Authored by Steve Fischbach, Rhode Island Legal Services

Environmental justice advocates seek redress for a plethora of environmental problems that disproportionately affect low income and minority communities.  Since those problems are experienced on a community wide basis, environmental justice work is well suited to a community lawyering approach. This article describes Rhode Island Legal Services’ (RILS) environmental justice work, involving a wide range of legal strategies to improve health outcomes in our client community.

The work began in 1999, when representatives from several community organizations, including the tenant association of a public housing development approached RILS seeking legal assistance to fight a proposal to build two public schools on top of the former Providence City Dump. Construction of the schools had already started even though regulatory approvals had not been obtained from key agencies, including approval from our state’s Department of Environmental Management (DEM). That approval came weeks later—and our program agreed to challenge the approval and seek a halt to construction of the schools. At the time, RILS did not have any experience in environmental matters—but that did not stop our program from responding to a legal need identified by the community.

After obtaining a grant from the Impact Fund to hire an expert in 2002-2003, RILS filed suit against the City of Providence and DEM in state court, alleging violation of the environmental equity and public participation provision of our state’s  Brownfield law (the “Industrial Property Remediation and Reuse Act”), Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the US and RI constitutions. A week long hearing on a preliminary injunction motion did not stop the schools from being built; but instead, put conditions on further construction and required that plaintiffs be present for environmental testing and receive copies of test results. The case went to trial three and a half years later, and after a six week bench trial the court ruled in favor of plaintiffs on their state environmental law claims and due process claims. Again, the ruling did not result in the schools being closed; instead, the court asked the parties to develop an agreed upon remedy.  Plaintiffs and DEM agreed to establish a stakeholder group to develop proposals for legislation, regulations and policy on five discrete subjects including ,“[i]ssues to consider and methods to employ to ensure a ‘hard look’ at environmental equity issues when reviewing clean up plans for contaminated sites.”

While the court case was the focus of RILS’s initial environmental justice work, the case lead RILS to pursue environmental justice using other legal strategies. In 2003 RILS received an Environmental Justice Small Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct policy research on two issues raised by the case:  1) the siting of schools on top of or near sources of environmental pollution and 2) environmental justice programs of state environmental agencies. The reports were supposed to inform the work of two stakeholder groups that DEM agreed to establish to settle the litigation—however, the case did not settle and only one stakeholder group was eventually formed. The report on school siting was shared with advocates working on school siting issues around the country, and was instrumental in the passage of federal legislation directing EPA to develop voluntary school siting guidelines that take into account “environmental problems, contaminants, hazardous substances and pollution emissions” from a list of contaminants and “any pollution emission that present [sic] or may present a risk to the health of occupants” of school facilities. The report on state agency environmental justice programs was used by the stakeholder group established by the court order, resulting in DEM’s promulgating a draft guidance policy on the agency’s consideration of environmental justice in the review of clean up plans for contaminated sites.

In 2006, RILS obtained a second grant from EPA to conduct education and outreach activities in Providence on environmental justice, culminating in a day long conference on environmental justice. RILS assembled a work group to plan the conference consisting of community activists, environmental organizations and the public housing tenant association which participated in the school case. To recruit work group members RILS met one-on-one with representatives of community and environmental groups and offered to conduct educational forums for groups on environmental justice issues of the group’s choosing. The conference was attended by 75 people and participants agreed to meet the following month to begin discussions to form a formal environmental organization. At that follow up meeting participants agreed to form the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island. Within months the group was incorporated and funds were obtained from EPA to hire staff and pay for an office.

An outgrowth of RILS’ education and outreach work was a pilot project working with youth at the same public housing development where the tenants sued to stop the schools from being built on the former city dump. The project, Green Teenz, was an effort to engage youth in environmental justice work by having them create a photo montage of environmental conditions in their neighborhood. This past year, RILS obtained a second Environmental Justice Small Grant to establish a formal ten week project, where the youth will learn video production techniques and produce two videos, one on litter and another on safe cleaning products.

RILS environmental justice work is nearing its tenth anniversary. When the work began in 1999, RILS never expected to create a full blown environmental justice project, particularly given the program’s lack of expertise at that time. RILS’s experience shows that the lack of internal expertise should not deter legal services program’s from engaging in new advocacy efforts in response to needs identified by the client community.