“Nobody funds a hydrologist. That's the whole story of why these cases die.”
Denise Okafor's clients — 1,800 households in a majority-Black parish in southern Louisiana — had been drinking contaminated well water for over a decade. Everyone knew the water was bad. The residents knew, the parish knew, and the industrial operator upstream knew. What nobody could prove was where the contamination came from.
Proving it took a groundwater study: a hydrologist, monitoring wells, and eight months of sampling. The bill came to $22,000 — a routine expense for a corporate defendant, and an impossible one for a legal aid office whose entire litigation budget was smaller than that. General-support grants couldn't touch it. (Placeholder narrative.)
An Impact Fund grant in FY2019 paid for the study. The hydrologist's report traced the contamination plume to a single discharge point — and became Exhibit A at class certification. The settlement funds a new municipal water line, now under construction. “The grant was the smallest money in the case,” Denise says. “It was also the money that made every other dollar count.”
Read the full story→Expert science is the single largest use of environmental justice grant dollars — and the expense least likely to find another funder.
“I signed up to speak for 6,000 drivers. I'd do it again tomorrow.”
“A $12,000 grant let us take depositions 400 miles from the nearest co-counsel.”
“The grant was 2% of our budget — at the moment the other 98% depended on it.”