9/11 ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION
DEMANDS  CLEANUP !   NOT COVERUP !   NOW  !!!!!

Jonathan Bennett is the Public Affairs Director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, a post he has held for seven years. Bennett is an experienced journalist, having been on the staff of a number of newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters. He has written and reported extensively on occupational and environment safety and health in all media. In recognition of his achievements, he has received a Revson Fellowship on the Future of the City of New York and a Public Health Association of New York City Media Award. He lives in Brooklyn.  

Patricia Dillon lived in Lower Manhattan from 1981 until 2004, and continues to work in one of the courts in the area.  She and her family were heavily impacted by the attacks of September 11, 2001.  Witnessing the denial by the federal government of the nature and amount of toxic material released by the destruction of the trade center and the government’s refusal to acknowledge responsibility for the health and safety of surviving citizens, as well as deliberate decisions made during the months following the disaster that further endangered volunteers, residents, office workers, and school communities in the area, Ms. Dillon joined with other community activists and in April of 2002 became a founding member of 9/11 Environmental Action.  She is very proud of the achievements of the organization.

Kimberly Flynn grew up in New Orleans. She came to New York to attend Barnard College, where, in 1978, she became a member of the Columbia University Committee Against Investment in South Africa, the first anti-apartheid organization on campus. For nearly 30 years, she has worked for such causes as protecting first amendment rights, preserving public higher education in New York City, and, as a member of ACT UP New York in its early years, mobilizing for an end to the AIDS crisis.  In 1999, after New York City began its massive, haphazard pesticide-spraying campaign against the West Nile virus, she became an environmental advocate with the newly formed No Spray Coalition and worked as a researcher assisting attorneys Joel Kupferman of the NY Environmental Law and Justice Project and Karl Coplan of the Pace University Environmental Litigation Clinic on the lawsuit No Spray v. City of New York. She brings her wealth of experience in community organizing, scientific and legal research, and strategy to her work as Co-coordinator of 9/11 Environmental Action, the organization she helped found in April 2002.  

Nina Lavin has been a resident of Tribeca for over 10 years, and has been an active participant of 9/11 Environmental Action since the organization's inception. Ms. Lavin’s home was heavily impacted by toxic debris following the collapse of the World Trade Center.  When it became clear that neither federal nor city oversight agencies were taking responsibility for protecting public health following the disaster, she resorted to teaching herself about such protective safety measures as state-of-the-art-testing methodology for toxic substances. She has spoken as a community resident at Congressional press conferences and worked with the media in helping to publicize health and safety issues resulting from the collapse of the WTC.  Currently Ms. Lavin works as an advocate on behalf of the neighborhood. 

Rachel Lidov served on the original ad-hoc Steering Committee of 9/11 Environmental Action at its founding in April 2002, and continues to serve in the organization's leadership. Drawing upon her experiences in the administration of small human rights organizations in the 1970’s, Ms. Lidov provided administrative back-up to stabilize the new organization.  Currently a co-coordinator of  9/11 Environmental Action, Ms. Lidov combines continuing her leadership role, publishing 9/11 EA’s bulletin, News&Alerts, and maintaining the organization’s website with her professional life as a pianist and piano teacher on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. 

Esther Regelson, a freelance sound editor, has been politically active since her childhood protesting the Nixon administration’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The intervening years had settled her into complacency until the Bush administration and 9-11 started a new encroachment on her life, her health and her civil liberties. Esther has lived two blocks from the World Trade Center site for over 20 years. Since 9-11 she has become a member of her local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) participating in animal rescue in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. She has actively promoted cycling in the city as an alternative to the overuse of the internal combustion engine, and also works on health, environmental, and quality of life issues in Lower Manhattan in the wake of 9-11.