Unlikely Environmentalist The Donna Madaras Cuthbert Story

Her battleground was the Tri-County region surrounding her hometown in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia and 20 miles southeast of Reading, on the Schuylkill River. An alarming number of children and adults who lived in the area surrounded by the three major polluters that formed the “Toxic Triangle”-the Pottstown Landfill, Occidental Chemical, and the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant-were getting sick and dying from cancers. This didn’t sit right with Donna Madaras Cuthbert, a long-time resident of Pottstown. In 1995, Donna became an unlikely environmentalist while she was also working 12-hour days in her small town women’s clothing store. In 2000, on the verge of retirement from a fashion career that spanned 50 years, she pivoted full-time into her “other” career, fighting polluters in her community up until the day she herself passed away from cancer in 2017. An “ordinary” citizen, Donna became one of the most persistent and shrewd activists her opponents had ever faced. Her husband, Dr. Lewis Cuthbert, a respected former college professor and school superintendent, joined her in the fight. After a decade-long battle, they achieved the “impossible” and got the toxic landfill closed in 2005, the same year Occidental Chemical was fined a million dollars for over a dozen violations and closed their vinyl resins business and moved to Texas. Donna also stopped a toxic landfill gas pipeline from dangerously threading her already ravaged community. And then she started to educate her community about the dangers of radiation from the twin Limerick nuclear reactors, which she could see every day from her living room window as they belched ominous grey plumes of steam into the sky. Donna’s story will resonate with everyone waking up to pollution in their own backyards and inspire them to organize and fight back against the greed and deceptions of corporate, profit-driven polluters who view them, and their children, as collateral damage. UNLIKELY ENVIRONMENTALIST is a real-life David and Goliath story chock-full of letters and lessons; eye-opening interviews with experts who helped along the way; intrigues and insights; and triumphs over tragedies. It is a must read for those learning to stand up, speak out, and strike back against environmental polluters.