Hundreds Meet to Discuss Pollution and Poverty
Monday, June 11, 2012
“Environmental justice is recognition that pollution and lack of green spaces exist in low income places and places of color. One speaker, Dr. Dan Faber, discussed research that shows now, more than in the 1980s, the concentration of hazardous waste facilities is based on the racial makeup of the area,” said Staci Ruben, Staff Attorney at Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE). “The time is now. There is a need for access to healthy food, healthy spaces, and healthy communities.”
Clark University’s Tilton Hall was full of tables of activists, government officials, and local supporters who met together through the day-long event at various workshops and discussions.
The event included morning and afternoon meetings on various subjects related to environmental justice. Topics included crafting a powerful message, environmental law and civil rights, grassroots fundraising, food justice, and housing.
Speakers came from all across New England from colleges and universities and government agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and Boston’s Clean Water Action and Toxics Action Center.
“We’re doing this because there are a lot of people in New England who do environmental justice work, but it’s at the local level, so you have all of these people working with similarly related issues insolation,” said Steven Fischbach Director of Worcester’s Regional Environmental Council. “We want to get people together to see if there’s interest in working on a regional level.”
A Cohesive Movement
Because environmental justice encompasses a broad range of issues and is applicable everywhere, getting groups together to work and build on each other’s interests is a key part of moving the effort forward.
“For instance, there are people working with asthma and how pollution affects people with asthma throughout New England. Some of those people who work with asthma are in this big public health community, but they are operating regionally and not connected with grassroots movements,” Fischbach said. “And you also have grassroots movements not connected with each other. We want to make an investment to help them get their mission across.”
Ruben said that with the wealth of investment of different groups across the region, there’s room for everyone at the summit to learn and share their views.
“There are so many different group working without intentional spaces to learn from one another and build together,” she said. “This event is hopefully a kickoff to many conversations in person, by phone, across the region – to build the relationship between these groups. Hopefully by the end of this event, everyone here will have met some people they didn’t know.”
Why Worcester?
Worcester’s proximity and foundation of environmental justice groups made it an ideal spot to host the event.
“Worcester is centrally located and that was a plus when we wanted to get more engagement from other parts of New England,” Fischbach said. “The southern three New England states have existing environmental justice groups, but people who do environmental justice work in other states are not thinking about it as environmental justice. The idea of environmental justice seems alien to that part of the area.”
Ruben said that environmental justice has been handled differently across the region and that the New England Environmental Justice Summit was all about getting everyone on the same page to build together.
Clark’s dedication to environmental issues also worked well for the summit.
“We also asked for people’s input as to where this should be held. Clark was a perfect fit and really helped supply us with the needed space. We also chose this are due to the Worcester Roots Project and the Regional Environmental Council,” Ruben said.
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