Center for the Environment

A film screening of “The Devil We Know” will be presented at the Center for the Environment at Catawba College on Thursday, October.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion which will include Environmental Working Group president and co-founder Ken Cook and Catawba faculty member Dr. Sue Calcagni. The panel will be moderated by Dr. John Wear, executive director of the center.

The documentary re-tells the story of a small town in West Virginia and how a toxic chemical contaminated the drinking water.

Unraveling one of the biggest environmental scandals of our time, a group of citizens in West Virginia take on a powerful corporation after they discover it has knowingly been dumping a toxic chemical — now found in the blood of 99.7 percent of Americans — into the drinking water supply.

Film director Stephanie Soechtig says, “It also shows the power of ordinary people to change the world in which we live, and to me, that is an incredibly important take-away from this film.”

Panelist Cook is widely recognized as one of the environmental community’s most prominent and influential critics of industrial agriculture, U.S. food and farm policy, and the nation’s attempt to protect families and children from toxic substances.

Under Cook’s leadership, EWG has empowered American families with easy-to-use, data-driven tools to help reduce their exposure to potentially harmful ingredients in foods, drinking water, cosmetics and other household projects. In recent years Cook and EWG have been in the forefront of national and state campaigns to require the labeling of foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients.

Cook earned bachelor’s degrees in history and agriculture and a master’s degree in soil science from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Panelist Calcagni is an environmental toxicologist and biologist with a Ph.D. from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. She is an associate professor of biology and environmental science at Catawba.

Her primary professional focus centers on chemical contaminants in aquatic environments, particularly the impacts of pharmaceuticals and personal care products on aquatic communities and their connections to human health. In addition to teaching courses and mentoring student research, Calcagni is on the Board of Directors for the Carolinas Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry and has also served on the boards of watershed organizations such as the Yadkin Riverkeeper in North Carolina and the Soque River Watershed Association in Georgia.

Additional panelists to be announced at www.CenterForTheEnvironment.org.

This presentation is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. in Room 300 of the Center for the Environment. The presentation is free and open to the public but registration is required. Call 704.637.4791.