By Sarah Clark
B.A. Environmental Studies ’08.5
In 1999, a landmark lawsuit was filed against the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and the City of Providence. In this lawsuit, community lawyer Steve Fischbach with Rhode Island Legal Services, on behalf of community members, sued DEM for failing to enforce the environmental equity components written into the 1995 Industrial Property Remediation and Reuse Act. Although they were slim requirements, the lawsuit argued that public notice to owners of the directly abutting properties of the site had not been properly enforced and that environmental equity had not been considered. The site under consideration was the “Springfield Street Schools”—a project by the City of Providence to construct new schools on a former dump. It was projected that 83% of the students at the future schools would be non-white, and students from the city were already documented with higher rates of “environmentally induced illnesses” (Fischbach 20).
More than a regulatory complaint, this lawsuit was about the way the state conducted itself among disadvantaged and sensitive populations of Rhode Island. In other words, it was about environmental justice (EJ). Because many brownfields are in inner city neighborhoods dominated by minorities and poor communities, they attract questions about fair treatment and equity similar to the larger toxic waste sites across the United States. How to achieve environmental justice at brownfields is the subject of growing debate at various governmental and community levels, especially in light of their compounded economic, social, and environmental impacts at both the local and national scale.
The lawsuit filed by Rhode Island Legal Services resulted in a court order ruling against DEM for failing to enforce public notice requirements and consider environmental equity at the Springfield Street School (Hartford Park Tenants Association v. Rhode Island 2005). As a part of that court order, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) was required to convene a stakeholder process to create an Environmental Justice Policy (Policy) that addresses concerns over community participation and equity during the redevelopment of contaminated properties. The stakeholder group included government officials from DEM and the Department of Health, community activists, representatives of Rhode Island Legal Services and Hartford Park Tenants Association, and consultants. The development of the Policy occurred through meetings at New Commons, which provided a group mediation facilitator. The Policy acts as a supplement to preexisting law and regulations, mainly the Industrial Property Remediation and Reuse Act and the amended Rules and Regulations for the Investigation and Remediation of Hazardous Material Releases (2004).
The draft of the Policy has been in place for a little over a year (since July 2007), and this project covered its progress for about that time. While many measurements of environmental justice are important to consider when evaluating a policy’s “success”, this project did not address technical aspects of contaminant distribution in the landscape, cumulative impacts in a neighborhood, or correlations between community health and contaminant levels. First, this research assessed the regulatory and Policy compliance of DEM, evaluating success from the perspective of what is “on paper”. Second, it inquired to what extent communities affected by this policy were able to participate in the clean-up process and decision-making. This second approach to environmental justice focuses on community voice—how much the opinions and concerns of community members were heard, and how much they had to say. By looking at both the Policy’s outcomes and the level and type of community participation, this research investigated the common concern that there is a lack of trust and communication between disadvantaged communities and government, as well as the ensuing negative effects of reduced civic engagement (Eiser et al, 2007).
The regulatory and policy outcomes presented here show room for stricter enforcement—although public outreach and notice requirements increased to benefit disadvantaged communities, there were multiple consultants with late and missing compliance. In addition to this, interviews with community activists overwhelmingly stated that DEM’s outreach had been insufficient. This was reflected in the number of community requests for meetings, information repositories, and phone calls about concerns: zero.
Because of this, recommendations focus on better networking within the community by DEM, and holding meetings to build relationships and trust between government and the community. It is also important to reframe the brownfields issue from one of economics and/or environment, to one of “neighborhood revitalization” (Solitaire 2005). This would better capture the assortment of interests and concerns in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Rhode Island, providing a meaningful approach to brownfields redevelopments that would result in less frustration and infighting.
By garnering stakeholders input on what a successful policy would look like and analyzing the regulatory success of DEM’s Policy, I hope to shape a fuller picture of the future of neighborhood participation in Rhode Island. I especially will illustrate what demands remain unmet, what goals have been achieved, and how communities and state government can build positive and constructive working relationships. As the work of environmental justice advocates and activists in the state pushes forward, I strongly hope such research will continue in order to assess and strengthen the relationships between all stakeholders at contaminated properties, and in particular to ensure the future of environmental justice in this state.