Since 1990, the Goldman Foundation of San Francisco has recognized local organizers with its annual Environmental Prize which includes a cash award. A winner is selected from each inhabited continent for work in a wide range of evironmental areas and the 1997 North American Goldman went to Terri Swearingen, a nurse and mother jailed repeatedly for leading demonstrations against a toxic waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio where she persuaded the U-S Environmental Protection Agency to rethink its regulations for siting and operating hazardous waste facilities. Her efforts have also made the Waste Technologies Industries (WTI) plant one of the most closely monitored incinerators in the country and while it has stayed within the law, Swearengin tells Steve Curwood that she thinks the law has too many loopholes.
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