From the BASG– Environmental Justice: Does access to safe drinking water depend on race and class?

Arnold Sapenter, MBA and LEED GRA, is the recent Director of Sustainability and past Director of Diversity and Program Monitoring for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. He has served on many advisory boards and committees including the Massachusetts Leading By Example Committee and the Advisory Committee for the Governor’s Diversity Initiative. As Director of Diversity and Program Monitoring Arnold Sapenter created and chaired the Cultural Diversity and Environmental Justice Committees for MassDEP from 1993 to 2003.

As a community leader and volunteer Mr. Sapenter serves as President of the National Council of Presidents for the National Forum of Black Public Administrators and has served over 12 years as President of the NFBPA Boston Chapter.   In addition, he is an active member of the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Board of Overseers and past co-chair of the Employment and Training Systems Committee for the Boston Private Industry Council, as well as past Board Vice President for The Fenway Health Center.  

Mr. Sapenter has served in Massachusetts state government since 1987 and retired in 2015 from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Sam Lipson is Director of Environmental Health for the Cambridge Public Health Department. He came to the CPHD in 1996 and established the Environmental Health Division in 1998. He has 20 years of experience in public health risk assessment, biological safety, environmental health policies and other environmental health sub-disciplines, and has served as a board member of the American Lung Association in Massachusetts, Mass. Public Health Association Leadership Board, and currently serves as a Commissioner for the Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission and as the public health representative on the Toxic Use Reduction Advisory Committee (Mass. Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs). Sam has organized Cambridge Biosafety Forums in 2002 and 2008 to train community members, biosafety professionals, and public health officials and co-organized the Risk Assessment for Nanomaterials: Current Developments and Trends in 2007 to educate occupational health and risk assessment professionals.  Sam has led community stakeholder processes that have helped CPHD to generate policies on West Nile virus response, nanomaterials health and safety, and an expansion of biosafety oversight authority held by the Cambridge Biosafety Committee.  

With cooperation from Harvard and MIT faculty and staff at the Museum of Science Sam has staged a series of local air quality studies in Cambridge that have utilized community volunteers and graduate students to examine pervasive air quality on a much smaller scale than offered by existing regulatory infrastructure. This has led to publications and grant awards to support further work. A primary goal of this research is the development of community-based air quality monitoring strategies capable of producing longitudinal, high quality data that will assist the municipality to generate health -sustaining policies for transportation and land-use.  The recently completed study of bicycle commuter routes has produced data that indicates the relative burden of vehicle pollution on cyclists.  Prior to coming to the CPHD, Sam was an analytical chemist in Massachusetts and California. He holds a B.S. from the University of California Berkeley and completed his M.S. coursework at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Rebecca Herst is Senior Climate Project Manager for UMass and the Boston Harbor Association. She will join us to talk about The Boston Harbor Association's work on climate resillance for highly vulnerable harbor communities. Her full profile is here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaherst

If your organization is interested in co-hosting this event or a future BASG event, please contact carolbaroudi[at]bostonareasustainability.org.