The challenge

Working-class and poor communities are often home to the facilities no one wants —- sewage treatment plants, industrial sites, transportation facilities. No one wants them because they bring problems such as contaminated water, air, and land. Often, low-income residents feel powerless against the responsible companies and governments. Similarly, native indigenous communities may not feel they have the political clout to stop industries such as mining and waste disposal from encroaching on and destroying their lands. Troublesome sites are increasingly apparent on the border between the United States and Mexico, where toxic industries injure workers from both countries, pollute border communities, and too often create divisions between the poor on both sides of the border.

Seeds of commitment

The near-death of a baby from toxic well-water was the catalyst for Richard Moore’s environmental activism. Moore and his family live in a working-class community in Albuquerque, N.M. that is also home to the city’s sewage treatment plant. Pollutants from the plant and other industrial sites contaminated well water with nitroglycerine and nitrites. As a founding member of the South West Organizing Project, Moore helped launch the first successful campaign in New Mexico to clean contaminated groundwater.

Moore credits his upbringing in a poor, single-parent, multi-ethnic family with motivating his long involvement with environmental issues that affect poor and working class communities. Moore dropped out of high school and left home at 16 in search of work and a better life. His early experiences of class and racial differences impressed on him strongly that “things should not be this way, and don’t need to be this way.” The question he asked when he confronted the groundwater contamination in his neighborhood guides him still: “What are we going to do about it?” According to Moore, answering that question has led him to take action to “promote equity, justice, and a better life for me, my family, and my community.”

Accomplishments

One of Moore’s gifts as a leader is to see the connections among people and communities and their environmental and economic issues. Today, he is executive director of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice (SNEEJ), an umbrella group with 57 organizations and a thousands-strong membership in the Southwest, West, and across the border in Mexico. One of the striking aspects of SNEEJ is the scope of communities involved. Member organizations represent low-income populations in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, and Native America, as well as areas in northern Mexico, including Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila, Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. The coalition includes African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian/Pacific Islanders of every age.

In the 1994 EPA Accountability Campaign, SNEEJ played a national role in the successful effort to persuade President Clinton to sign Executive Order 12898, which requires that federal agencies address the environmental effects of their policies on minority and low-income communities. Moore also was involved in development and coordination of the Just Transition Alliance, which brings together workers and communities in Mexico, Canada, and the United States to address such issues as income protection, education for workers in toxic industries, and the cleanup of environmental hazards. SNEEJ has also collaborated with groups such as the Environmental Law Institute and manufacturing unions. These partnerships have led to training, political support, and publications that aid SNEEJ’s members. Moore has helped SNEEJ build alliances that have closed medical-waste incinerators, facilitated legal settlements for people suffering the effects of environmental degradation, and cleaned up contaminated water and land.

Leadership style

Moore is consistently praised for a low-key leadership style focused on bringing in potential leaders and showing them how to make their concerns heard. He has trained a growing number of activists and organizers. “Empowering people and communities to speak for themselves is an important part of organizing,” Moore says. Leaders, he contends, must be created “from the bottom up, from the community, from the grassroots.” One example is Carletta Talousi, a youth from the Havasupai tribe, whose lands are within the Grand Canyon. Moore heard she wanted to help her tribe fight a British uranium company that was seeking to reopen a mine on sacred tribal land. Moore encouraged her to become involved with SNEEJ and mentored her as she became a leader who helped stop the company from mining the canyon. Today, she runs the Red Rock Foundation of the Havasupai and is a tribal council member.

Community involvement is the foundation of Moore’s leadership style. He believes that those most affected by a problem should help solve it — or, as he puts it, “The people who are going to be most impacted should be at the table in the first place.” According to Moore, three key steps are essential for effective collaborations: discussions that build trust among the different parties, participation by those who are affected, and making sure that those involved in decision-making have the support they need -– such as child care, for example -- to attend meetings and take action. “I have come to believe that process is as important as getting the work done,” he says.

The cohesion of SNEEJ’s different member organizations is a testament to Moore’s skill at identifying potential partners and encouraging these groups to support one another. That emphasis on connection extends to SNEEJ’s relationships with outside groups: He is able to persuade unlikely allies, such as government groups and unions, to join in finding solutions to the problems SNEEJ’s communities face.

The future

“Developing the next generation of environmental-justice leaders is our great challenge,” Moore says. “Young people of color face an increasingly difficult environment in which they have less opportunity to impact the decisions that affect their lives. Becoming active participants in those decisions is imperative for young people today.” SNEEJ is responding to this challenge with programs to develop young leaders. Moore sees himself in a dual role in the future: as a participant in the environmental and economic-justice work he is passionate about, and as a strategic thinker who develops programs, initiatives, and ideas that further the work of SNEEJ.

More about Richard Moore and SNEEJ

“Whenever I’m unsure about an issue or whether we should be partnering with someone, I check with Richard Moore to see if it is the right thing to do...He paved a lot of roads we didn’t have to pave, making it easier for us.”
- Diana Dorn-Jones, former Chief Operations Officer, Albuquerque, New Mexico

“Richard is known to be a real leader -- an elder statesman of sorts -- in the environmental justice movement. He’s been there from almost the very beginning and has been able to command an incredible amount of respect for the work he’s done through his integrity and political acumen.”
- Charles Lee, Associate Director, Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.