Showing posts with label Remedia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Remedia. Show all posts
, ,

Great Lakes Environmental Law Center Sends Gives Notice of Intent to Sue Regarding Incinerator Violations

November 14, 2016

The Detroit trash incinerator, operated by Detroit Renewable Power, has been repeatedly cited for violating the Clean Air Act. The Great Lakes Environmental Law Center has submitted a notice of intent to sue letter to Governor Snyder, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and Detroit Renewable Power announcing their intent to file a citizen suit for over 40 violations of the Clean Air Act dating back to 2015.

 East Michigan Environmental Action Council joins the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and other Michigan organizations in this important next step for community environmental protection. For more information about the incinerator, see our Detroit Incinerator Fact Sheet.


From the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center Press Release, October 17: 

In 2015, over 650,000 tons of household garbage was burned at the incinerator. However, very little of that garbage actually comes from Detroit households. According to records, 66% of the household garbage burned at the incinerator comes from Oakland County while only 19% originates from Wayne County. Household garbage from Ohio, Illinois, and Canada is also burned at the incinerator. “It is not acceptable that as Detroiters move toward city-wide recycling and reducing the amount of their waste that goes to the incinerator, that they are subject to poor air quality and respiratory health issues due to waste from other communities and Detroit Renewable Power’s repeated failure to control its air pollution as required by law,” said Sandra Turner Handy, the community engagement director for the Michigan Environmental Council. 

The incinerator places a substantial environmental and public health burden on Detroit residents. Since the start of 2015, the incinerator committed 21 violations for strong odors wafting from the incinerator and 19 violations for emitting carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter above legally allowed limits. According to the EPA, 7,280 residents live within 1-mile of the incinerator, 87% being people of color. The surrounding neighborhood is an asthma hotspot, with rates much higher than the Michigan average. 

“The incinerator is an outdated facility and the owners of the facility have shown no concern for the negative health and environmental impacts that the incinerator has on the nearby community, as evidenced by its recent air quality violations,” said William Copeland, the climate justice director for the East Michigan Environmental Action Council. “Given the environmental injustice and health challenges that nearby residents continue to face because of the incinerator, it’s important that the Clean Air Act be aggressively enforced against the facility.” 

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality or the Environmental Protection Agency now have 60-days to commence an enforcement action. If no enforcement action is pursued by either agency, then the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center may file a citizen suit on behalf of local residents and organizations to enforce the Clean Air Act. “Detroit should not be the dumping ground for the State, the Midwest, or Canada and every Detroit residents has the right to breathe clean air free from odors and harmful pollutants,” said Nick Leonard, a staff attorney with the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. “It’s bad enough that over 80% of the household garbage that is burned at the incinerator comes from outside of Wayne County. It’s even worse that the incinerator continues, with alarming frequency, to fail to comply with the laws that are in place to protect the public health and that Detroiters are suffering an environmental injustice a result.” 

 

,

Environmental Justice Media

February 23, 2011


EMEAC's environmental justice media program empowers community members, youth and adult, with the skills and technological tools to tell their own stories about environmental issues in SE Michigan. These can be public service announcements, music videos, short films, digital art works or documentaries about air quality, water access and affordability, land use or food security. We also have an environmental justice media fellows program where program participants are hired by area justice organizations to meet their media needs around documentation and promotions.

Click Here for Related News

ANNUAL EMEAC GREENSCREEN FILM FESTIVAL:  Our Greenscreen Film Festival hosts students across southeast Michigan to showcase films with environmental themes. The work of these young filmmakers express what they think is most crucial to their health and to the natural environment. Some films also focus on making the world (or their school or neighborhood) more environmentally healthier. The festival is a celebration of youth voice and emerging environmentalism. The short films, created entirely by young artists and aspiring young activists, span environmental and social consciousness.

The films are judged for cinematic merit, relevance to Southeastern Michigan, and creative messaging. The panel of judges included independent directors, environmental activists, a youth activist, and a journalist. Now in its fifth year, EMEAC gets statewide inquiries about this exciting event, as well as requests for film making workshops and demonstrations year round.





DETROIT DIGITAL JUSTICE COALITION: The Detroit Digital Justice Coalition (DJC) is comprised of people and organizations in Detroit who believe that communication is a fundamental human right. We are securing that right through activities that are grounded in the digital justice principles of: access, participation, common ownership, and healthy communities. East Michigan Environmental Action Council along with 10 other grassroots organizations and independent technologists in Detroit founded the coalition which emerged out of conversations that took place during the 2009 Allied Media Conference workshop, "A Healthy Digital Ecology: Creating a Community Vision for Federal Broadband Funding." Since August 2009 we have been building a shared vision for digital justice in Detroit, strategizing around collaborative applications for federal broadband funding, and preparing for community-wide educational events that will include everything from Internet policy workshops to hands-on technology stations.

Read more about the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition here. 


Read more about Detroit Future here

DETROIT FUTURE Detroit Future consists of three programs that put the Detroit Digital Justice Principles into practice: Detroit Future Media, Detroit Future Schools and Detroit Future Youth. These three programs collaborate to tell stories about their accomplishments, challenges and realizations, with the goal of making the work transparent and replicable. The Detroit Future DECODE (documentation, evaluation and communications) team synthesizes those stories into a new narratives about Detroit and its future.

Detroit Future Media

DF Media is growing a community media economy in Detroit. Students choose to focus on either education, entrepreneurship and community organizing and select media production workshops in video, web and graphic design to integrate with their focus track. Participants graduate with the unique skill sets necessary to train other Detroiters in digital media, create their own jobs, foster collaborative forms of community wealth creation, and support media-based community organizing for a better Detroit.

Detroit Future Youth

DF Youth aims to strengthen and deepen youth social justice organizing in Detroit by partnering with youth programs that focus on social justice based education and multimedia creation, who are using digital media to transform ourselves and our communities. Our mission is to build a Detroit youth network. Our Vision is to grow a youth led movement in Detroit. Network members share a commitment to authentic youth-leadership development that fosters the future creators, problem-solvers and social change-makers our city needs.

Detroit Future Schools

DF Schools partners graduates from Detroit Future Media with K-12 teachers to design and implement digital media arts-integrated curriculum. The goal of DFS is to use digital media arts to provide the project-based learning experiences that students need to understand and shape their worlds. Participating teachers and artists receive a full year of professional development support to implement and improve their instructional practices.

Read more about Detroit Future here.