Clean air advocate Patti Gora headlines Center’s annual fund raiser.
Pullman’s Patti Gora asked everybody to take a deep breath before she told her story this morning to a packed house at the Center’s Jazzed for Justice fund raiser at the Lincoln Center.
Her opening message was a simple one, about how easy it is now, in eastern Washington to take a breath of clean air for granted. That wasn’t always the case and still vivid in her memory are those summer and fall days from a decade ago 
when her asthmatic young son’s health, and the health of thousands of others in eastern Washington and Idaho was in danger from unregulated field burning. (Click here to read the story about Patti’s son, Tim, and the CFJ lawsuit that ended unregulated field burning in Washington.)
Things are much different today thanks, in large part, to Gora, herself, who recently received the Idaho Conservation League’s Axline Award for Environmental Activism. After she, her family, and the Save Our Summers citizen group found themselves politically outgunned by Washington farm organizations, SOS approached the Center for Justice for legal help. The result was a federal lawsuit, in which Patti’s son Tim was a plaintiff, that changed everything. It not only led to a settlement agreement to regulate field burning in Washington, but it became a model for regulating field burning in neighboring Idaho. Just last year, Safe Air for Everyone (SAFE), the Sandpoint-based group for which Patti serves as executive director, reached an agreement with Idaho officials that make new, strict field burning rules federally enforceable.
But Gora’s main message today was to recognize and heartily thank the young law firm, the Center for Justice, that took on her son’s case, and the case for healthy
air, when there was no alternative but to go to court, and no one other than the Center willing to bring the base.
“This was a great opportunity for our supporters and people who are just finding out about us to learn about the reach of the Center’s work,” said CFJ Development Director Heather Beebe-Stevens. “I really appreciated what Patti said about the enormous ‘ripple effect’ of our work on this case, not just in terms of the regional effect, but also the amount of money saved by avoided health emergencies, drugs, and doctor’s visits. She’s right, we were ‘the little engine that could’ and it’s a real compliment coming from her when she asks people to recognize how far-reaching some of our success stories have been.”
Board member Denise Atwood, Founder Jim Sheehan, and Chief Catalyst Breean Beggs also spoke at this morning’s event. Breean gave his annual report on the Center’s work, his ten year report can be found on our home page in the video-box.
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