[CPEO-BIF] Report from the EJ/Community Brownfields Caucus 2004

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[Here is a text version of the Report on this year's EJ/Community
Brownfields Caucus. For a formatted version, go to
http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/EJcaucus2004report.doc.]

Report on the Environmental Justice/Community Caucus 
Brownfields 2004
St. Louis, MO

by Bob Hersh (CPEO)
bhersh@cpeo.org

On September 20th and 21st the Center for Public Environmental Oversight
(CPEO) convened the Environmental Justice/Community Caucus at the
Brownfields 2004 conference in St. Louis, Missouri.  The meetings were
attended by community and environmental justice activists, job training
providers, staff from EPA, state regulators, researchers, and people
working for environmental non-profits and community development
corporations.  The meetings attracted 85 participants from all over the
country, about half of whom were first time caucus participants.     

The EJ/Community Caucus has met at each national Brownfields conference
since 1997 in Kansas City, and it has served as a forum for community
members from around the country to discuss their experiences with
brownfields cleanup and redevelopment.  It is one of the few national
forums where grassroots activists can talk frankly and critically about
cleanup and redevelopment practices in their communities and link up
with others activists to consider what changes are needed in brownfields
policies so brownfields programs can be of more benefit to communities. 
Over the years, the caucus has influenced policies at a national level. 
In 1999, the caucus issued a document entitled "Recommendations for
Responsive Brownfields Revitalization," which set out policies that have
since been incorporated into federal brownfields legislation, the Small
Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act.  Under
this federal legislation community-based non-profits can now apply for
grants to clean up brownfields in their neighborhoods, a point long
advocated by caucus members.  The legislation also requires a state
brownfield remediation programs to provide "meaningful opportunities for
public participation," a policy which the caucus, among others, has
pushed for over the years.   

These hard-won federal initiatives have provided communities of color
and low-income communities opportunities to influence cleanup and reuse
decisions at some brownfield sites.  But as many caucus members
commented in meetings this year and last year in Portland, much of the
innovation in brownfields has emerged not at the federal level but
rather from state voluntary cleanup programs and from initiatives put
together by local governments and the private sector.  As brownfields
policies have developed at the state and local levels, the general
consensus of the caucus was that it is no longer simply a matter of
being "for" community involvement in brownfields; the central issues
raised at the caucus concerned how communities could:

* take advantage of  new opportunities for community entrepreneurship
and wealth creation, 

* blunt the forces of gentrification and involuntary displacement,  

* increase community access to technical and financial resources,

* force state voluntary cleanup programs to respond to minority
community concerns about site cleanup and redevelopment,

* ensure the health and safety of minority workers at hazardous waste sites,

* provide more opportunities for minority technical experts to work with
community groups,

* create more opportunities for caucus members to network,

* evaluate state brownfields programs along criteria that are relevant
to communities' needs and to share these findings with caucus members in
order to promote more equitable redevelopment strategies.



Day 1

After caucus attendees introduced themselves at the outset of the
meeting, Kizetta Vaughn, Director of Special Training Programs at the
Center to Protect Workers' Rights, discussed recent initiatives in the
brownfields minority working training programs.  Since 1998 EPA and the
National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) have 
promoted job training opportunities for minority residents at or near
EPA brownfield pilots.  The aim of the Brownfields Minority Worker
Training Program is to provide quality worker training to help minority
residents who live near brownfields compete for jobs as environmental
field technicians, lead and asbestos abatement specialists, as well as
construction workers at contaminated sites.  

Vaughn's talk was a follow-up from last year's caucus, where speakers
from three experienced job training programs described how their
programs were able to train and place minority residents in the
environmental cleanup and construction industries.  Her remarks
addressed what many in the 2003 caucus felt was the most significant
barrier to creating community/labor based job training programs--the
lack in many localities of  effective local mandates to require
environmental engineering firms to hire job training graduates from the
local community. Vaughn argued that one way to align the brownfields
minority worker training program more closely with environmental justice
is to create leverage through organizing around environmental justice
and jobs issues to get city councils to pass local hiring ordinances.  
In addition, she said it was important to get commitments from
contractors and employers to hire those who graduate from the programs,
whether or not such an ordinance is in place. She also noted that once a
hiring ordinance is on the books, it is essential to monitor and, if
necessary, enforce compliance.

While few participants disputed the need for local hiring ordinances to
improve placement rates for graduates of the brownfields minority worker
training program, LaDonna Williams of Los Angeles raised a more
fundamental question concerning worker safety at contaminated sites. 
Minority workers, she argued, are put in the front lines of
environmental cleanup.  To what extent, it was asked, have there been
studies of worker exposure to contaminants, or long-term epidemiological
studies of site workers.  In the rush to link cleanup with jobs, are we
"opening up another monster" and paying workers too little for the risks
they are facing? 

In response to the question, training providers in attendance pointed
out that their programs provided excellent training to ensure worker
safety. They said that if the graduates of the program continued with
their trades they could build well-paid careers with engineering firms. 
Furthermore, it was pointed out that regional environmental technology
centers, many of which are funded by EPA, conduct research on cleanup
technologies and techniques and constantly consider ways in which
workers at hazardous waste sites can be better protected.  

It was recognized that worker safety is undoubtedly influenced by the
training workers receive and by the extent to which new remedial
technologies are used.  But as one participant noted, despite this
training and diffusion of new technologies, we nevertheless lack a
coherent environmental health tracking program for frontline workers at
contaminated sites.  It was argued that the Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) should undertake such a task. 

After the discussion on worker training,  Linda Garczynski, head of
EPA's Brownfields program, joined the caucus.  She encouraged
participants to become involved in public meetings about the new All
Appropriate Inquiry rule.  The new rule will influence how site
assessments are conducted at commercial and industrial sites in the
future as well as the level of public involvement required in these
assessments.  She also alerted the caucus to the fact that states and
EPA have funding to perform site assessments and cleanups for
communities and that since the new legislation was passed in 2002,
funding can be provided not only for sites with hazardous substances but
also those with petroleum contamination, meth labs, and mine scarred
lands.  

Garczynski then asked the attendees if they had any questions she could
address.  Gladys House from Houston, Texas took the floor and described
the plight of her grassroots organization, the Freedman's Town
Association.  She claimed that the city of Houston received an EPA
brownfields grant in 1995, and had included in its proposal to EPA a
commitment to convey a block of land--which was a brownfields--to the
Freedman's Town Association.  According to Ms. House "once the city of
Houston received its EPA grant it got a bad case of amnesia."  She
outlined how her association has tried since then to compel the city of
Houston to make good on its promise, but her organization has had little
sway on the city, in part because of racist attitudes at play in the
city administration, and because there has been in her view little
monitoring of the activities of EPA grantees.  She claims that the city
used her organization, comprised of African Americans, to convince EPA
and the state that it would pursue environmental justice, when in fact
it has done little to promote it.  Her organization has filed civil
rights complaints against the city of Houston in the hope of getting the
city to convey the property in question, but as Ms House notes, such
actions take time, are difficult to win in court, and require a
long-term commitment from pro-bono legal counsel.

 Ms. House outlined three steps that she felt would improve the ability
of grassroots groups like hers to compete for government grants and/or
to take the initiative to clean up and redevelop brownfields on their
own. First, she argued that EPA must establish a board or committee to
closely monitor cities' (or states') use of brownfield grants, and
include on the board grassroots persons. Second, EPA must establish a
legal defense fund to support low-income neighborhood residents against
local/state governments that do not honor their commitments.  She argued
that an independent law firm, not pro-bono lawyers who might be
subjected to political pressure from the city, should be retained to
work with EJ communities. Third, EPA must ensure environmental justice
staff, on the local level, will not lose their jobs or be threatened
with dismissal for defending grassroots residents.   

Continuing with the theme of local and state actions, a grassroots
activist from Friends of Village Creek in Birmingham, Alabama told the
caucus that the state regulatory agency not only is unable to help them
clean up the area and return it to a community amenity but is not
willing to enforce the provisions of the Clean Water Act and the Clean
Air Act.  Village Creek is located in one of the most highly polluted
areas of the city North Birmingham, which was at the center of the civil
rights movement in the 1960s.  For sixty years, the iron and steel mills
in the area used the creek as a waste repository and over the years the
creek sediment has become heavily contaminated.  The Friends of Village
Creek have filed suit against the state regulatory agency, but it has
inadequate resources to pursue the litigation.  The implicit question in
this story, as well as the example of Freeman's Town above, is what can
EPA do to compel local officials and state regulatory agencies to honor
their commitments to environmental justice communities and to enforce
environmental laws in communities of color and low-income communities. 
What leverage, it was asked, does EPA have to influence local and state
bureaucracies? 

In response, Garczynski said that citizens groups dealing with these
sorts of  obstacles need to get in touch with her staff and provide the
names and contact information of the individuals or agencies that have
not followed through on the commitments, made in their grant
applications to EPA, to involve the community in brownfields cleanup and
reuse decisions.  According to  Garczynski, EPA has and will contact the
grantee to find out if the grant has been used as intended and will also
contact community groups to learn their perspective.  If EPA finds a
discrepancy between the proposal and the implementation of the grant,
particularly in connection to the role played by environmental justice
communities, the agency can either pull the grant or compel the grantee
to make changes in keeping with its original proposal.  At last year's
Caucus, this very issue was discussed by Portland environmental justice
activists, who were able to make a case to EPA that Portland's
brownfields pilot had not cooperated with the N/NE community to the
extent the city had outlined in its grant application.  EPA weighed in,
and the city of Portland, with the continuing pressure of local
activists, put in place a community-based brownfields redevelopment
plan.  

 But the Houston and Birmingham examples raised a more thorny issue, one
that EPA is not well placed to resolve.  Caucus participants noted that
in many cases, low income and minority communities do not have adequate
resources to engage fully in the lengthy legal, cleanup and
redevelopment processes that constitute brownfields.  While EPA's
technical assistance grants and funding to community development
corporations were noted and appreciated, Michael Lythcott, a member of
the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) noted,
environmental justice communities need sustained resources to initiate
brownfields cleanups, to hire legal counsel and consultants, and to be
trained in real estate negotiations, since this is what brownfields
development is about.  Lythcott noted that "we need people to uplift our
communities, not to lecture or study us". 

Larry Charles, a consultant and former executive director of One/Chane,
a Community Development Corporation in Hartford, Connecticut, pointed
out how useful technical assistance grants were to his former
organization and urged environmental justice communities to establish
ties with local universities and others who can provide such services. 
June Jones of the Morris Canal Redevelopment Area Development Committee,
a community-led CDC in Jersey City, New Jersey, pointed to the need for
outside organizations to provide both technical assistance and a forum
for discussions that can bring to the table unlikely partners and set
the stage for much needed initiatives to emerge.  On a somewhat
different  note, Mathy Stanislaus, a member of the New York City
Environmental Justice Coalition, pointed out, from his experience as a
former member of NEJAC, that environmental justice groups have
documented how they have been shunted aside by state regulatory agencies
which don't live up to an environmental justice philosophy in the
brownfields context.  This translates into fewer resources being made
available to community groups.  The problem, he noted, is that EPA
typically does not have the resources or the political power to
effectively militate for environmental justice when support for it at
the state level is lacking.  Community groups looking to acquire more
resources for brownfields should not look only to EPA, but consider
state-level funding as well as public-private partnerships.   

The first day's discussion, having raised general issues about sustained
funding for community revitalization in brownfields, ended with a more
immediate question:  how can the caucus find more resources to expand
its work and to encourage more ongoing collaboration among participants.
 Lenny Siegel, Executive Director of CPEO, told the caucus that CPEO
tried to find additional funding to hold a mid-year caucus meeting after
the 2003 caucus meetings in Portland, but it was unable to secure the
necessary funding.  One participant noted that he had tried to create a
website for caucus members but a lack of resources and time made it
impossible to continue that effort.  Some participants suggested the
caucus look for foundation grants, but the point was made that many
foundations, particularly foundations that fund progressive causes, are
too busy putting out fires and thus tend to fund local groups that serve
immediate social or economic needs.  By contrast, the work of an
expanded caucus would be to promote more equitable brownfield policies
at the state and federal levels of government, to create opportunities
for activists from around the country to interact and to learn from one
another, and to build a network of community-based expertise in
brownfields. 

Day Two

 The second day began with a presentation by Jerry Orlando from Oregon
State University, who works at one of EPA's five regional Hazardous
Substance Research Centers.  Part of his work in the Technical
Assistance to Brownfields Communities (TAB) program, he explained, is to
provide technical assistance to low income and minority communities
about site contaminants and associated risks found in phase 1 and phase
2 site assessments.  The TAB program also provides leadership training
to brownfields pilot community members, focusing on such issues as
community dynamics, interacting with government officials, the
environmental regulatory framework for brownfields cleanup, and
neighborhood planning.  TAB staff also help communities compete
successfully for EPA grants by coaching them through proposal
preparation and by connecting activists to grassroots organizations
working on brownfields. 

The discussion of the TAB program was, on one level, a way to alert
caucus participants about the availability of resources for low income
and minority communities, and yet for many in attendance the discussion
more pointedly raised fundamental question about race and power.  At
what point, it was asked, would TAB experts look more like the
communities of color they work with?  As one participant put it, "in
order for minority communities to rise up they must be part of
decision-making and research. You can't poverty pimp the community.
They've got to be able to share the dollars and that includes more
opportunities for people of color to provide technical assistance."  

Other participants of color described how their community groups would
be the first to press regulatory agencies to do something about a
brownfields or some other contamination problem but typically have their
concerns downplayed or ignored.  However, a white community group could
raise the problem with EPA, thus in effect "steal the issue" and work it
in such a way to ultimately get funding from the agency to help involve
the community in cleanup and reuse decisions.  Communities of color, it
was argued, do not lack tools, the fundamental premise behind technical
assistance programs, but rather, in the words of one activist, "we lack
reaction" from regulators.  

Warren Fluker, who chaired the N/NE Neighborhood's Citizen's Advisory
Committee in Portland's brownfields program, asserted that environmental
justice in the context of brownfields is primarily a class issue, not a
race issue.  He claimed that EPA and the brownfields industry of
developers, lawyers, and lenders want to focus on "MGM" size projects,
highly visible Showcase redevelopment projects to help sell the program
and make money.  By contrast, minority communities "are being killed by
small contaminated sites," those that are typically without the
locational advantages or economic value to become targets of investment.
 With relatively small amounts of capital, he argued, minority
developers and CDCs, could turn around these areas and create
long-lasting jobs.  

Extending this theme, other participants noted that without more
resources to create economic opportunities in communities of color,
brownfields redevelopment is likely to be little more than a reworked
urban renewal strategy, a means to displace minority businesses and
residents from long established minority neighborhoods.  As one
participant skeptically put it, how many brownfields practitioners can
answer the question "how many people did you boost up today -apart from
developers and lenders?"  

The broader question raised was what can the caucus do to encourage
policies  that enable residents affected by brownfields revitalization
to participate in a powerful way in influencing the future development
of their neighborhoods and to capture the environmental and economic
benefits that revitalization brings with it. Current brownfields
policies, in the eyes of many caucus participants, have failed to
address or even disclose many issues relevant to communities of color. 
Low-income and "minority" communities across the country are facing
similar pressures: the growing inequality in the distribution of income,
institutionalized racism, de-industrialization of the central cities,
the resulting diminished work opportunities and neighborhood decline for
those who are barred by race or income from following new opportunities
to the suburbs, and the erosion of political coalitions to promote
effectively urban interests in national and regional affairs. 

What would it take for the caucus to become a stronger voice for
environmental justice in brownfields?  Some participants felt the caucus
lacks diversity. To be a true national caucus, it needs to recruit more
Latino and Asian members.  Others questioned how a national caucus would
work given the extent to which most brownfields are cleaned up and
redeveloped under state voluntary programs, each with its own statutory
base, incentives, and politics.  As one participant put it, "if we had a
complaint, who would we complain to, and how would a national caucus get
a state agency to listen?"  The remark concisely pointed out how the
regulatory responsibility for contaminated site cleanup has shifted from
the federal to the state level.  States have modified liability
provisions, allowed more flexible cleanup standards, and they have
encouraged voluntary cleanups where the private sector rather than a
regulatory agency has primary responsibility to investigate and clean up
contamination on brownfields properties.  This devolution has shifted
contaminated site cleanup from an enforcement-based regulatory framework
to one stressing self-interest and incentives and at times has blurred
the distinction between the public and private sector.   

Joel Shufro from the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and
Health (NYCOSH) told the caucus that it took some twenty five years for
local groups working on occupational and safety issues to form a viable
national organization..   He saw a number of parallels with an effort to
form a national EJ Caucus.  How do you manage competing agendas? How do
you gain trust? How do you avoid turf battles? How do you deal with
funding and accountability?  For a start he cautioned it would be useful
to develop something akin to a 10-point program that mirrors what is
important at the local level but also promotes EJ concerns at the
national level and within states.  

The participants discussed how to mobilize around environmental justice
issues and what set of issues should be at the core of this effort.  As
a first step, various caucus participants suggested we should examine
state brownfields programs and create something like an environmental
justice brownfields scorecard.  The scorecard would grade state
brownfields programs along various dimensions (community involvement
requirements, grants to EJ groups, cleanup in low income and minority
neighborhoods, etc.) to help local groups identify practices,
incentives, and organizing strategies that might be of use to them. 


-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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