April 22 is Earth Day. Brought to public consciousness in 1970 by the same fervent group of people that protested the Vietnam War throughout the 1960s, Earth Day represents an ethic that should be championed all year long. A need for strong commitment to environmental preservation and restoration is ever present, especially in Camden.
The Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy (CEED), a locally-based environmental justice organization, in partnership with the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota (CURA), has created an interactive online Environmental Justice Atlas. This atlas portrays population demographics as well as environmental areas of concern within Minneapolis and St. Paul in order to illustrate correlations between social factors, such as economic status and race, and the environment. The tool, found through the CEED’s website ceed.org, allows users to choose “layers.” Layers displaying landfills, air pollution, potential hazards and contaminated sites can be chosen in tandem with layers showing population demographics, such as median household income and percentage of households of people of color.
Looking at the Camden area, in which 30 percent of residents live below the poverty line and over 60 percent are people of color, the Environmental Justice Atlas shows two tank leakage sites, two more tank sites that have the potential to be hazardous in the future, and a large amount of blighted housing throughout our community.
CEED has published many reports on the disproportional impact of environmental hazards on communities of color and communities of low economic status. They are currently working with the City of Minneapolis to ensure that the concerns of communities of color, American Indians and low-income communities are addressed in the City’s Climate Action Plan. One of their requests is to replant some of the more than 6,000 trees that were destroyed in the 2011 tornado.
Trees provide many measurable and immeasurable benefits. By providing shade, tree canopies reduce energy bills in the summer, trees clean our air when they intake CO2 for photosynthesis, and they reduce noise pollution and bring up property values. Trees can also be used for climbing, building forts and tying up tire swings, just ask any seven-year-old. So far, through both private and public funding, the City of Minneapolis has only replaced a little over half of the trees lost in the tornado.
Planting a tree is one way to positively impact Camden, but, as Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network, states, “planting a tree…requires taking care of it for a really long time, not just sticking it in the ground.” Earth Day is a start, but a very environmental solution, and every environmental problem, takes more than a day to come to fruition. The recent find of highly toxic vapors in the Como neighborhood of Minneapolis is another reminder of the deathly impact environmental toxins left unacknowledged can have on our neighbors and family for years to come. Leftover from an old General Mills plant, these toxic vapors were ignored by many, including the EPA and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). Today, homeowners in the 20-block area affected have been forced to vacate their basements and will forever question the causes for cancers and other ailments that have impacted their community in the last 50 years.
In the 1980s, when this problem was being ignored by the EPA and MPCA, the practice of polluting our lakes, rivers and land was not an uncommon among large companies. This fact helps remind us that individual communities need to be an advocating force for the health of their own environments. Large environmental agencies benefit when the communities they are working within guide them towards the environmental preservation and restoration strategies that will best fit the needs of the people they are serving.
In a CEED introductory video found on their homepage, CEED Legal Analyst, Liza Guerro-O’Reily states, “The importance of all this is that there is leadership going on locally and globally, and where there are failures in government, the people can lead where they left off and keep pushing. We’re not only looking out for our own children, we are looking out for your children too.” (Find more info on the CEED website about who represents your community’s environmental issues within various governmental task forces, and what you can do to make your concerns heard.)
Earth Day is only one opportunity to do this. As in years past, the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board will be hosting Earth Day Clean-Up events on Saturday, April 26 from 9:30 a.m. to noon. There are over 35 clean-up sites in the Minneapolis area, including Shingle Creek, Theodore Wirth Park and the banks of the Mississippi. No pre-registration or fees are required to participate. Visit minneapolisearthday.com for more info.
More importantly, Earth Day is a reminder of the environmental problems we’ve inherited, and the daily steps we can take for those that will inherit from us, in order to make their lives better and healthier than our own.
Note: In addition to the Environmental Justice Atlas, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s What’s in My Neighborhood website also has an interactive map that includes detailed info about sites that are currently under investigation for environmentally hazardous activities or have been investigated for such activities in the past: cf.pca.state.mn.us/wimn.
Sources:
umn.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basic viewer/index.html?appid=a826e71660804b97afd942c1d5001c22
mncompass.org/_pdfs/neighborhood-profiles/ Minneapolis-WebberCamden-102011.pdf
startribune.com/lifestyle/health/250478591. html?page=1&c=y
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/ 090421-earth-day-facts/
millcitytimes.com/news/mprb-announces-2014-earth-day-clean-up-event.html
cf.pca.state.mn.us/wimn/siteInfo.cfm?siteid=54354275