This story about Monica Christofili was published on the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund’s website on, November 29, 2018.
Pregnancy nightmares: they’re “a thing” guidebooks and obstetricians don’t often discuss. Yet for Monica Christofili of Newmarket, where CELDF began assisting community members to advance Community Rights in the summer of 2017, her sleeping and waking hours were haunted by worries of how to protect her children from chemicals permeating the soil and water where she lives.
“The CDC confirmed this summer what the state has known for two years: New Hampshire has the nation’s highest rate of pediatric cancer,” she says. “A year ago, as a parent, I was worried about how to address our statewide problem with persistent synthetic chemicals that don’t leave the environment or our bodies. But I’ve evolved from concerned parent to community rights activist. Our children are being poisoned and dying, and we must go beyond setting standards and reductions of allowable harm, and instead wholly prevent future contamination by disallowing it.” MORE…