EPA Meeting At NSU Highlights Region’s Environmental Justice Issues

By Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter Emeritus
New Journal and Guide

In early October Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials met with over a dozen local academic, civic, government and political leaders to discuss the issue of Environmental Justice (EJ) in the region.

Held at NSU, the meeting was the result of collaboration between EPA and the NSU Environmental Justice Initiative Taskforce, led by   Dr. Cassandra Newby Alexander.

The noted historian, author, and Professor of History at Norfolk State University, said over the past six years she added Environmental Justice to her resume.

Alexander told the GUIDE her EJ team laid the groundwork for this and a future meetings based on their identifying many examples of decades-long violations of EJ in the region.

U.S. Congressman Robert “Bobby” Scott, Norfolk City Councilperson John “JP” Paige, representatives from the Norfolk and Flood Reliance team, similar officials from other cities, civil rights and environmental and community activists participated.

Along with EJ, the meeting also looked at Global Warming and its impact on vulnerable communities along shorelines.

While the early October meeting’s agenda focused on identifying violations of EJ, future ones, according to Dr. Alexander, will look at defining resolutions to the problem which have evolved over the years.

          Historically led by Black, Latino, Indigenous, and low-income communities, the EJ movement has three goals:

First, to highlight that historically marginalized groups of people—generally low-income and/or Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities—are disproportionately affected by Environmental Justice issues.

Second, to stop corporations, businesses, and government bodies from placing landfills, chemical plants, oil refineries, and other pollution-causing sites in or near marginalized communities.

Third, to give disenfranchised communities the ability and tools to participate in policy decision-making about the environment where they live and work.

In the city of Norfolk alone, from the early days of the region, public and private industrial sites have been built in or near mostly African American neighborhoods.

Many of them emitted pollutants into the air, water and soil.

          Public and private housing units were historically, and environmental justice advocates believe, deliberately,  built on or near these pollution producing sites and housed people of color representing various income levels.

Even when these pollution-creating sites are abandoned, pollutants remain, costing millions to remove.

EJ advocates define   disproportionately impacted areas as “Sacrifice Communities.”

  The pollution-producing sites are built in these communities, but most of the financial benefits go to people   living in high income and less polluted ones miles away.

Environmental Justice advocates, backed by scientific research, point to high rates of cancers, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in these “sacrifice communities.”

Dr. Alexander and other participants of the recent conference, admitted they did not have to travel far from the front   entrance of NSU, to find examples of violations of Environmental Justice.

West and North of NSU’s front entrance on Park Avenue and Brambleton are two metal recycling yards.

 Targeted for future development, the massive and abandoned Globe Iron complex sits within blocks of NSU and three public schools, and neighborhoods they serve.

Just outside the southern boundary of the NSU campus sit the maintenance and storage facility of HRT’s Light Rail system.

Within a football’s throw from NSU’s eastern border where its varsity football team practices, is a huge rock processing and distribution plant which spews dust daily.

Northward, across   Virginia Beach Boulevard from the rock plant, city garbage trucks line up each day to deposit tons of refuse from Norfolk homes and a huge collection facility.

All of these pollution producing sites, sit within walking distance of 13   historically low to middle-income neighborhoods of   Huntersville, Lindenwood, Barraud Park, Bruce’s Place, Stonebridge, Middle Town Arch, Broad Creek, Central Brambleton, Chesterfield Heights, Grandy Village and Ingleside.

Several mornings a week, residents of these areas are   exposed to the stench of     heated tar used in housing roofing projects.

Each day long trains run through the city to Lambert’s Point and the shipping piers named for this community.

 Before reaching the piers, from the western regions of the state, the cars pass through the Brambleton, Barraud Park, Huntersville Lindenwood neighborhoods.

Coal dust spews from the   cars as they are unloaded at shipping piers to fill the bellies of ships carrying it overseas.

Leslie Gillespie-Marthaler, director for environmental justice in EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region, said the agency has been working with Lambert’s Point and other areas.

Dr. Alexander said joint government and private business interests caused these breaches of environmental justice.

But she said bureaucrats’ business should not be left alone to craft resolutions. She said they must bring their fiscal resources and join forces with scientists, socialist, advocates and residents of   impacted communities to achieve this goal.

She warned that if the upcoming Presidential election is won by Republicans, basic EJ policy reforms supported by the EPA may be jeopardized

Kim Sudderth is a member of the city’s Planning Commission.  She is leader of the Southside Coalition, a group of residents from communities on Norfolk’s Southside including Campostella, Berkeley, Campostella Heights, Oakleaf and Diggs Town.

The group said she is keenly aware of the city’s multimillion dollar mitigation plans including a string of flood walls to block rising flood waters. She said that she and Southside leaders highlighted the fact the plan   initially “left out” Black neighborhoods sitting along river shorelines,

She said she is also aware of the    job and pollution creating ship repair industry which “surrounds” her community.

She said she will be recruiting her neighbors and other activists to come to the table, participate in future meetings and efforts to support Environmental Justice.

In an article about the Conference by WHRO News, Sudderth’s mindset was highlighted when she was quoted saying “Please, do not use environmental justice as a buzzword.”

“I urge people to come forth and get involved and lobby for solutions which directly impact their community,” she told the GUIDE. ”Remember, if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.”

Norfolk’s Fourth Ward Councilperson, John “JP” Paige represents a portion of Norfolk which has many examples of the EJ issues the recent meeting addressed.

Paige is serving his first term on the council and is well aware of the impact of “Environmental injustice” because he was born in Huntersville and raised in parts of Norfolk where it is prevalent.

He now lives in Middle Town Arch.

Paige said   environmental advocates are continually approaching and educating him on the subject.

He noted his concerns about residual pollutants left underground at a now closed garbage dump sitting behind the new library in Berkley.

He said he is also critical   of the closure of the Barraud Park, which reduces the level of green space in the community.

He is also worried about lead based paint in aging public buildings and private homes in his ward.

“It is not hard to identify examples of environmental justice in the neighborhood I represent and all over the city,” said Paige.  “Future conferences   on the issue should help us also to identify the resources we need to deal with it. Something ignored this issue. Now it’s time for us to bring everybody to the table to resolve it.”

WHRO Contributed to this Article