Funding the Fight Against Corporate Polluters
For decades, toxic lead cables lay like giant sea monsters snaking across the bottom of Lake Tahoe. Installed as early telecommunications lines and owned by AT&T, the abandoned cables contained over 100,000 pounds of lead and were slowly deteriorating, leaching contaminants into the water.
A Case Study: Lake Tahoe
In 2021, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) filed a lawsuit to force AT&T to remove the abandoned lead cables. The multimillion-dollar litigation dragged on for over two years. Without sampling and scientific testing, it was difficult to make the case in court. Then Roland Peralta, the founder of WHEN Justice, offered $100,000 for the science needed to support the litigation. The case quickly changed course.
With the new funding, scuba divers went down to the lake floor to collect samples that helped show that the lead in the cables was leaching into the surrounding waters. The crucial piece of missing evidence was found with lead isotopic testing, providing “fingerprints” that showed the lead in the cables was the same as the contamination in the lake.
An Innovative Funding Model
WHEN Justice is built around a simple but powerful idea: Strategic funding at the right moment in litigation can help public-interest cases win. The non-profit raises funds to help pay for the costly pieces of litigation at the intersection of environmental and human health — like scientific testing, expert analysis, and sampling — that smaller entities taking on massive corporations in court frequently cannot afford.
The Importance of Funding
Adequate funding is critical in today’s environmental justice landscape. Currently, much of the environmental law enforcement that forces powerful entities to clean up pollution is being done by individuals and non-profit organizations. “We think of government and regulators as being the primary enforcement mechanisms. But in reality, many environmental cleanups happen because of the efforts of small organizations”, said Maharg.
A New Way to Demand Accountability
WHEN Justice aims to help remove that barrier. In another current campaign, the organization is fundraising to support scientific analysis and sampling in a lawsuit involving a long-closed hazardous waste disposal site located on the edge of the San Pablo Bay in California.
A Call to Action
That sense of agency is central to WHEN’s purpose. At its core, the model is designed to give people a concrete, accessible way to respond to injustices that might otherwise feel too large or too entrenched to take on.
For Peralta, that means creating a clear path that allows ordinary people to turn outrage into action. “Everybody’s angry and appalled about these massive environmental issues, but as an individual, it’s hard to know how to help”, he said. “WHEN Justice is designed to be the call to action button that everyone has been longing for, to help individuals play a role in shutting this madness down by voting with their dollar”.
WHEN Justice is a charitable crowdfunding platform for legal and regulatory action at the intersection of environmental and human health. From pollution and toxic exposure to climate-related harms, we select and fund high-impact efforts that seek accountability from powerful actors whose actions put people, communities, and ecosystems at risk. Every campaign is open to the public, creating a direct way for concerned citizens to participate in outcomes that affect their families, communities, and future.