How Baltimore millennial Destiny Watford saved her neighborhood from environmental disaster.
In 2010, when Destiny Watford was 14 years old, New York-based energy firm Energy Answers International got a permit from the state of Maryland to build a massive trash incinerator in Curtis Bay, the South Baltimore neighborhood where Watford and her family lived.
The incinerator would have spewed a boatload of toxic pollutants — including mercury, lead and nitrogen dioxide — that have causal links to lung damage and other respiratory problems.
Curtis Bay already ranked among the 10 worst zip codes in the nation for toxic air pollutants emitted from stationary facilities between 2005 and 2009.
Enter Watford and a dedicated group of young activists: In partnership with local advocates, at age 16 Watford and fellow students at nearby Benjamin Franklin High School launched a grassroots campaign to stop the incinerator from being constructed.
Using a combination of public art, theater and educational events, they convinced 22 local governments, school systems and nonprofit institutions to back out of their agreements with Energy Answers, from whom the groups had committed to buy energy generated by the yet-to-be-constructed plant.
"Fighting the incinerator was an act of survival," Watford said. "I live in Curtis Bay, my family, my nephews, my brothers and sisters all live in Curtis Bay. It's an act of survival because we already have some of worst air pollution in Maryland and the nation."
And then came the coup de grace.