Meet the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance – Capital B News

Na’Taki Osborne Jelks spent much of his childhood in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in one of several black communities along an 85-mile stretch between the city and New Orleans, known as the name “Cancer Alley”. She said growing up in an area ravaged by industrial pollution and related health problems set her on a path to work for environmental justice.

“We lived within a mile of a pollution-generating facility,” Osborne Jelks said. “The water smelled and tasted bad coming out of the tap, the air sometimes smelled bad, you could see smoke from the chimneys.”

It wasn’t until she left Louisiana that she began to associate the environment with her health.

Throughout his years in Louisiana, Osborne Jelks said he suffered from a skin condition called hyperpigmentation, which causes dark and sometimes inflamed spots all over the body.

Doctors could never determine the cause or find an effective way to treat it, she said, even after she underwent allergy testing, changed her diet, started using topical creams and changed its personal care products. Nothing worked – not until she left Louisiana and the disease went away.

Osborne Jelks went on to earn a dual degree in chemistry from Spelman and engineering from Georgia Tech, and worked with community organizations serving residents of the West End and Southwest Atlanta while attending college.

Today, she is executive director and co-founder of the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA), a community organization originally founded by residents of southwest Atlanta to stop the city from building a water treatment plant worn in a local park.

“It just made sense that we would build on the work that the elders in our community were doing and make something a little more permanent,” Osborne Jelks said.

“What WAWA is trying to do is create leaders”

Since Osborne Jelks co-founded WAWA in 1995, the organization has grown from an all-volunteer organization to an official nonprofit with employees dedicated to advancing their work in environmental justice, management and of education.

Darryl Haddock, WAWA’s director of special projects, said the organization sees itself as a community facilitator of education and knowledge.

“We don’t want to just hold all (the knowledge) in our hands and be the talking heads. What WAWA is trying to do is create leaders,” said Haddock, who has been with the organization for 18 years.

Southwest Atlanta has some of the city’s largest remaining tracts of forest land, such as the Cascade Springs and Lionel Hampton-Beecher Hills nature preserves. WAWA helps as a steward of the two old-growth forests while also hosting programs aimed at connecting Black families and children to the nature of their neighborhoods. Haddock says WAWA is training the next generation of environmental justice advocates.

“We used to be connected to nature,” Haddock said. “When we came to this country, we had skills and knowledge about (the environment), and we never really got credit.”

WAWA hosts a number of educational programs at the Outdoor Activities Center, which they operate for the city. Their program aligns with the Georgia Standards of Excellence established by the state Department of Education to encourage field trips.

During school holidays, WAWA hosts O-Academy, a camp for children aged 5 to 12. And every Black History Month, they host a “Harriet Hike” where participants hike and learn about the knowledge and techniques slaves used to survive and head north away from the ‘slavery.

WAWA also teaches participants to understand the social implications of environmental issues such as housing, energy, healthcare, food, transportation and more.

The watershed is much more than water

Destinee Whitaker, a researcher at WAWA, joined the organization through a grant funded by Georgia State’s Soil, Air, Water Community Initiative after graduating from Spelman with a degree in environmental science.

“Before coming to WAWA, I didn’t realize that the watershed is much more than the water itself, it’s the overall connection to the environment. What impacts our air and land also impacts our water,” she said.

Whitaker’s research currently focuses on air quality through the AQ Earth Project, in collaboration with another Atlanta environmental justice organization, CHARRS (Community Health Aligning Revitalization Resilience and Sustainability).

Partners distribute portable air quality monitors to residents that detect carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and other respiratory irritants. Part of Whitaker’s research work involves leading trainings for residents on how to use air quality monitors, teaching residents how to understand the data they collect, and creating visual aids for the data.

WAWA also oversees stream cleanups and collects water samples for laboratory testing by the Chattahoochee River Keepers, allowing them to determine where pipe breaks in the city are causing sewage to leak into the water. and monitor the progress of pollution cleanup programs.

They often perform these cleanups as part of public service projects that provide hands-on learning opportunities for community members, whom they show how to collect water samples and other measurements in the field.

Osborne Jelks highlighted that WAWA’s work in environmental justice focuses not only on policy but also on practice – in particular, getting government, at all levels, to respond to the issues and needs of communities across the country. west of Atlanta.

“We are looking at how to protect our communities from the hyperlocal impacts of climate change, like flooding and extreme heat,” she said.

Osborne Jelks said these impacts are not only environmental phenomena but are also linked to a community’s infrastructure. This is why “we are always campaigning to ensure our communities have a seat at the table.”