The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League is a regional, community-based, non-profit environmental organization. Our founding principles are earth stewardship, environmental democracy, social justice, and community empowerment. Working in rural and disadvantaged areas, our staff and volunteers put into practice the ideals of love of community and love of neighbor. BREDL is a grassroots organization: each community group solves pressing local problems by developing a citizens' campaign with goals, strategies, activities, and assessments. The issues center on industry's dependence on toxic chemicals, utilities' refusal to adopt sound energy alternatives, industrial development and highway construction at the expense of public health, intensive livestock operations' effects on agriculture and the environment, and huge waste dumps. These are social problems with devastating environmental and public health effects. They are also the clarion call for community action. Our mission is difficult. But, in the words of BREDL Co-president James Johnson, "We don't quit; we find a way to do it."