Research/Advocacy

WEI’s  East Metro EJEAC Project is actively establishing deeper collaborations, writing, convening  EJEAC Steering Committee members, and working to obtain preliminary scientific research data in the East Metro. Though truly challenged by budget restraints, with the support of a Blue Cross Blue Shield sustainability grant, we have had some important successes:

1)U of MN Health Science Professor Matt Simcik  joined with WEI to establish an on-going collaboration to do the long sought for scientific research data on potential PFC soil contamination for Hmong farmers in the East Metro. Working as a partner with the EJEAC Steering  Committee,  Simcik went with us to get soil and vegetation samples to establish more in-depth preliminary data needed for a USDA grant proposal which we were invited to jointly submit. In addition, Dr. Vincent Garry, U of M Professor Emeritus and long time WEI supporter, joined us for an on-site visit to provide test-site mapping and research advice.  2) We were  invited to further develop our relationship with the MN Dept. of Agriculture in its work on immigrant farming issues. Suyapa Miranda, East Metro EJEAC’s Organizer/Coordinator is attending monthly breakfast get-togethers for various immigrant farming allies to network, partner, and share information.  3) Another highlight is our growing participation in St. Paul’s East Side Prosperity Campaign. WEI has been recruited to engage in its Community Health and Wellness Project because of our environmental justice background related to soil toxicology and urban farming.  The East Side Prosperity Campaign envisions a multi-cultural and economically diverse East Side where individuals, families, businesses, institutions, and organizations prosper in positive relations with each other, the natural built environment, and the wider metro area. Their action plan includes four strategic vision areas: Community Building and Civic Engagement; Community Wealth and Prosperity; Community Education and Learning; and Community Health and Wellness. Eight initial projects have been identified and are being granted seed money for implementation: youth leadership, multicultural events, an economic engine to promote local buying and investments, a clean energy co-operative, a tutoring partnership, identifying community members to become community education teachers, bringing community gardening to scale, and access to health care and disease prevention. The Prosperity Campaign, originally funded by the Otto Bremer Foundation and developed as a program of East Side Neighborhood Development Company, began by meeting with individuals to assess their needs and match them with programs to help them accomplish their goals.

WEI EMPOWERING and WORKING WITH COMMUNITIES DISPROPORTIONATELY EXPOSED TO ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS

• The Phillips Neighborhood Environmental Justice Education and Advocacy Collaborative (Phillips EJEAC)
is focused on researching the connection between known environmental
toxins and public health problems in this low-income, Indigenous and
community of color neighborhood in South Minneapolis. A toxic site
mapping phase has been completed and a door-to-door health survey is
being conducted by 10 neighborhood-based workers hired and trained by
WEI. The community-based steering committee, Phillips Environmental Steering Committee Initiative ( PESCI)
has grown to represent the broad base of community, including
individuals and organizational stakeholders that have been with it for
two years. PESCI developed the survey and is providing the remarkably
strong and creative grass-roots leadership and guidance for this
on-going project. WEI’s ultimate aim is to support and empower this
community in its efforts to create a safe and healthy living
environment for all of its residents, in particular its treasured
children.

• WEI's PESCI also led the advocacy effort that created unprecedented and historically far-reaching public policy. The 2008 MN Legislature passed legislation which requires that a "cumulative health impact analysis" be
done by the MN Pollution Control Agency before a polluting industry can
be sited in the Phillips Neighborhood. The Neighborhood;s environmental
injustice burdens were identified in detail and mapped out on a GIS
format as the criteria to be consider. Residents testified and learned
about policy-making processes. This victory created a new policy model
to challenge environmental justice issues in the state and the U.S. WEI
continues to receive inquiries from other states and communities
seeking to replicate our success.

• After an initial 11-month organizing effort, WEI's East Metro EJEAC is
now poised for the shift from strategic planning to implementation of a
right-to-know initiative that will serve and be guided by Hmong,
Latino, Indigenous and other East Side communities of color. WEI's
initial collaboration with Hmong community leaders resulted in the
creation of culturally appropriate educational materials about toxic
environmental exposures and in well-attended environmental justice
training sessions for the Hmong community, including clan leaders and
youth participants. It is clear that East Metro resident's awareness
about toxic exposures in their own East Metro urban neighborhoods is
being raised and there is particular concern about the impact on
children, pregnant women and elders The materials include substantive
information about the recently revealed perfluroro-chemical (PFC)
contamination about which those communities have received little or
no culturally appropriate information from public health or pollution
control agencies. A strong community-based steering committee has
been created and is providing consistent leadership and guidance to
WEI's principle investigator, Fardin Oliaei. WEI is seeking funding to
hire a project coordinator as the collaboration expands and moves
forward. Working with the East Side Neighborhood Economic Development
Company;s Latino and Native American outreach workers, the project has
begun to develop the culturally specific materials needed as these
community representatives. have become part of the Steering Committee
and its strategic plan for community outreach, education and civic
engagement.

WEI's Climate Justice Collaboration with the Environmental Justice Advocates of MN (EJAM) initially focused on developing culturally
appropriate community education materials and convenings to explore the
disproportionate impact of global climate change on several local low-
income, Indigenous and comunities of color. That has led to a strong
focus on "green jobs" strategies aimed at ensuring these same
communities will fairly share in benefits from the new "green energy
development" opportunities. WEI's priority is rooted in our Phillips
EJEAC
comnunity base and as steering committee members of Winona LaDuke's "Green Jobs for Brown People" Working Group in Minnesota.

WEI is working to change public policy in a number of ways. In 2007 we are working with the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, to support legislation which will strengthen Minnesota's Community Right to Know Act and increase its enforcement. and will also continue to support "environmental justice mapping" efforts. This project includes two projects:  state funding for environmental justice mapping and  strengthening and better enforcement of community right to know laws.

(1)  Environmental Justice Mapping
Environmental toxins disproportionately impact low income communities, Native American Indians,  and communities of color.  Women and children experience particular risk, especially during child-bearing years and early childhood when toxic exposure can cause life-altering damage.  Despite federal designation of over 100 Superfund sites throughout the state, recurring air-pollution alerts in high density areas, serious ground water contamination, officially "impaired" rivers and lakes, and increasing evidence of possible environmentally-related diseases, Minnesota lags behind in collecting, examining and correlating environmental exposure data with health and disease data. GIS data on toxic sites at the MN Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and toxic exposure data at the MN Department of Agriculture have not been correlated with relevant disease data at the MN Department of Health.  As a result all Minnesotans lack access to this evaluation that disproportionately impacts vulnerable communities. WEI will re-introduce "Environmental Justice Mapping" legislation, also known as 'public health tracking".

(2))  Strengthen and Enforce Minnesota's Community Right to Know Law
The existing MN Community Right to Know Act is out-of date and difficult for communities to use.  As federal law right-to-know laws are being weakened, state law requiring both the reporting of toxic releases and their potential health impacts need to be strengthened and better enforced, including protection of "whistle blowers".

THE PROBLEM: Information about toxic substances released into Minnesota's environment has been under-reported and even suppressed by public and private agencies responsible to inform residents about potential exposures.  Thousands of new chemicals and products are being produced and introduced without adequate determination of health-based standards, particularly as they impact children and pregnant woman who are particularly vulnerable to serious and life-long health impacts.  Minnesota's community right-to-know exposure to toxic substances law has not kept up with information about emerging contaminants now being found in our homes, work places and the natural environment.  Enforcement of existing law is weak or non-existent.  Two current examples: 1) Perfluorochemicals produced in Minnesota need to be more thoroughly investigated for contamination of our ground and surface waters, land, and air; both adult and child-based health standards need to be promulgated, and clean-up needs to proceed with greater urgency. 2) Information on the extent of arsenical pesticide contamination in several urban neighborhoods needs to be made public for all potentially exposed residents and health-risk assessments must be done that consider impacts on children, pregnant women, including long-term chronic exposure for both children and adults. WEI's legislation will strengthen our communities' right-to know toxic exposure by expanding toxic release and contamination reporting by public agencies and private sources, better protect "whistle-blowers" in those agencies, require more comprehensive investigation into the potential health impacts caused by toxic exposures, and increase enforcement provisions of the law.

WEI  expects to be joined  by organizations such as  the Lutheran Coalition for Public Policy, Environmental Justice Advocates of MN,  Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, MN Center for Environmental Advocacy and Clean Water Action in this work. We all believe the legislature should create a stronger, more comprehensive Community Right-to-Know state law that empowers communities to better understand and protect their own environmental health and safety.

With initial grants from Headwaters Foundation for Justice, WEI created a project to clarify and make visible the link between toxic sites mapped by the MN Pollution Control Agency, MN Department of Agriculture and other state agencies concerning both what we know and what we need to know about health disparities experienced by individuals living near or on those sites.

No state agency is tracking those connections and existing disease registries have never tracked the environmental public health impacts on GIS coordinates in Minnesota. Our premise is that individuals and communites have a right-to-know these connections as a basic human right. Our method is to build a strong and skilled community base to research, inform, and help neighbors to organize for their own health and safety, environmental protection, and to change public policy to ensure remediation and prevention. Our goal today is to create the grass roots momentum needed to get appropriate government and private agencies that should be doing this work on this missing environmental justice tracking. We will conduct primary research and attempt to evaluate cumulative body impacts from the numerous toxins our low-income and communities of color often face. The EJEAC project targets the Phillips Neighborhood in Minneapolis, the East Side in St. Paul and potentially a tribal community. We hope to create a model for community-empowered environmental justice organizing and advocacy that can be useful regionally and nationally. This project is supported by the Bush Foundation, Bremer Foundation, and the Headwaters Foundation for Justice. Principal Investigator: Dr. Cecilia Martinez.

Progress report available in pdf.