EJ Happenings
Links to More Information on Environmental Justice
Environmental Justice Happenings...
(Excerpted from the May 2000 issue of
CWWG's newsletter "Common Sense")
The CWWG's efforts around environmental
justice have grown in the last six months. Pine Bluff for Safe
Disposal's Evelyn Yates, from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, has been particularly
busy bringing the message of "safe disposal of chemical weapons"
to regional and national environmental justice fora (thanks, Evelyn!).
A list of recent activities follows.
- In December 1999, KEF staff member Elizabeth
Crowe attended the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council
(NEJAC) meeting in Virginia to raise the chemical weapons issue
to this national group, which gives input to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency on environmental justice policy issues. A
draft resolution on chemical weapons disposal was circulated
at the December meeting and will also be presented at the May
2000 NEJAC meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.
- Later in December 1999, Evelyn participated
in a National Emergency Gathering of Black Community Advocates
for Environmental and Economic Justice in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Hundreds of African-American environmental justice leaders from
across the country declared a "state of emergency"
on environmental racism and economic injustice and developed
an Interim National Black Environmental and Economic Justice
Coordinating Committee (INBEEJCC). The INBEEJCC Action Plan
includes development of youth mentorship and leadership programs,
participation in national and international policy-making conferences,
an demobilizing community groups to respond to EJ priorities
locally and nationally.
- In January, in observance of Martin
Luther King Jr.'s birthday, the INBEEJCC sponsored a press conference
and community briefing on environmental injustice in Washington,
DC. The press conference included the release of a position
paper entitled "National State of Emergency on Environmental
Racism and Economic Injustice," and display of a quilt,
which memorialized those who have died as a result of exposure
to toxic chemicals.
- This past March, the People of Color
and Disenfranchised Communities Network sponsored a trip to Washington
DC of community environmental justice leaders from Memphis, Tennessee,
Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Savannah, Georgia. The trip emphasized
the effects of toxic exposures from federal facilities on African-American
youth -- and itself involved 15 young people from Tennessee and
Arkansas.
For more information on these organizations
or to find out more about environmental justice and the chemical
weapons disposal program, contact Elizabeth Crowe at 859-986-0868
or Evelyn Yates at 870-536-0836.