Alaska Community Action on Toxins (ACAT), founded in 1997, is driven by a core belief in environmental justice, working to protect the health of Alaska’s people and environment by reducing the use of toxins, advocating for policy changes that promote safer alternatives, conducting scientific research on toxic chemical impacts, and providing resident education and outreach. Specifically, ACAT focuses on addressing toxic chemical exposure in indigenous and rural communities in Alaska, often disproportionately affected by these chemicals due to their traditional subsistence lifestyles and reliance on local resources. Military contamination and organic pollutants have blighted Alaska with high incidences of cancer, low birth weights, and miscarriages unseen before the 1950s. In the wake of closed Cold War bases in one area alone were 34 contaminated sites over nine square miles, including 220,000 gallons of spilled fuel, as well as heavy metals, asbestos, solvents, pesticides, and PCBs.
Based in Anchorage, ACAT’s diverse 18-person team of indigenous and non-indigenous environmentalists, scientists and advocates protects people and ecosystems across Alaska. Their work spans from engaging thousands through voter programs to securing policy victories on pesticide limitations and global bans on harmful chemicals through the Stockholm Convention. They defend regions like Elim’s watershed from uranium contamination that threatens community health and salmon-dependent ways of life. As well, they routinely challenge environmental injustices, as seen in their 2025 UN human rights complaint against the contamination of Sivuqaq (St. Lawrence Island) that violates the rights of Yupik people. “The injustices against my people by the military have been devastating,” said Vi Waghiyi, Native Village of Savoogna Tribal Citizen. “This is very personal to me with the deaths in my immediate family and loved ones in the communities due to cancer. We are here to hold the military accountable and to seek justice for the violations of our human rights.”
The sites with potential for toxic exposure to humans that ACAT works to make safe.