Local Community Success Stories
Local community action has long been a hallmark of the environmental justice movement. If you have a success story to share, please contact us.
Significant victories include the following:
2006 — Due to broad public opposition, including an EnviroJustice action alert, an International Paper Company proposal to burn 72 tons of tire derived fuel and 80 cubic yards of toxic sludge a day at its plant in Ticonderoga, New York was stopped permanently.
2001 — The EPA clean-up of the Agriculture Street Landfill neighborhood of New Orleans was completed.
2000 — Macon County Citizens for a Clean Environment successfully waged a major fight to stop the siting of a mega landfill near the historic Tuskegee University campus.
2000 — A judge rules in South Camden Citizens in Action v. New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection that compliance with environmental laws does not equal compliance with civil rights laws, and determined that New Jersey had violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the first environmental justice case to prevail under this theory. Unfortunately, the decision was later overturned by Third Circuit Court of Appeals on grounds that individual plaintiffs did not have the right to enforce the EPA's disparate impact regulations.
2000 — Residents of the Anniston, Alabama Sweet Valley/Cobb Town Environmental Task Force won a $42.8 million settlement against Monsanto for damages caused by the exposure of generations of residents to PCBs.
2000 — Norco, Louisiana's Diamond Community secured full relocation and buyout by the Shell Chemical Refinery. One of the leaders of the movement, Margie Eugene Richard, made history by becoming the first African American to win the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.
1999 — The Black farmers discrimination case against the United States Department of Agriculture was settled for a reported $400 million to more than $2 billion.
1998 — After the United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice convened an array of grassroots environmental justice, civil rights, faith-based, legal, and academic centers leaders on the Shintech Title V permit application planed for Convent, Louisiana, the company suspended its effort to build a PVC plant there.
1998 — Citizens Against Nuclear Trash (CANT) and residents in Homer won a major victory over Louisiana Energy Services (LES) on Earth Day with the cancellation of a nuclear waste facility in their community.
1998 — The Florida Legislature passed the 1998 Environmental Equity and Justice Act.
1998 — The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the Chester, Pennsylvania case because Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) had already revoked the permit at issue.
1996 — At an EPA Superfund Relocation Roundtable Meeting, and because of the hard work of local grassroots leaders, the EPA decided to relocate an entire community of 358 African American and/or low-income households living next to the Escambia Wood Treatment Plant in Pensacola, Florida.
1993 — Local community leaders and their allies defeated the Formosa Plastics Plant from locating in Wallace, Louisiana.
1992 — A case brought by WE ACT against the City of New York for operating the North River plant as a public nuisance to the people of the West Harlem Community was settled for $1 million dollars and the City of New York agreed to set aside $55 million dollars in capital funds to repair the air pollution and engineering design problems at the North River Waste Water Treatment facility.
1991 — In the case of El Pueblo para el Aire y Agua Limpio v. County of Kings, a California judge ruled that permit process for a toxic waste incinerator in Kettleman City, California was flawed because failure to translate documents into Spanish meant the affected public was not "meaningfully involved" in the environmental review process.
1989 — The Great Louisiana Toxic March was led by the Gulf Coast tenants and communities in Cancer Alley (the corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana). The march first brought public attention to the toxic living conditions in Cancer Alley.
1988 — Revielletown buyout and relocation by Georgia Pacific.
1983 — The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Justice, Department of Defense and the Olin Chemical Company settle a $25 million lawsuit with black residents of Triana, Alabama, a tiny all-black community contaminated with DDT from the Redstone Arsenal Army base, dubbed the "unhealthiest town in America."