Kory Johnson is an American environmentalist from Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

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In 1991, while still a young girl, Johnson led a successful effort by Children for a Safe Environment to stop a hazardous waste dump being built in her local area. In 1996 she joined Greenpeace

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

 and helped organize protests against trainloads of DDT

DDT

DDT is one of the most well-known synthetic insecticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history....

-contaminated dirt into Arizona.

She was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize

Goldman Environmental Prize

The Goldman Environmental Prize is a prize awarded annually to grassroots environmental activists, one from each of the world's six geographic regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America. The prize includes a no-strings-attached award of...

 in 1998, for her efforts against toxic and nuclear contamination

Radioactive contamination

Radioactive contamination, also called radiological contamination, is radioactive substances on surfaces, or within solids, liquids or gases , where their presence is unintended or undesirable, or the process giving rise to their presence in such places...

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