2026 Upton Sinclair Lecture: Environmental Contamination Plagues Elementary School Near Former Dump

FALLS CHURCH, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Investigative journalist Georgia Gee will present the 2026 Upton Sinclair Memorial Lecture during AIHA Connect, the annual conference and expo for occupational and environmental health and safety (OEHS) professionals. Gee’s lecture, “The ‘Trash’ School,” will address how environmental racism and public health neglect subjected residents of a predominantly Black community in Gainesville, Florida, to decades of toxic chemical exposures. The talk is scheduled for 3:15 p.m. Central time on Monday, June 1, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

Gee’s June 2024 article in The Intercept, also titled “The ‘Trash’ School,” reveals that Gainesville city officials sited a landfill 150 feet away from Joseph Williams Elementary School in the late 1950s. Although the dump was relocated in the ’60s, the garbage and contamination remain. Petroleum from buried storage tanks has permeated the soil and groundwater. In 2020, concentrations of the carcinogen benzo(a)pyrene at the site were up to 218 times higher than the level considered safe for residential areas. Williams Elementary’s ZIP code ranks among the worst 25 percent of Florida ZIP codes for pediatric asthma hospitalization rates. Yet county and state officials have not agreed to completely clean up the site or study the effects of the contamination on students’ health.

Moreover, Williams Elementary isn’t the only “trash” school in the U.S. Gee and The Intercept have identified dozens of schools across 35 states, often in lower-income communities of color, that sit on or adjacent to former or currently open landfills.

In the 2026 Upton Sinclair lecture, Gee will discuss how she uncovered this story despite many Gainesville officials and residents being unaware of the former dump’s existence. “This lecture will provide insight on the journalistic process behind investigating environmental injustice and neglect,” she wrote in an email to AIHA staff. “It will cover how to report health impacts and how to use public records to chronicle toxic sites, or in this case, ‘trash schools.’”

Gee has also appeared on Episode 28 of AIHA’s podcast, “The Healthier Workplaces Show,” to discuss her upcoming lecture.

AIHA Connect 2026 will take place from June 1 to 3 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. Media representatives interested in obtaining press passes for the Upton Sinclair Memorial Lecture should contact Jessie Lewis, AIHA's director of marketing, at jlewis@aiha.org.

About the Upton Sinclair Memorial Lecture

The Upton Sinclair Memorial Lecture for an Outstanding Occupational Safety and Health News Story of the Year highlights the importance of media in occupational safety and health, examines issues of global relevance, involves the public in the cause of occupational safety and health, and recognizes good investigative reporting.

About Georgia Gee

Georgia Gee is an investigative journalist from London. She is currently a researcher at The New York Times. Over the last five years, she has been based in New York and East Africa, working on print, digital, podcast, and documentary film projects. Gee’s freelance work has been published by Foreign Policy, The Intercept, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and WIRED. She has received grants from the Pulitzer Center and the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

About AIHA

AIHA is the association for scientists and professionals committed to ensuring occupational and environmental health and safety in the workplace and community. Founded in 1939, we support our members with our expertise, networks, education programs, and other products and services that help them maintain the highest professional standards. For more information, visit www.aiha.org.