SAN FRANCISCO -- Luke Cole, founder of a legal advocacy organization that fought on behalf of minority communities unfairly targeted by polluters, has died. He was 46.

Cole died in a highway accident Saturday while on sabbatical with his wife in Uganda, according to the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment. His wife, Nancy Shelbey, was severely injured in the crash but survived.

In 1989, Cole co-founded the San Francisco-based center that helped create the environmental justice movement, which sought to blend environmentalism with civil rights.

Among his causes, Cole filed suit in 1993 on behalf of Spanish-speaking residents of rural Kettleman City to block Chemical Waste Management Inc. from building the state's first toxic-waste incinerator there. The case successfully argued that the community had been excluded from the decision-making process by Kings County, which had failed to translate environmental impact reports into Spanish.

The lawsuit led to Chemical Waste Management ditching its plans for the incinerator.

Cole and the center were involved in significant cases around the country, but most were based in California's San Joaquin Valley, where he helped low-income residents fight air pollution and other environmental problems caused by giant dairies.