Photo courtesy Peter Dykstra.
Peter Dykstra is an award-winning environmental journalist with diverse and collective knowledge of the issues confronting the environment, the industry that reports on the environment, and the policies that affect the environment.
The former board member of the Society of Environmental Journalist talks with Don Corrigan about the origins of the journalism organization, activism, the current political climate.
Dykstra also offers insight into efforts by local community members working to protect themselves and their children from environmental hazards, like the West Lake and Bridgeton landfills here in St. Louis. One example described is the story of Lois Gibbs, a house wife and mother in Love Canal, located near Niagara Falls in upstate New York. In the late 1970s, she started a movement to protect her family and local community from health issues caused from a nearby toxic waste dump.
Dykstra spent nearly two decades at CNN as an executive producer for science, environment, weather, and technology. His career history also includes being the national media director for Greenpeace where he set up their U.S. media operations and a past deputy director at The Pew Charitable Trusts. He is also currently active with environmental organizations and news outlets, such as Environmental Health News.
Continue reading below to hear the informative interview with Peter Dykstra.
(There are a couple of spots in the audio that a few seconds fade out a bit during the phone interview. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.)
Environmental Echo 
We sure hope to see Peter Dykstra at the 27th annual Society of Environmental Journalists Convention hosted by the University of Pittsburgh from October 4-7. The convention will have plenty of environmental and ecological study tours in the western Pennsylvania area and a dance at the now-defunct steel plant where materials for the St. Louis Gateway Arch came from.
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