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6 continued from page 1offices in Nashville and requested information on water testingin her city. She was casually handed a cardboard box filled withpaper, and what she found astonished her.At the same time that the county of Dickson was mailing lettersto black families assuring them that their well water was safe, thesame officials were sending letters to white residents warningthem to stop drinking their well water and to switch to themunicipal water supply.Sheila knew she had to do something, but she didn’t know what.She’d been trained as a bodybuilder, not an environmental activist.Trying to be supportive, her husband gave her a video of the filmErin Brockovich, and emulating the Julia Roberts-portrayed maincharacter, Sheila talked to any expert who would listen: collegeprofessors, chemists, engineers. They all pointed her to one man:Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice ResourceCenter at Clark Atlanta University and one of the nation’s leadingexperts on environmental racism.Sheila tried reaching the busy environmental activist for six monthsbut got no response. Finally, on a fluke, Bullard picked up thephone one evening and heard her story. At first he was disbelieving.No official, he said, would be foolish enough to leave a paper trailof racism. But he was wrong; Sheila had photocopies of the actualletters that had been sent to both the white and the black families.Bullard, finally convinced, joined the fight. Sheila had found anally who would uncover a systematic abuse of environmentalguidelines, civil rights laws, and simple human decency. Not onlyhad the county dramatically understated the risk to black families,but it had paid to switch over the white families’ water supply to themunicipal water system and delivered bottled water to them in theinterim. In 1991, a state water official discovered the potential fortoxins in the Holts’ water supply and alerted the EPA to the danger.The federal agency pooh-poohed the state’s concern and TennesseeWe were the wrong complexionfor protection, but all that’sgoing to change.went along with the EPA’s conclusions, even as more and more testsconfirmed that the level of TCE in the Holts’ water supply was 24times the EPA’s recommended level.Beginning in 2003, attorneys filed lawsuits on behalf of 12 Holtfamily members against the city, county, and state for negligence innot warning them of the man-made dangers in their water. And in2007 the NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed an amended complaintclaiming discrimination as well. Last year Sheila added HillaryClinton to her long list of supporters when the then-senator invitedher to Washington to testify before the first ever environmentaljustice congressional hearing.The Holts have clearly suffered at the hands of public officials. Inaddition to the sickness and death from various diseases, theirlongtime family home and farm have become worthless. To makematters worse, Sheila recently experienced a recurrence of breastcancer and underwent a mastectomy.But all this seems to make Sheila Holt-Orsted’s passion burn evenhotter. She has converted her minivan into a mobile activism centerand—when her treatment schedule allows it—is in constant battlewith the status quo: “We were the wrong complexion for protection,”she states, echoing Robert Bullard’s rallying cry. “But all that’s goingto change.”Breast Cancer Action applauds Ms. Holt-Orsted in her commitmentto reversing social inequities on behalf of not only her familybut all of us. X80 CENTS OF EVERY DOLLAR YOU GIVE TO BCA HELPS END THE EPIDEMICA leader in the health care industry told us recently that she wasshocked when she found out what our budget was. “I thoughtyou were three times that size!” she said. We get that reactionquite often.We host two web sites, broadcast monthly e-alerts, maintain atoll-free information and referral hotline, issue press releases,monitor and evaluate breast cancer research, advocate for betterlaws, conduct outreach programs in the community, attendand staff conferences, and publish a highly regarded quarterlynewsletter, the Source.Every year we run our national Think Before You Pink campaign,which always brings results. This year it was responsible forGeneral Mills’ removing rBGH dairy from its products. Thehormone has been linked to breast cancer.And everything we do works towards:x Ensuring more effective and less toxic treatments byimproving FDA drug-approval standards.x Protecting everyone's health by decreasing involuntaryexposures to environmental toxins that put people at risk forbreast cancer.x Addressing inequities in breast cancer incidence andmortality.Times are tough and the economy is cyclical, but cancer doesn’tcare. We could not do this work without your support. Pleasemake a contribution today by visiting our web site at www.bcaction.org or calling 877/2STOPBC (877/278-6722).