What is environmental justice? The term is closely linked to social justice and ongoing efforts to undo the effects of systemic racism.
Just as access to good housing, well-maintained infrastructure, affordable healthcare and fresh food have routinely been denied to people of color and poor incomes, those patterns can also include a compromised natural environment.
Contaminated water, polluted air and exposure to the toxic side effects of various industries are all too likely to be found in marginalized communities. These are the neighborhoods that urban planners choose to bisect with highways and where landlords rent out apartments filled with peeling lead paint.
The goal is not just to clean up these problems. Just as importantly, everyone who lives in a community that has been harmed by environmental inequities should have a say in what they want remediation to look like.
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A $5.6 million federal grant from a new program created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is coming to Buffalo to help make that happen. The Western New York Environmental Justice Grant Program is being led by Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper, which will find up to 16 community projects that it will award and help implement. These sub-grantees will receive up to $500,000 for projects aimed at environmental restoration.
As Waterkeeper Executive Director Jill Jedlicka says, “It is the primary goal of this project to empower local communities and increase their capacity to implement solutions.”
The initiative is part of a larger project to improve and protect the Great Lakes watershed with a focus on environmental justice. It will serve similar efforts around the U.S. portion of the five Great Lakes.
There are ongoing contamination and pollution issues throughout Western New York, especially in poorer neighborhoods. A project under this funding might start a small clean-up effort that could have a big impact. Or it could undergo a study on how to remediate a problem that will take more time and more funding.
Another project might tackle invasive plant species that have overcome a park or other greenspace that could provide recreation.
“The intention here is to work closely with targeted communities for projects of their choosing,” Jedlicka stresses. “We also want to connect people to the Great Lakes watershed and overcome the barriers – environmental or physical – that have impeded their access.”
Jedlicka thinks that administration of this project could be, in many ways, a listening tour to find out where the environmental challenges are and what might be the best ways – working with communities – to address them. As the lead agency, Waterkeeper is partnering with the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, the Erie County Department of Environment and Planning and the Lake Erie Watershed Protection Alliance to administer the funding and help guide the projects.
There are many people living in Western New York who have never visited Lake Erie or Lake Ontario and probably many more who don’t think of themselves as living in an important watershed.
The Western New York Environmental Justice Grant Program, through involving grassroots organizations, can help bring better awareness of that proximity and how crucial it is to the health of the region.
Many consider environmental remediation as something driven by federal or state action, such as the Superfund program that got its start from the horrors uncovered at Love Canal. That is part of what remediation looks like.
But consider that Love Canal came to government attention primarily through the efforts of a small band of citizens who were living with the problem.
That community-driven action is what the Western New York Environmental Justice Grant Program is all about.
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