\u201cThe lack of regulations to [the incinerator] caused a lifetime of respiratory and cardiovascular issues to my community that still lives with them,\u201d McGhee said. \u201cCOVID hit us hard because the EPA did not do its job regulating incinerators like these, causing us to breath in small particles of trash. If the EPA were to regulate incinerators 16 years ago, we would not have lost so many of our neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n
McGhee\u2019s daughter, Daeya Redding, echoed this sentiment, saying \u201cit was this pollution that made our community susceptible to COVID-19. Community members already suffering from asthma and respiratory illnesses were hit the hardest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jamesa Johnson Greer, executive director for the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, talked about the process of changemaking in her expert testimony. In her expert view, she sees the health disparity from exposure to toxic pollution as an echo of the common racial segregation practice known as redlining. People who own property that\u2019s value is forever impacted by redlining are not as easily able to relocate to environmentally safer, and oftentimes wealthier, communities.<\/p>\n \u201cHearing the voices of impacted communities and those who work alongside them is critical to the policy changes we need to dismantle the deep inequality that exists in current laws and regulations,\u201d Greer said. \u201cThis starts with understanding the discriminatory practice of redlining and the root causes of environmental injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n Executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center Nicholas Leonard is no stranger to making a case. In 2020, Leonard and the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center submitted a civil rights complaint to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE).<\/p>\n Leonard\u2019s expert testimony focused on the legal framework that has contributed to communities not being able to adequately advocate for themselves. In many cases, administrative departments are told to ignore the unpopularity of a facility, or to not consider the racial makeup of the community where the facility is being located. These and other blind spots, Leonard alleged, amount to outright ignoring black and brown community efforts in any consideration.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause the concerns of communities of color are not reflected in the law and required to be addressed, our agencies that make the decisions regarding whether to allow the facilities to be built or expanded must, in accordance with the law, ignore the concerns of people of color,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cPut another way, the law ignores people of color, and as a result the agencies in charge of administering these laws do as well.\u201d<\/p>\n All of this has lead to a situation in which 65% of Michigan\u2019s minority populations are located in what\u2019s been determined as environmental justice hotspots, places where health risks are worsened and exposure to toxic pollution isn\u2019t a rarity.<\/p>\n Communities know what\u2019s happening to them. And in front of Congressmembers and dozens of media outlets, they made their demands for change.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want all facilities to stop operations if they cannot fix their pollution issues,\u201d Redding said. \u201cAs we are paying for their pollution with our lives, our children\u2019s lives, our bodies, and our futures, EGLE and the EPA are not doing enough to regulate their operations.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/08\/Screen-Shot-2022-08-30-at-5.23.55-PM-300x156.png\")
Daeya Redding provides testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on the environment (Source: House Oversight and Reform Committee Livestream)<\/em><\/p>\n