Public health legend takes on air pollution
Carol Remmer Angle, a public health pioneer whose research and advocacy helped lay the groundwork for modern environmental law, is empowering a new campaign to protect communities across the South from air pollution.
Crowned “The Woman Who Fought Lead,” by her alma mater Wellesley College, Angle is a leading expert on lead poisoning and a public health icon, known best for her work as a pediatrician, toxicologist, nephrologist, and educator. Her research helped the world understand the impact of environmental lead pollution on human health, culminating in the adoption of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the removal of lead from gasoline and other products.
Her career helped inspire modern environmental law, and extended and improved the lives of generations around the world.
DJ Gerken, SELC Executive Director
Last spring, Angle established a new fund dedicated to protecting communities across the South from pollution. This fund initiated SELC’s newly minted Air Program, under the leadership of nationally recognized air expert Keri Powell as our new Air Program Leader and Carol Remmer Angle Senior Attorney for Community Health.
“Her career helped inspire modern environmental law, and extended and improved the lives of generations around the world,” says Executive Director DJ Gerken. “We are honored to be associated with her inspiring legacy and to do our part to carry it forward, improving air quality and public health across the South.”
Angle’s impact
Linking her young patients’ symptoms of advanced lead poisoning to exposure from lead smelting and battery reclamation plants, she also monitored air, soil, and water lead levels near the factories and throughout Omaha. Angle’s observations contributed to the growing recognition that lead is more than a hazard to the lead paint of deteriorated housing, but one of the entire environment.
“Growing up with a mother in this line of business made the connections between our health and our environment brilliantly clear for me early on,” says Marcia Angle, her daughter and an ace physician herself.
A Professor Emerita at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, the elder Angle served in the college’s Department of Pediatrics for years and was one of the first women in the country to serve as a medical school department chair. She is also a co-founder of one of the nation’s first poison control centers and advised numerous organizations including the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Now, she is ensuring SELC is in a position to protect clean air for all communities with a generous endowment that will allow the organization to stay focused on this work for as long as it takes.
Breathing better
Enter Keri Powell, a veteran in clean air advocacy and a leading litigator who joined SELC as a senior attorney in September 2023. She was tasked with supercharging the organization’s clean air program, including running point on pivotal litigation against biomass plants and other industrial facilities that contribute to toxic air pollution across the South.
We can all breathe a little better now that Keri is leading our work to defend clean air.
DJ Gerken, SELC Executive Director
Powell’s new clean air team is busy reviewing and challenging permits and building an ambitious strategy to close federal loopholes that have allowed massive polluters to cluster unfairly around Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities.
“We can all breathe a little better now that Keri is leading our work to defend clean air,” says Gerken. “Her expertise will boost our longstanding efforts to ensure clean air for all.”
On the ground
Protecting clean air can help preserve our Southern environment and culture. This spring, SELC provided critical legal pressure to help Riceboro — a Black coastal community south of Savannah — prevent one of the nation’s largest emitters of a toxic pesticide from setting up shop right next to a Gullah Geechee arts center and museum.
Communities of color and lower wealth are systemically forced to endure more pollution than their whiter, wealthier counterparts.
“I’ve always been motivated by the core belief that everyone has the right to breathe clean air,” says Powell. “I’m most proud of our work when we’re able to assist overburdened communities in getting their concerns heard and addressed.”
Angle and Powell are proof that determined public servants can achieve unprecedented environmental progress. By advocating for stronger regulations and more effective enforcement, SELC continues their legacy of fighting for healthy air quality for all communities.