Lake Apopka Farmworker Memorial Quilt Project

TOXIC TOUR OF LAKE APOPKA ON 3/30/13

Professor Toby Long's class on Chemistry and Society

 Rollins Professor Toby Long and 21 of his students from his undergraduate course, Chemistry and Society , took the Toxic Tour of Lake Apopka on Saturday, March 30, 2013.  Besides the students, 4 other interested people joined the tour with former Lake Apopka farmworker Linda Lee providing vivid commentary on her experiences working in the fields and how pesticides have affected her health and the health of other farmworkers.  She also shared stories of growing up in Apopka.

The tour began in the Apopka office of the Farmworker Association of Florida where one of the quilts was displayed and the film, Out of the Muck, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdvzw1sO68A), created by former Rollins students, was shown.

The visit included areas of the Lake Apopka shore and former farm lands and focused on the history of the pollution of the lake.  Afterwards the group traveled to a residential neighborhood of Apopka  where a federal Superfund site and a medical waste  incinerator site were permitted to be built within blocks of one another around homes in the neighborhood.  

Lake Apopka is not the only polluted part of Apopka!