The Environmental Data Justice Lab is an Indigenous lab that focuses on the relationships between data, pollution, and colonialism with a focus on Canada’s Chemical Valley, where 40% of Canada’s Petrochemicals are refined, and which is on the territory of Aamjiwnaang First Nation. The lab is dedicated to community-based and led research, and is co-led by M Murphy (Red River Metis) and Vanessa Gray (Aamjiwnaang First Nation). The lab includes students, faculty, and community researchers.

We acknowledge and thank our funders: NFRF, CREF, SSHRC, and the McConnell Foundation.

The Land and the Refinery: Past, Present, Future

This is an Indigenous-led project organized by M. Murphy, Vanessa Gray, Beze Gray. We are researching the history, operations and pollution activities of the Imperial Oil Refinery in Canada’s Chemical Valley, the oldest refinery in North America, as well as the how the history of Chemical Valley is rooted in colonial violence and ongoing Indigenous presence. Chemical Valley is located on Anishinaabe land and surrounds Aamjiwnaang First Nation.

The project aims to gather together and make publicly accessible information about this refinery. This includes gathering historical information, pollution reporting and regulating, and health effect research. This research is intended to support Aamjiwnaang community members in advocating for less pollution and the future of Chemical Valley they want. We hope this research will also help to hold companies responsible for the pollution and health harms they create. The story of this Imperial Oil Refinery demonstrates the relationship between pollution and colonialism in Canada. This project will result in an educational website, interactive app, and publications.

This project includes archival documents, historic timelines, interactive maps of land acquisition, refinery operations, and history of environmental regulations. We also highlight Aamjiwnaang’s experiences through any stories or comments from community members.

Visit the landandrefinery.org website →

The Pollution Reporter App

This app uses publicly available data to connect specific refineries and facilities with their pollution emissions, and then connects those pollutants with known health effects and symptoms based on published peer-reviewed medical literatures, creating an alternative database of chemical harms attached to the facilities most reponsible. The app focuses on Ontario’s Chemical Valley, and is guided by Aamjiwnaang community researchers and members. The app gathers and translates diverse technical information into an accessible form so that people can more easily link health issues to facility activities. The app is built for community users and is searchable by facility, symptom, and pollutant so that users will have an accessible database of chemical pollutants and their effects that we hope will be useful for the community to advocate for the changes they want. The app also has a reporting function that allows community members to report spills, leaks, flares and other pollution events to the Ontario Ministry of Environment using their phones and email. The app includes all facilities in Chemical Valley. We hope the app will be useful to any frontline community in Canada. This app is built by the EDJ team in with assistance from Reflector Digital.  Pollution Reporter is downloadable for free on phones and tablets in both Google Play Store and the App Store.

Digital Toxic Tours: Stories of the Land

Digital Toxic Tours builds on years of grassroots advocacy through the Aamjiwnaang & Sarnia Against Pipelines (ASAP) project created by Elders and storytellers of Aamjiwnaang. The Toxic Tours, led by Vanessa and Beze Gray, provide community-led, land-based testimony and Indigenous environmental education. These tours document the long-term effects of environmental racism and assert community self-determination through storytelling, organizing, and data justice. With research support from the Technoscience Research Unit at the University of Toronto, this community-led initiative is expanding the Toxic Tours into a digital platform. This digital project documents the lived experiences, stories, and knowledge of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation in the face of petrochemical pollution, while activating Indigenous data justice practices to support environmental healing and the well-being of future generations.

Project is by McConnell Foundation, CFREF and NFRF

Research Team

Vanessa Gray, Beze Gray, M. Murphy, Reena Shadaan, Joel Piché, and Jaylene MacLean, Kristen Bos