How Destiny Won Over Baltimore

A few years back, Destiny Watford was canvassing her Curtis Bay neighborhood in south Baltimore, alerting her neighbors to the potential dangers of a gargantuan trash incinerator planned for their community. At 90 acres, the facility would be one of the largest incinerators in the world, and also one of the dirtiest. It would reportedly spew as much as 1,000 pounds of lead into the air annually, along with 240 pounds of mercury and millions of tons of greenhouse gases. And this would all happen less than a mile from where Watford and many of her friends attend school. Explaining this to one community resident, Watford—a teenager at the time—was taken aback by how one elderly gentleman responded.

“He pauses and looks at me and says, ‘You know, the work you are doing is pointless and Curtis Bay will always be a dumping ground,’” says Watford, recounting the interaction during an interview with CityLab.