i do. it strengthens me to know that there is good. i'm glad this happened. so you want to sing kumbaya or what? >> if i could remember the words. dominique is going to have something else to write down on that piece of paper he keeps in his room, which is hope heals everything. if he can stick with that, he's going to keep moving forward.

♪ here's how garbage works for most of us. we put it in cans around our house. once a week we take those cans to the streets, and then the garbage man comes, puts it in his truck and drives it far, far away. but if you live here in chester, pennsylvania, they put that garbage in the back of a truck, and they take it right over there. and while they're burning that garbage over there and making money, a lot of people in this community think they're being made sick. so on this episode of "united shades of america," we're talking about toxic environments, manmade disasters. here in chester, pennsylvania, and not that far away in philadelphia. i'm done with this. normally i'd just throw it away. but i feel bad. maybe i'll take it home and turn it into an art project.

♪ >> you know, kamau, it's like i'm going to make you treat me like i'm an american. >> oh, yeah. >> you understand me? >> i hear you. >> the same rules that you apply in other communities. >> mm-hmm. >> why you think we want any less for our children or our families? >> mm-hmm. >> yeah, this is the incinerator. >> what are these trains? >> they carry chemicals.

>> i smell something. >> you smell shit. that's what you're basically going to smell. >> oh, my god, okay. >> oh, yeah, i want you to smell it. i want you to get to pull it back. it's foul. it's foul. it's nauseating. >> mm-hmm. >> you will feel it in your throat, in your eyes, every membrane that you have. >> i feel it in my soul. >> welcome to chester. >> now, some problems are nobody's fault, like the dinosaurs getting wiped out by an asteroid. that's just some real bad luck. other problems just seem unsolvable, like rush hour traffic or sugar-free things always tasting sugar-free. blech. but there are some problems that are completely manmade and are clearly solvable. that's why i brought us together this week. see, every few weeks on my twitter feed, i see someone holding a sign that says flint, michigan, is still without clean drinking water. that is 100% a manmade problem, and the same men who made it can fix it, but they haven't. even though our government has guaranteed the residents of flint and the entire country the right to clean drinking water

through something called -- check my notes -- the clean water act. so over here, united shades hq, we found out that surprise, surprise, flint isn't the only place in america suffering from toxic environments. lots of things can make an environment toxic like lead, asbestos, or could you farts, technically methane. so what does a toxic environment do to people? if we're talking lead poisoning, the long-term consequences will depend on age and length of exposure, but it can lead to cognitive delays to behavioral issues to seizures. if it's as bess toes, you may be looking at shortness of breath, lung disease, testicular cancer. i wonder if trump has any thoughts about asbestos. >> a lot of people could say if the world trade center had asbestos, it wouldn't have burned down. it wouldn't have melted. >> yeah, of course. and mercury can make you more regular. anyway, if it's chemicals related to air pollution, you can get a variety of cancers, respiratory issues, hormonal defects or literally hundreds of other conditions. the fact is, kids, whether you

live in rural, suburban, america, manmade disasters are becoming more and more common. while many of these issues affect people of all races, native people, black people, latino people, and other people of color, we tend to get it the worst. and while you can basically go anywhere in america and find toxic environments, this week i'm headed to philadelphia and chester, pennsylvania, neighboring cities with two different versions of same damn story. while most of us americans have only been thinking about these issues since flint, many of these people have been working on these issues for years. but today i'm in philadelphia to meet with the person often called the father of the environmental justice movement. >> environment justice embraces the principle that all communities are entitled to equal protection of environmental laws. >> yeah. this is dr. robert vogel. over the last four decades he's written more than a dozen books, worked with both republican and

democratic administrations and received awards for his work on environmental justice issues. >> i've traveled all across this country and i've never seen a black or brown neighborhood that has more than its fair share of full service grocery stores, parks, good schools, walk trails. but garbage dumps, with he get more than our fair share. >> we don't get more than our fair share of organic food markets or affordable housing. >> yeah, those things that make us healthy. poor people and people of color are release lated to hazardous locations. you think we would protect our children, but we don't. no community should become the dumping grounds just because it's poor or a community of color or physically located on the wrong side of the tracks. >> okay. >> it's simple. >> simple. >> it's not rocket science. you know, these are basic human rights. most people i know breathe air and drink water and eat food. >> yeah. >> but a lot of people say, well, i'm not an

environmentalist. my point is if you drink water and are concerned with what's in the water every day. >> you go home and sleep in one of those michael jackson oxygen tanks, then you're an environmentalist. >> the fact is that it's not a democratic process. >> yeah. >> people don't vote to get poi poisons. usually it happens to them, and usually it happens in a way that people find out later. >> after they have a kid who has asthma or after a kid has some sort of learning disability and they can't figure out where it's coming from. >> we say that's cruel. that's unfair, unjust, and we say it should be illegal. right now the zip code is the most important predictor of health and well being. you tell me a zip code, i can tell you how healthy you are. all zip codes are not created equal. >> really? >> yes. you can find zip codes that are adjacent to each other and have life expectancy disparity of 10, 15 years depending on what's in that neighborhood and what's not in that neighborhood. >> just by the zip code? >> just by your zip code. >> wow, breaking it all the way down. >> oh, yeah. >> hey, kids, let's play the zip

code game right now. let's start with costa mesa ter, pennsylvania, zip code 19013. while the average life kppt antsy in america is 78, the life kppt antsy in chester is 69. up the road in swarthmore, zip code 19081, the life expectancy is 81. let's be clear. if you live here and you're rich -- and let's be real, whiter, you get rewarded with three extra years on the planet. but if you've got more melanin and you're poor, racism docks you nine years. >> we allow government to grant permits, and a permit is nothing more than a license to pollute. you get all these what they call locally unwanted land uses placed over there. once you get one, it's easy to get two. once you get five, it's easy to get six. the mentality is one more won't make a difference. but oftentimes it will make a difference. >> you called them lulus. locally unwanted land use. >> it sound so cute when you say

lulu. >> ain't nothing cute about being poisoned. >> so do you have hope? >> i have hope. i've been doing this a long time. this is america on relay. you run 26 miles and you pass it off. that's how we can take these issues and take it across the finish line. (paul) great. another wireless ad. so many of them are full of this complicated, tricky language about their network and offers and blah blah blah. look. sprint's going to do things differently. and let you decide for yourself. they're offering a new 100% total satisfaction guarantee. try it out and see the savings. if you don't love it, get your money back. see? simple. now sprint's unlimited plan comes with one of the newest phones included for just $35 a month. so switch now. for people with hearing loss, visit sprintrelay.com this is something bigger.g. that is big.

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when i think of philadelphia, a lot of things come to mind, rocky, cheesesteaks, pre-bel air fresh prince, kevin hart and meek mill, bradley cooper, eagles fans hatred of santa. eagles fans love of battery, and gritty. go on with your gritty self. what's less known is the high rate of lead and other toxic materials throughout the city. there's probably some people in philly that aren't like that happy about you calling a police toxic city.

>> people hate us. i mean -- >> today i'm with two pulitzer prize winning reporters. they're like the kagny and lacey of investigative reporting. that reference is old for even cnn's audience. let's go really young. they're like the abby and alana. the point is they're friends, they're women, and they're bad asses. they're the masterminds behind the toxic investigative series. they spent three years collecting samples, testing findings and interviewing residents. they find out how the city's past created to the conditions of the poisoning of over 2,700 kids a year. >> what we found was the kids in philadelphia are actually exposed to hazardous amounts of lead at much higher rates than in flint, michigan, year after year after year. >> wow. >> we're still like above the national average and we still have thousands of kids every year getting poisoned by lead to levels that are damaging to their brains. >> wow. so what skills did you have to acquire to find out what was

going on? >> which wanted to do our own testing. we started out with lead and we looked at lead in homes, in soil, in schools. we found it everywhere. >> i picture that scene in a beautiful mind where you're like, it's everywhere. it's all connected. yeah, yeah, yeah. >> what's that movie, the sixth sense, i see dead people. all i saw was lead everywhere i go. it's very thick. it peels like an alligator skin. when i walk around my house, all i see is lead. >> you literally see it? >> yeah, you can spot it. >> and lead has a sweet taste, and it actually -- >> really? >> -- tastes sugary. they used to put it in everything, even wine. >> really? >> alcohol, yeah. >> so that's why little kids often eat it off of window sills because they see it chipping. they'll put a clip in their mouth and it tastes sweet like candy almost, and so they keep eating it. >> kids at age 2, they're developing something like 700 neural connections every couple of seconds. so what lead does is it's like

throwing a big pile of sludge in front of a freight train that's moving on your development. >> that's heartbreaking. >> it's really heartbreaking and it's heartbreaking to know like lead poisoning is 100% preventable. >> 100%? >> yeah, 100% preventable. >> those are pretty good odds. >> those are pretty good odds, right? if you don't have the kid around lead, they're not going to have their brain irreparably harmed. it's that simple. we have this thing in philadelphia. we call it the philly shrug. it's like kids are getting poisoned and northbound seems to realize this will impact them one way or another. the fact that it's all over the schools is criminal. >> one of the most frightening parts of wendy's and barbara's investigation was the dangerous levels of lead and asbestos found in philadelphia schools. the kids in philly are already exposed to elevated risks since 92% of the housing was built before the 1978 lead paint ban. case in point, cassidy elementary. it was built in 1924 which is why it's on the national registrar of historic places yet

it's one of the worst performing schools in the philadelphia school system. this is chelsea. these a fifth grader at cassidy. so do you play on these playgrounds? >> the little kids do, yeah. >> do you play over there? >> yeah. >> wendy and barbara's investigation uncovered alarming amounts of asbestos dust throughout the school. >> it's got to go beyond the status quo because this is a public health crisis. >> sharon bryant, a teacher with over 25 years of experience, has taught at cassidy. last year chelsea was one of her star students. >> i believe cassidy was supposed to have been closed a few years ago. >> last year, they told people that we couldn't stay here anymore, so then we had to move to a different classroom. the closet had this dust that made people sick. >> okay. so in here -- i don't want you to get sick by coming in here. >> is that my room in 302? >> yes, that's 302.

>> okay. that was the room when the dust sample testing came back, the results were alarming. i just broke down because i heard my kids turned that closet into a playground, like an indoor playground. and they were in there playing and rolling around on the floor. >> the results for the closet that the kids had converted into a playground were 50 times higher than the highest results for asbestos found in apartments near ground zero after the 9/11 attacks. if that doesn't sound like environmental injustice, i don't know what does. >> uh-uh. these are -- see, now i'm startsing to get -- >> that's all right. that's all right. i mean this is -- >> the children -- like that's our future, man. >> mm-hmm. >> and i just think about, all right, i'm going to be 60, but they were 10. >> mm-hmm. what did your parents think when they heard about this? >> they thought i shouldn't go to the school anymore. >> do you want to still go to

this school? >> no. >> even though you've been here since you were in kindergarten, you probably have friends here and stuff? but you'd rather go somewhere else? >> yes. >> are you going to try to go somewhere else? >> yes. >> okay. >> chelsea's got to be one of the youngest people in her community fighting to see it's improved. she wrote a letter to senator vincent hughes asking -- no, demanding for help. >> we were in fourth grade when these were written. look at this. >> and just scanning this, i know she's not a rapper, but there's bars in here. maybe we can take the money from donald trump's wall and use it for schools. i want a real playground. we need more, and we deserve more. why does the color of a student's skin matter how much money we get for our school? >> she's the truth. >> have you seen a lot of major changes since you sent the letter? >> no. >> do you think there will be changes before you graduate? >> maybe. >> maybe?

okay. i'm glad you're optimistic. >> i love my children, and i'm -- i need to be able to look myself in the mirror and ask myself, sharon, did you give your kids all you had? >> when was the last time you saw chelsea? >> i haven't seen her. >> let me just tell you, she's doing great. kids can be incredible, but teachers don't always show them that they're incredible. and that's what you have done here. >> thank you, kamau. >> thank you. can i give you a hug? >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you. and thank you for continuing the fight and caring about your kids. every innovation, every feeling... ...a product of mastery. lease the 2019 es 350 for $379/month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. do you battery sound. want a charge? yeah battery charging. ♪

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to see it in theaters. as we all know, america is lousy with injustices. environmental injustice is just one of them. now, the federal government started really working on this problem in 1970 when the environmental protection agency was founded by richard nixon, for reals? they got a lot done in those early years, but recently things have been more -- complicated. >> trump hates the environment, hates epa, hates the federal government, and so it was -- >> not a good match. >> once again he's in a bad marriage. >> right. and he's had three, you know. >> oh, yeah. >> all bad. >> all bad. >> i was not going to get along really well. >> this is ronnie levin.

she worked at the epa for 37 years and she keeps it really real. so real that she quit when trump took office, and ronnie wasn't the only one who left. about 8% of the workforce took off after trump's arrival. >> it was a great place to work. people who were there really were committed to protecting human health and the environment. >> yeah. but what a lot of people don't know is while the epa sets the regulations and does have an enforcement policy, it's usually up to local agencies to do the enforcing. and local agencies sometimes do tricky things to look like they're following the rules. >> part of the problem is water utilities have figured out ways to essentially make their lives easier by what's called gaming. so they gamed the system in order to have water that met the standards. and philadelphia actually uses a lot of the same techniques. >> gaming is basically like that thing where lance armstrong passed a lot of drug tests, but

we know he wasn't clean, except it's your water, and you're drinking it. >> for a lot of people, environmental problems are too hard, too expensive to approach. and i don't think that's true. i think it's really just like life. >> it doesn't sound like it should be a partisan issue. >> it's a hassle issue. >> it's a hassle issue. >> it's a hassle. and we all make decisions based on what's a hassle. >> yes, yes. >> right? >> i got three kids. i do it all the time. >> right. >> no pancakes. we're doing cereal. >> it's a choice that's being made. everybody is on the hook to do their bit. >> while of course there are people in philly doing their part, the philly shrug is real. and the feeling is that residents remain indifferent and children continue to be poisoned. and no matter where in the city they're from, more and more families are being affected by this every day. what is this? >> a robot buffalo. >> what made you come up with a robot buffalo? >> it just came out of my head.

>> nice. i like that. that's where my best ideas come out of, my head. this is averill and her son jalen. jalen is one of 2,700 kids affected every year by lead poisoning in philly. thank you. i'm going to take this home, okay? >> what do you think? >> you can take the picture but not the frame. >> i like that. i have to leave -- the frame is too expensive. no, that's all right. i'll leave it here. thank you. averill invited me into her home to talk about jalen's lead poisoning. while she's been open with jalen about his condition, he doesn't fully understand it. he's way more interested in watching his cartoons than talk f ing to this weirdo dude on televisi television. while she tried to stop her kids from eating things he shouldn't eat, averill didn't know those chips were made from lead, and that lead could lead to permanent lead. >> it's kind of a backwards and forwards, and he wasn't doing that. and i took him to the doctors,

and i said something's not right. he couldn't understand simple language, which he was able to before, at least direction, a little bit of direction. >> so some slippage, some falling back. >> yeah, i did. dr. friedman, he said, jalen's lead numbers are very high. >> yeah. >> well, at that point in philadelphia, a lead level of 10 for children was acceptable. >> mm-hmm. >> and his was 29. >> wow. just to be clear, the city of philly at that point, eating paint chips, they knew that was a cause of lead poisoning. >> they clearly knew. >> but they were not spreading the message. >> they were not spreading the message, which should be as important as any serious disease. >> mm-hmm. and the message itself is confusing. the national threshold for public intervention is 5. philly's threshold is twice as high at 10. jalen's level was 29. i think he snuck some juice.

happens to me too sometimes. you got to let the normal rules go out the window when company comes over. >> when the doctors explained this is we can help him with speech, occupational therapy. the word "poisoning" is never used. and the word "delay" is used a lot. >> a delay implies that eventually things will be caught up. >> yes. you'll lulled into a false sense of hope because this is permanent. >> jalen a a great 10-year-old kid. he's friendly. he's funny. he knows how to sneak juice when company comes over, but the cognitive delays he's experiencing put him behind his peers. >> we don't know what's going to happen with jalen. we don't know if jalen is going to be able to get a job. we're still at two-step instructions. when we get to step number two, he's lost. so we have to come back to step number one again. only in the last year, he understood the planets.

it's just been hard. >> it's one of those things as a parent that you enjoy watching your kid sort of hit new levels and sort of like you can see your kids open up and, oh, yesterday they couldn't do that, and jalen is not opening in the same way at the same speed. >> it's not a stomach bug that's going to go out of your system. it's permanent. than just the business you came for. ♪ let's make the most of ♪ ♪ what we've been given whether that's getting a taste of where you are... ♪ let's get to living ♪ ...or bringing some of that flavor back home. that's room for possibility. ♪ ♪ let's get to living here are even more reasons to join t-mobile. 1. do you like netflix? sure you do. that's why it's on us. 2. unlimited data.

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now, it wouldn't be an episode of "united shades of america" without a little talk about gentrification. this one's got a twist. today i'm meeting with gregory anzac, who grew up in kensington, a neighborhood formerly overrun with toxic facilities that continue to leave their mark decades later. what was this neighborhood like when you grew up here? >> it was all immigrants. this was a tough neighborhood. >> was there tension between all the different groups of immigrants? >> just the -- that beat each other up. >> starting in the early 1800s, there were over 1 million immigrants who entered the u.s. through philadelphia, mostly europeans. and believe it or not, that caused riots between the american-born white people and the european white people, who had not yet attained american whiteness, because if you weren't born on american soil, then you weren't worthy of her

protections. sound familiar? >> this was -- >> just pumping out carcinogens. >> yeah. the crap that came out of those doors was horrifying. >> could you like smell it? >> oh, my god, yeah. burn your eyes. >> there were several companies that were polluting this neighborhood. at one time there were 36 lead smelters in philadelphia. anzon was one of 14 smelters in just the river wards. >> i knew about this growing up, but i didn't know the severity of it all. >> when was the time you said i got to get involved here? >> my children. my children and every other child in this neighborhood. >> mm-hmm. after years of abuse, gregory and his neighbors had enough. they sued anzon for putting their families at risk. there's a lot of complicated feelings around this. >> absolutely. >> these places were employing people. then you come through and say we need to shut these places down. i imagine you weren't everybody's favorite either. >> they hated me. they hated us. >> this was a long fight, but gregory and his neighbors continued their push, and they

won. anzon was demolished in 1997. 20 years later, wendy and barbara still found unsafe levels of lead throughout this neighborhood. >> we got a settlement out of that. it was a paltry $6 million and they had to get out of dodge. it should have been $60 million, $600 million for what they did. but anzon people, out of the we're going to give them all new carpets and a vacuum cleaner. and that's what they did with the rest of the money. >> it's like washing your car. >> yeah, like -- >> it will look better, but it's not going to actually be better. >> no. >> at this point it would be nice if the story went, and now the families are safe from pollution in their homes and community. as we all know, nice and history don't always go together. so with the last of the polluters out of the way and property values low, this once working-class neighborhood was ripe for gentrification. because you held the smelters accountable, it opened up the

neighborhood for new building that pushed out the old buildings. >> they built these $300,000 for $400,000 homes now. >> nothing behind your back. i'm greg from hazard street. it's about the anzon. >> what about them? >> about how they polluted this neighborhood. >> it's still polluted. it didn't go away. >> i know. lead doesn't go away. >> let them know what's going on right up until present day with that damn mayor downtown. let them know. zinc oxide, arsenic, mexicans going in there removing asbestos without anything to protect them. that's why they want them here, cheap labor and do what they want. >> would you like to talk to us on camera, ma'am? >> hell no. >> then i'll finish talking to him. thank you very much. >> she's right. all that is true. >> it was a great victory for gregory and his neighborhood. but while it was the end of one environmental injustice, it was only the beginning of another. and once the development boom hit the river wards area of philly, decades of long buried

toxic lead dust was unearthed. janet curtis is yet another parent who has had to figure out how to deal with lead poisoning. >> i tell parents now, pressure wash your steps, take off your shoes. >> just now i came in. i took my shoes off. oh, it's a shoeless house. no big deal. but here you wanted us and the crew to do that because it keeps the house free of whatever is out there. >> we're still asking people to take off their shoes instead of dealing with what's outside the door. the epa, the cdc, and the philly department of health did a study in the neighborhood. maybe a couple months later we got the soil results back and they were really high. and at that moment, i had a crawling kid, and of course our first reaction was to take her to the pediatrician and her blood level came back at 14. as she continued to grow, we recognized her speech was delayed. at 18 months, she had two words. so we took every service that was provided to us, nutrition counseling, behavior counseling, the speech therapy, and she really is thriving.

she's an awesome kid. she's so tough. some of that, i think, might be due to the number of blood tests she's had to endure. >> yeah. >> but, you know -- >> do you believe that your daughter will -- that it is a delay, that she'll be able to catch up? >> academically, i think she's going to be fine, yeah. i think impulse and choice are two places where she struggles a little. so we want to give her the tools to be able to do that, whether it's, you know, another kid you might put them in soccer. she's probably going to go to yoga. like we're going to direct her this way. >> one of the things i learned from wendy and barbara is developers are not required to test the soil for lead before developing. how is that even possible? >> i think when you demolish a house, the city should not only notify people that it's going to come down, but they should also tell those people what to do to protect themselves. it should include, close your windows. don't leave your stroller outside. scrub your steps. >> yeah, yeah. >> it lands on your doorstep, and then it lands on your shoes or stroller wheels or inside your stroller, and then you put your kid in it.

how often do you wash your stroller? >> not one time ever in life. >> so now you put your kid in there and they chew on the buckle. >> i feel like i should back up. my wife would hate me to say on tv that we've never washed our -- we have washed our stroller a few times. i don't know if i've ever washed it, but i realize my wife -- my wife said, you just said on tv never in life. but we also in california don't have that same concern about lead. >> i imagine you have buildings built before 1978. >> yeah. >> they're full of lead paint. >> janet, averill and other moms in the area are now activists and they often use social media to spread the word in order to prevent other people from being poisoned. >> there's a moment now where i think women want to come forward and want to have their choivoic heard. >> yeah. >> i'm going to take care of my baby and make sure she gets everything i can possible gi give to her despite the setback that she got in the lead poisoning and we're going to make sure that no other mama has to do it. is is something bigger.

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america, we have a problem. and it's not one of those problems where people on the left and people on the right can disagree about whether or not it's a problem. no, no, this is an everybody problem. we make too much trash. >> watch your step here. >> hey! ah, that is a smell. >> that's the smell of money. >> that's the smell of money. >> that's right. >> oh, and this isn't debatable. this is facts. even if you're one of those people who doesn't use plastic and composts their com post, you have to admit that we as a whole make too much trash.

i got 13 different bins where i can separate all the things. we buy something, we toss it away. it's picked up by sanitation workers who bring a lot of it to landfills like this where it creates long lasting air pollution and water contamination. it's like wally but way less cute. or instead of the landfill, the trucks can go to a place like this. there's a lot of debate whether a landfill or incinerator is worse for the environment. this factory isn't burning trash in the middle of nowhere. it's in the middle of somebody's neighborhood. whichever side of the debate you might fall on, nobody wants any of this in their neighborhood. then the question becomes where should it go? this right here is america's largest trash incinerator, operated by covantis since 2005 in the city of chester, pennsylvania. chester conveniently positioned along the delaware river is about 20 miles south of philly, and influenced by the legacy of industrialization. like they said in chester back in the day, what chester makes, makes chester.

but the post-war era hit chester hard as the u.s. economy was restructured and became less dependent on manufacturing, which has historically been chester's bread and butter. white flight took chester from 20% black to 80% black and hispanic. with an economy in free fall and local politicians indifferent to the needs of their constituents, chester was prime for the staging of several toxic facilities along the river. in addition to covanta, there are also others like kimberly-clark. how does a city that only has 35,000 people create this much trash? well, they don't. the trash is brought in by trucks and trains from up and down the east coast and some of that trash is y'alls. >> do you ever sort of go, come on, people, stop throwing so much crap away? you know what i mean? it just feels like you start to have existential crises about the amount of stuff. this is john and bill, two of covanta's reps. i'm sure some of you are sitting

at home filled with righteous earl-lo ear earth-loving rage. remember, covanta gave us a tour, and since then, they've made an effort to repair long-standing issues. they believe they're good corporate citizens and me and john kind of had a rapport. >> when you remove as much recycling as possible, you've got two avenues to go. either it goes to a landfill or a burn facility like ours. so when we burn one ton, we save about a ton of greenhouse gases. >> while it can be true that incinerators produce fewer greenhouse gases, nationally it's still a problem because -- >> anytime you burn, that's bad. >> okay. >> the incinerators produce pollution. the trucks that come in with the waste, most times they're diesel trucks. diesel is bad. >> okay. >> diesel is fumes. >> yeah. >> you're talking about cancer. you're talking about a lot of problems. >> so how safe is it, and how do they make it safe? >> so this is just a general overview of the plant.

this right here is our environmental controls. >> does that mean it's clean, or does that mean -- >> absolutely. that fabric filter bag is key to making sure we're well below our lines. >> what is coming out of here? it says to atmosphere. could i stand there and just sort of -- get a -- >> it's too warm. >> but i'm saying aside from the heat, could i breathe that and be okay? >> the way it works, i mean probably. >> okay. all right. i appreciate you hedging. >> i'll say yes. probably yes. the way it's done -- >> all right. we got a hard probably. that's pretty good, right? >> we have standards which have been set by the government, and on the ones that really matter, they matter about health, we're 90% to 99% below or in scientific jargon, one to two orders of magnitude lower. >> while that's the case, turns out a number of harmful pollutants can still be released in the trash-burning process. hey, how are you doing? kamau. so this is the deck of the trash

ship enterprise. i feel like you're looking at the matrix. are you from chester? >> no. i'm from new jersey. >> so you drive in from new jersey? >> yes. >> all right. all right. you employ the people in the community here? >> everybody lives within about a 30-mile radius of the plant. >> i know chester has a high unemployment rate. they see this factory here, and they go, how come i'm unemployed but there's jobs over there? >> oftentimes they say, if we live here, we should get the job. the problem is if you do that, then what about the person who lives just outside of that boundary, and they say, well, i have the same right to that job. why are you discriminating against me? >> the ironic thing is locals don't goetz tet the jobs. >> they don't get any of the benefits from the -- >> no. >> we are 15% of their budget. >> yeah, i hear you. >> let's say we weren't here. where is that other 15% of their budget going to come from? >> it's great that covanta and

other companies are contributing to chester's budget, but at what cost? back in 1995, 60% of tested children in chester had elevated lead in their blood. and in 2010, 38% of children had asthma. even last year the children of chester suffered the highest blood lead levels in the state, and all residents faced an elevated cancer risk. these companies are mostly complying with federal regulations and they're being assessed fines when they don't. but it still falls way short of what people in this community can live with. >> you smell shit. that's what you're basically going to smell. >> oh, my god. okay. >> welcome to chester. >> and the wind kicks in. >> oh, yes, absolutely. >> remember her from the top of the show? yep, this is zuli. after growing up across the street from a place like this. she fought back and became a force for environmental justice in chester. >> this is where people live. oh, don't say environmental racism. what the [ bleep ] else you think it is? can't nobody sugar coat this.

>> yeah. >> it sucks the life out of every community wherever they go. that's why you have abandoned houses, houses, houses, houses. >> so people, they don't sell their houses. >> you >> who wants to buy it? people tell you not to be angry. you see this shit and you better be angry. ain't nothing wrong with anger. i hope to one day call you and say, guess what, we shut the [ bleep ] down. okay? >> yeah. >> and if we don't shut them down, they gone know they been in a [ bleep ] fight. also available in hybrid all-wheel drive. lease the 2019 ux 200 for $329/month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. ♪ applebee's new loaded chicken fajitas. now only $10.99.

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on a tour of the neighborhood. >> shit, shit, shit, there's the tour. >> everybody needs a neighbor like zulin. if you cross her, she's coming for you. her skills aren't kicks and punches. her skills are fighting against those taking advantage of her community. a group that fought against those taking advantage of her environment. she engaged students on environmental issues and educated herself on the dangers facing her town. this wasn't her job. she was doing this for town. >> you used to live down here, right? >> right here. >> right here on the corner? >> yes. >> first protest we ever had was

three days before christmas. that's how serious we were. i would call a protest at 3:00 in the morning and we would stand out on the streets and stop those trucks. >> get them out of here. >> stay in the line. somebody get back in the line. >> wow, so you were literally putting your bodies on the line. >> oh, absolutely. i didn't care if it was five people or 50. >> the protest prompted an epa study that found that air emissions in chester are a large component to cancer risks in the city. the city had the highest infant mortality rate in the state. the agency tasked with protecting residents, the pennsylvania department of environmental protection, soon became a focus of the protesters. >> what do you think of the department of environmental protection? >> we call them don't expect protection. >> we used to call tem had the department of pollution. now i hear because of me they have an office of environmental justice. >> so, even though they have an office that has the words environmental justice in it, you don't feel like it's doing -- >> it's a joke. it's such a joke.

>> so, we got a tour of covanta. what do you say about the fact that they told me that once they put the garbage through the processes and filters -- >> it's bullshit. ain't nothing but bullshit. >> they say it comes out the top and it's just steam. i said if i was to stand at the top, could i breathe that that comes out of there safely. they said probably yes. eventually they said yes. >> better yet, would you allow your children to go to the top of that stack and stand up there and breathe that foolishness? better yet, you all think that this shit is so safe, there's a lot of empty properties around here. come and regentrify our neighborhood. then i'll have comfort knowing we're safer. we're not against capitalism. we're not against industries. but i have a problem when it

comes to you operating your business and you hurting my mother. >> they are there to make money. they were clear about that in the way i was shocked about how clear it was. >> absolutely. >> it was so honest that i was like well, there it is. >> you're here to make money and we're here to live. >> even with the victory zulin gained, which included making it much harder for companies to get permits, dep continued to give them out as companies adjusted to the new restrictions. >> chester ain't supposed to look like this. >> i hear you. >> no, not with the hundreds of millions of dollars that come through this city every single day. again, what benefit is it to the people here who can't even open up a fricking window? what is happening here is happening in other communities. we weren't the first. we're one of the worst. any time you allow somebody to come into your home, i don't care what it looks like to nobody else. this is my home. and do what they do to people here. when i think of the people that

i have lost in my life to cancer, why do you have to fight to make people respect you as human beings? i want to make sure when i leave here my family is safe. >> yeah. >> it's just that simple. that's what zulin wants. that's what everybody wants. it's not just a chester problem or a philly problem. it's a united states of america problem. like chevron in richmond, california, cancer alley in louisiana, the most toxic town in alaska. there's pollution all over, indiana, houston, kentucky, baltimore, arizona, chicago, utah, porter ranch california had a gas leak. there's pesticides in bakersfield. tulsa, oklahoma has fracking. wait, isn't there fracking in pennsylvania? there's oil spills in the gulf of mexico that affect texas, mississippi, alabama, and

florida. it's everywhere. don't sit on your couch feeling sorry for these people calling them heros. we have to and fix these issues in our own neighborhood. change has always started with the individuals, the individuals who fight and all out the injustice to make change, who risk themselves for future generations because they know have to have clean air and water is an essential basic human right. ♪

protesters packed the streets of hong kong. another long day of demonstrations demanding the government scrap a controversial extradition bill. plus, they're all fighting for a chance at number 10, but the top tory candidate was missing from the very first debates. we will tell you why boris johnson skipped out on a chance to face his rivals. plus, a major power failure across multiple countries, but still no word how such a massive outage left parts of south america in the dark. live from cnn world headquarters in atlanta, we want to welcome our viewers joining us here in the united states and from all around the world. i'm rosemary church and this is "cnn newsroom."