Environmental Justice

Our connection to the natural world has been severed in many ways. Our culture has emphasized consumerism and prioritized convenience.  For too long, we have largely turned a blind eye to ongoing exploitation of natural resources in order to fulfill our desires for the newest products and the quickest fixes, and to the consequences of such exploitative practices.  But it’s impossible to ignore the damage that years of detrimental public policies, denialism, and our consumption patterns have reeked on our planet.    

We know that living in a community with poor air quality makes people more vulnerable to developing chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma.  Data is showing that asthma and many other preexisting health conditions make people more likely to have worse outcomes from COVID-19 than people who live in communities with better air quality.  We also know that the communities with poor air quality are typically low-income communities or communities of color, because decision-makers have chosen to construct polluting power plants, toxic waste sites, and complex highway systems in these communities.  These communities have been bearing the health, financial, and social burdens of pollution and environmental degradation.  Many low-income communities and communities of color are already facing the devastating realities of the climate crisis, which adds to the existing burden. 

In Connecticut, environmental advocates have been fighting the development of a new 650-megawatt fracked-gas power plant in Killingly. Construction of this plant would undermine the state’s requirement to cut carbon emissions by 45% of our 2001 levels by 2030, and by 80% of our 2001 levels by the year 2050.  

For over 30 years, residents in Hartford were exposed to the pollution wafting from the smoke stacks at the trash-to-energy incinerator.  At least 51 towns around the state sent their waste to this incinerator in South Meadows–a low-income area where the majority of the residents are Black and brown.  The emissions from this plant were harmful to air quality and continue to have negative climate impacts even though the smoke itself has cleared.  While the greater burden has been on the low-income residents and communities of color living closest to the south Hartford incinerator–for over 30 years toxic ash was trucked away, dumped into huge piles, and tarped to await burial in the low-income majority white town of Putnam, CT.  Decades of toxic ash have hence contaminated eastern Connecticut waterways all the way from Putnam to Mystic/Groton as the many dangerous chemicals from the ash find their way into Long Island Sound.

In July 2022, the plant was finally closed largely because of financial concerns.  As of July 1st, 2023 the state now has an opportunity to reimagine how to safely manage, and greatly reduce, waste.  The input of residents, especially those who will be most impacted by the design and implementation of the site cleanup and redevelopment is critical in this process.  

One of the things that the COVID-19 public health crisis has shown us is that we all have a part to play in keeping each other healthy.  It’s the same with the earth.  Now is not the time to wait for others to solve the climate crisis.  There is great power in a group of people coming together to make bold demands and to hold leaders accountable.    

Policy Solutions

In Connecticut: 

• Urge Governor Lamont and Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes to stop the unneeded, dirty power plant in Killingly. Tell them we need greater investments in renewable energy and battery storage instead. 
• Urge the legislature to pass bold climate legislation, including a Green New Deal for CT and a strong update to the Environmental Justice law. 
• Include input from the people who will be most impacted by the decisions about what to do with Connecticut’s waste.  Find sustainable ways to decrease the amount of trash created in CT, through an expansion of recycling and composting services.

Nationally: 

• Passage of the Environmental Justice for All bill. More background on the bill here.  
• Green New Deal related legislation, including legislation that will create a large-scale green jobs program and a just transition to a green economy so that people whose jobs or communities depend on the fossil-fuel industry will be able to transition to new jobs. 

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