“ We were a mothers’ organization— mothers and grandmothers concerned about children’ s health— and, through our campaigns and over the years, started learning many new things,” Bhandari said.
“ We focused on the science. We focused on the community,” she continued.“ I started it as a concerned parent. We were much more focused on fracking near children, fracking near day cares and schools, and so some of our most successful campaigns and most of our advocacy was to stop expansion of fracking around eight sites in Arlington, which are right next to day cares.”
Now 61 years old, she has seen the very problems she once read about penetrate her own community. And the repercussions have been more consequential for some communities than others. More often than not, Bhandari said, they’ ve settled disproportionately in majority Black and Latinx neighborhoods, like the one where Mother’ s Heart is located.
“ The burdens of fracking were so unequally distributed,” she said.“ The other bigger picture that people seem to miss when they say,‘ It’ s OK to put it somewhere else, just not near me,’ is that you always will preserve a safe place. Sacrifice zones are safe spaces for polluters.”