On January 19, the Obama EPA External Civil Rights Compliance Office issued a rare finding of civil rights discrimination against the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality concerning public hearings and public participation on the air discharge permitting of a demolition waste combustor sited near an impoverished black community and its neighborhood elementary school in northeastern Flint, MI. This local community — near Dort Highway and Carpenter Road in NE Flint — was already heavily affected by junks yards and other waste management facilities and nearby industrial facilities.
Here is the Genesee Power Station Limited Partnership facility:
The EPA findings and recommendations to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality were issued over two decades after the events in the 1990s which was the cause of the Title VI civil rights complaint that was originally filed.
Back in the early 1990s, I was personally involved in the public comment and technical review of the proposed facility, the Genesee Power Station, when I was director of environmental and occupational health at the American Lung Association in Michigan. I was also involved as an expert witness in the litigation against MDEQ by the Guild Law Center-Sugar Center for Economic and Social Justice in Detroit working for Attorney Kary Moss, who is presently director of Michigan ACLU.
On behalf of the American Lung Association I wrote and submitted a petition in 1993 to the U.S. EPA Environmental Appeals Board (EPA-EAB) that was successful in part by delaying final effectiveness of the Prevention of Significant Deterioration permit for Genesee Power Station and winning a “remand” order back to the Michigan DEQ on the matter of Best Available Control Technology for lead emissions and the need to keep lead-contaminated demolition wood [from painted or other treated wood] out of wood waste stream to fuel the plant. The Genesee Power Station EAB remand order can be see at this EPA link:
As a result of the EAB remand order and MDEQ reconsideration of portions of the air permit, Genesee Power Station was required to commence procedures and standards to keep paint/contaminated and treated demolition waste out of wastewood fuel supply for the facility as part of Clean Air Act Prevention of Significant Deterioration -required Best Available Control Technology (PSD-BACT).
The EPA Title VI civil rights findings and recommendations are contained in this letter responding to the original complainant, Rev. Phillip Schmitter of the St. Francis Prayer Center on Carpenter Road in Flint;
EPA found that the conduct of certain public hearings and comment periods and the availability of certain information intended for public comment were prejudicial to black residents of Flint, MI who were involved in the issue, including Janice O’Neal, a black community and civil rights activist, who is now deceased. Included in such prejudicial conduct by MDEQ was closing public hearings before all requesting the opportunity to speak were allowed to do so and the unusual use of armed state Conservation Officers at the public hearing which was intimidating to local residents and an action not typically used at environmental permit hearings in Michigan. EPA did not find any disparate health impact from the permitting action that could be considered to be a Title V civil rights violation.
While the complaint response from EPA focused on the past events, EPA made several criticisms and recommendations to MDEQ addressing how that agency presently addresses its civil rights protection responsibilities and obligations to EPA.
That this response was finally pushed out of EPA after more than two decades can attributed to the efforts of the Center for Public Integrity, which launched an investigation into EPA’s responsibilities to enforce Title VI civil rights requirements in the administration of federal programs and in its grant activities to states and localities. Here is the Center’s news release on the recent EPA response:
Although not mentioned in the CPI release, to the best of my knowledge the organization EarthJustice was also involved in resurrecting an EPA response to the long-ago filed civil rights complaint…..as I was contacted by an Earthjustice attorney as part of their inquiry on the Title VI civil rights matter on the Genesee Power Station matter.
Finally, here is the website of Rev. Schmitter’s organization, the St. Francis Prayer Center which is involved with the local community near the Genesee Power Station, and is also affected by emissions from the plant. Such emissions include volatile organic compounds arising from fermentation of the large wood waste piles around the plant.
