Alaska Community Action on Toxics

We believe everyone has a right to clean air, clean water, and toxic-free food. Driven by a core belief in environmental justice, ACAT empowers communities to eliminate exposure to toxics through collaborative research, shared science, education, organizing, and advocacy.

Alaska Community Action on Toxics' overarching goal is to achieve environmental justice and a climate-stable future for Alaska and the world. We provide information and technical assistance to our fellow Alaskans who are concerned about pollution from past, present, or proposed military or industrial activities - including releases of contaminants that travel on wind and ocean currents from temperate latitudes to the Arctic, where the cooler temperatures cause them to fall out onto Alaska's lands, waters, and oceans where they enter the food chain. We work to end an epidemic of cancers, infertility, birth defects, immune system dysfunction, and thyroid disease that disproportionately affects Alaska Native peoples, women, children, and workers.

Our tactics include:
• Civic engagement and advocacy - Empowering Alaskans who are most affected by toxic chemicals and climate change (Alaska Native communities, women and girls, children, and workers) organize their communities, lead Alaska's environmental justice movement, and achieve health-protective policy change at every level from local to international.

• Education and outreach - Providing information about the links between toxic chemicals and serious health harm, as well as the hidden link between chemicals and plastics and the global climate crisis. Our goal is to ensure that all uses of fossil fuels are addressed in climate action plans, which will also lower Alaskans' exposures to toxic petrochemicals and petroplastics.

ACAT researches and writes investigative reports about the effects of toxic contamination on Alaskans' health and environment - for example, PFAS chemicals in drinking water, air pollution, lead in aviation gas, pesticides, coal and hardrock mining, oil spill dispersants, mold, etc.

Monthly webinars featuring leading scientists and national experts keep Alaskans and others informed about the latest science confirming the links between adverse health problems and exposure to toxic chemicals.

• Community-based participatory research - As a science-based organization, ACAT creates partnerships among communities affected by toxic chemicals, university research faculties, and national/international experts to conduct research that fills gaps in existing knowledge. Publishing research results in peer-reviewed scientific journals provides the evidence necessary to inform efforts to achieve environmental justice for Alaskans and the world.

• Yarducopia - Yarducopia is a two-pronged program of hands on teaching of organic gardening to reduce petroleum-based pesticide and fertilizer use, along with increasing food security in a state where the vast majority of food is imported via a long supply chain that will become increasingly unsustainable as climate-induced weather patterns deteriorate.

Testimonials

"Having ACAT by our side has been a godsend. ACAT's knowledgeable, supportive staff and their technical information and assistance as our community challenges borough officials, the state, and EPA to address the air pollution in our area that is causing serious respiratory harm to our families. We are so grateful." -- Patrice L.