you have carcinogens in the waster supply... someone will get cancer." In the film, biologists studied frogs from rivers that were exposed to run off of atrazine. The frogs had physically changed making them male and female. Obviously if atrazine has that much of an affect on frogs, it could very easily cause cancer in humans from drinking, eating a breathing substances with atrazine. This story hits a lot deeper later when we find out that Sandra's cancer had come back after multiple years. Steingraber travels to make her story and research known so that we as a nation can stand up and get laws changed and start an environmental human rights movement to prevent this from further happening.

After the film, a panel of local supporters conducted a discussion.The panel consisted of members from the Ohio Environmental Council, Center for Health and Environmental Justice, Sunday Creek Watershed and Ohio University Environmental Studies Department. They first spoke about how they enjoyed the film and how much it hit home to them. One panelist in particular knew Sandra very well so her words were very moving. They then wanted us to think about why all of this was happening and more importantly, what we can do about it. There are many local issues like these around Southeastern Ohio that we can help prevent. By just looking at the land we see all its beauty and trees, but if we look further we then notice all the pollution that has been caused. They mentioned many meetings with companies and events that are being held that we can participate in to get the word known and help make a difference. The main idea of the whole discussion, as one of the panelists put it, was to "get involved, get involved, get involved" so that we can get a change we want to see.