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(0)Good morning, everyone. My name is Magdalena Dewane and today I’m going to talk to you about assisting Congress to better understand environmental justice. Before I begin, I’d like to thank my exceptional workshop team, as well as our faculty advisor Gail Suchman. I’d also like to thank our client, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, who – as you’re about to see – has made monumental strides for the advancement of environmental justice…
(1)WE ACT was founded in 1988 as a community based nonprofit. One of their biggest success stories came shortly after their founding, with the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant. Many Environmental Science and Policy students are familiar with thisplant – located north of Columbia in West Harlem. We know it to be a bit pungent at times but what many of us don’t know is the full history or how that occasional smell could have been much worse. Originally planned to be built in the 72nd Street neighborhood, the plant’s construction received widespread opposition by the residents there. So the planswere relocated to West Harlemand bypassed a public comment period.
(click) Community residents were soon complaining about excessive fumes and a rotten egg smell, in addition to itchy eyes, shortness of breath, and other asthmatic and respiratory symptoms. This is when the West Harlem Environmental Action Coalition, known today as WE ACT, initiated a court case against the City. As a result, city engineers investigated and found a design flaw in the building that trapped “bad air”.
(click)Soon after, the City acknowledged the fumes and odors as hazardous and built Riverbank State Park to subdue complaints. A few years later, WE ACT won their court case against the City and the City successfully eradicated 75% of the problem. Today, though the sewage plant is still in use and has not completely resolved its environmental issues, this case embodies the success of an organization speaking up for environmental justice in a community.
(2) Today, WE ACT continues their success, now known around the country as a leader in Environmental Justice issues, and having just opened a Washington DC office. They’ve expanded their portfolio to include a wide range of projects and domains, most notably clean air, toxic free products, and waste reduction. For example, WE ACT spurred community action that demanded New York City conduct its first lead poisoning inspection in Northern Manhattan. So you can begin to see how environmental justice issues can occur in our own backyard.
(3)But what does that mean exactly, Environmental justice? A few of us could probably make an educated guess, but it’s a phrase that many people can’t quite put a definition to. Fortunately, the US Environmental Protection Agency has provided an exact definition that we can see here: It is the “Fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”
(click) I’d like to bring you back to West Harlem for a minute now that you’ve heard this definition. As mentioned, the original plans for the treatment plant were in the 72nd street neighborhood: anaffluent white population as compared to those residents living in West Harlem, with significant discrepancies in average household income and poverty. So now we’ve seen environmental justice addressed at the community level, but what comes next? That’s where our team comes in.
(4)WE ACT’s success with the sewage plant derived substantial support from a particular Member of Congress—Charlie Rangel of New York’s 13th Congressional District. He played an outstanding role in empowering Harlem residents. Nowthat WE ACT has expanded their offices to Washington they are hoping to expand their network in Congress and develop more partnerships like those with Charlie Rangel. Historically, justice has been addressed by the executive branch—the White House. Our team’s job is facilitate relationships in the legislative branch with Congressional Members who create laws. We will develop case studies in communities throughout the U.S. that may be experiencing Environmental Justice issues that can later be used and referenced by these policymakers. Because our legislators want information fast we will also be devising easy to read fact sheets.When these tasks are complete, we will use our final report as a model for WE ACT to conduct future case studies. We will finish out our project by presenting this information to Congressional staff.
(5) By now you’re probably wondering how we’re going to select communities in the U.S. for this project. Our client first provided us with some states of interest, seen here on this map.
(click) By means of a carefully chosen methodology, we narrowed that initial search down to three states: Texas, New Mexico and Colorado.
(click) For the purpose of today’s briefing, I’m going to use Colorado as an example today.
(6) The steps required to choose each case study began with initial data analysis: finding low income or minority population regions, as well as environmental hazard locations. From there, we created a political profile of each region, which considered Congressional Representatives and their committee assignments and voting records. When all of these criteria aligned with WE ACT’s policy priorities, we had ourselves a case study.
(7) So let’s review Colorado now. Retrieved from US Census records online as per 2010 results, we developed a snapshot into the state. While at first glance, there does not appear to be any demographic statistics that indicate environmental justice issues, we know that these issues occur at the community level. So we must take a closer look.
(8) Here is an image of the poverty levels by county in Colorado. Those counties with higher rates of poverty are shaded darker than those without.
(click 3 times) These three stars represent initial communities of interest, Denver, Leadville, and Pueblo.
(click) However, Leadville or Pueblo did not line up with our required criteria, so we moved forward with Denver…
(9) Here is a look at Denver’s poverty levels, now superimposed with Superfund and Brownfield sites, as well as locations of known toxic release. This data, provided by the EPA’s Environmental Justice mapping tool, shows Denver split into neighborhood blocks. Interestingly, there are a lot of environmental hazard sites in the regions of higher poverty and significantly less sites in regions of less poverty.
(10) As we learned in our Environmental Justice definition, poverty is not the only factor to be considered when looking into potential case studies. So here is the same map, now with minority populations shaded in. Higher minority populations are seen in the darker red color. Again, there are many hazard sites near these communities…
(11) Let me give you one last look. Here is downtown Denver—in this view, we have zoomed in even further we are been able to pinpoint at-risk neighborhoods, not just a city or county. Once again, we see a trend with relation to the minority population and environmental hazard locations.
(12)Now that we identified regions and communities that meet two of our required criteria: high poverty or minority and evidence of environmental hazard, we used an online database to characterize just how serious these issues were. These charts show us that those people living in poverty are at greater risk of exposure to Superfund sites and toxic release. With these criteria met, we just needed to meet one more…
(13) We needed someone in Congress who would be a likely champion of environmental justice. Denver is located in Colorado’s first district, which is represented by Diana DeGett[e].
Conveniently a member of energy and environment committees, DeGette has a League of Conservation Voters record of voting in favor of environmental legislation 97% of the time. DeGette therefore has the capacity within Congress to push for Environmental Justice legislation.
(14) When conducting our research, not many of us thought of Denver or Colorado as having environmental issues – it’s a beautiful state known for its vast wilderness and varied ecosystems. So we took to the media waves. Sure enough, even the news was reporting on these injustices. This further emphasized the relevance of choosing Denver as one of our case studies.
(15) The process that I’ve just taken you through is how we determined three other case studies, seen here on this map. Northwestern New Mexico,and Houston, Texas have been chosen for their environmental issues, as well as poor or minority populations. Two additional case studies are yet to be chosen for our client.
(16) While this process seems pretty straightforward, it’s not been without its challenges. Fortunately, our team has been able to manage each obstacle that has come our way, such as processing through 312 counties in three states for four definitive case studies, such as cross referencing census data with the mapping tool and consider Congressional Committee assignments.
(17) Looking ahead, there is much work to be done. In order to complete our case studies and fact sheets, we’ll be conducting interviews withenvironmental organizations within each state. This will enable us to complete the final case study model and report. By April, we’ll be able to report back to you with our success stories and detailed reports.
(18) So with that, I’d like to leave you in eager anticipation of our final briefing and I invite you to ask any questions that you might have.