Despite federal government assurances that the air at Ground Zero was safe to breathe, many first-responders to the 9/11 terrorist attacks are now suffering serious heath issues due to exposure to hazardous substances. This short documentary presents the stories of four New Yorkers, now afflicted with respiratory problems, post-traumatic stress and asthma, as they try to find justice.
Nearly two decades after the Exxon Valdez spilled eleven million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, both the natural environment and the lives of fishermen continue to suffer. A fisherman and an environmental activist describe the historic accident and detail how corporate promises to clean up the spill and compensate Alaskans have not been kept.
After a DuPont chemical plant in Delisle, Mississippi, released high levels of toxic dioxin and heavy metals into the air and water for nearly 20 years, more than 2000 plaintiffs brought a lawsuit against the corporate giant. This documentary listens to the testimony of many people whose health has been seriously affected by the pollution, including some who have only months to live.
In Northern New Mexico and other parts of the West, the Bureau of Land Management recently opened publicly owned land to oil and gas exploration, while ranchers grazed their cattle nearby. When cattle started becoming sick or died after exposure to strange spills near the drilling platforms, the ranchers mobilized and begin working with environmentalists.
One of the busiest points of entry in America, the Port of Los Angeles handles more than 40% of all goods imported into the United States. With all that activity comes pollution from arriving and departing ships, trains and trucks. And a local oil refinery where flares sometimes blacken the sky and are accompanied by health warnings only contributes to the unhealthy environment. BREATHLESS IN LA follows activist Jesse Marquez and members of the Wilmington Coalition for a Safe Environment as they fight to improve living conditions near the Port.
Filmed during in the summer of 2005, STORM IN THE GULF exposes how Mississippi Governor and former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour removed existing barriers for oil drilling in the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Unexpectedly, a coalition of local residents, National Park officials and environmentalists organized, and raised awareness that a precious natural resource was being sold off to energy companies under the guise of national security. Then, in the midst of this fight, there appeared an uninvited outsider: Katrina.
The approximately 800 community gardens in New York City are small islands of hope and safety in the metropolis's more challenged neighborhoods. RATS TO ROSES follows the fate of two such gardens that became endangered when former Mayor Rudy Giuliani tried to open these formerly vacant lots to housing developers. In response, then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed a lawsuit to save them as protected parks. But it didn't avoid a showdown with local neighbors and activists on one side and bulldozers and the police on the other.
