The AAP and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) wrote last month to Scott Pruitt, the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) describing the dangers of pesticides, and of chlorpyrifos specifically. They stated that they were “deeply alarmed” that Scott Pruitt had overridden the EPA’s own recommendation to ban the use of chlorpyrifos on all food crops. They said that Pruitt’s decision “contradicts the agency’s own science and puts developing fetuses, infants, children and pregnant women at risk.”

At Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services, we've had our share of uphill battles. Fair Shake uses a sliding scale to charge for its services, so many of our clients are of modest means, and they're often facing corporations with a phalanx of lawyers.

It's so easy—clichéd—to lump such matters into another David v. Goliath story. But that reduces these cases to…well, to something other than people. We represent people, not cases. Besides, neither David nor Goliath had to live next to a waste incinerator plant. Others—specifically people in East Liverpool, Ohio—were not so lucky.

One leaves the Garden Island wondering why the people of this breathtakingly beautiful island need to play Russian roulette and hope they don’t become a statistic in a cancer cluster when people in the countries where these companies are headquartered live by the precautionary principle. Switzerland, home of Syngenta, has banned the use of the very chemicals that continue to drench the soil of the Garden island.