Sierra Club Piedmont Group

Three advocates for environmental justice will speak on Wednesday, May 27th at 7 pm at the Friends Meeting House, 1007 Forest Street in Charlottesville. The Piedmont Group of the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club is hosting this event to call attention to the disproportionate impact of developments on Black and low-income families.
Mark Sabath is a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, where he handles a range of water, air, energy, and environmental justice matters. He is a member of SELC’s Charlottesville office and based in Washington, DC. Prior to joining SELC, Mark spent 13 years in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Section litigating cases under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act.
Dr. Lakshmi Fjord is an environmental justice anthropologist consultant who has extensive experience working with community-led participatory research on demographics, health, heritage and historic preservation in historic Black and immigrant communities. She was instrumental in defining the disproportionate impacts on the historic Black community by the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s compressor station.
Don Gathers is a Deacon at First Baptist Church on West Main Street, the former Chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces, a Community Activist, an Executive Committee Member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at UVA and a member of numerous local Activism and Citizens Rights Committees. He will be speaking about the recent controversial City Council decision approving the large apartment building on West Main.