January 2021
“David Bond, Associate Director for CAPA, along with Ahmad Yassir ’20 and Cedric Lam ‘22, have launched a website that compiles all known information about the burning of millions of pounds of Aqueous Fire Fighting Foam (AFFF) by the US military.”
The website www.bennington.edu/afff is the first to compile all of the information about this operation and make it publicly available—regarding the rush for the U.S. military to incinerate 20 million pounds of Aqueous Fire Fighting Foam (AFFF), a toxic firefighting foam linked to a host of cancers, developmental disorders, immune dysfunction, and infertility.
This article also includes additional media coverage that our project gained since it got published at the end of March.
I’m very happy to contribute to raising awareness towards this issue and create digital accessible platforms, which already started circulating around the senate and hopefully leading to policy change and its reinforcement. I’m also very happy that my passions for policy change and art have come together in this project. I’ve learned a lot from Dr. David Bond and the collaborating organizations and I’m looking forward to the success of our upcoming project!
June 2021
St. Croix: U.S virgin islands – community survey on health and environmental impact caused by the Limtree refinery.
Current students, myself as an alumni, and Dr. David Bond (director of the center of advancement of public action at Bennington College) have been collaborating on publishing this interactive website.
It shows every day experiences and collected narratives and photographs by locals.
In addition to the health and environmental impacts this refinery have caused on the local population.
Attempts in filing for bankruptcy, timing the reopening during the end of the trump presidency, and changes in the leadership in attempt to distract the EPA from all the violations this refinery have committed.
But its also raising questions about Biden’s environmental policy and the pace it’s going at.
I’m very proud of collaborating on creative meaningful projects and hopefully the website I designed will circulate around more media outlets.
We have to raise international awareness about the issue on hand, make the data circulate around people in leadership positions and further elevate the voices of the people of St Croix.
Direct link to the website: bennington.edu/limetree
Ahmad Yassir 