The prevalence of people being poisoned by lead in their homes has recently gained widespread attention in Milwaukee with definitive remedies still at bay. Those impacted by lead here and elsewhere are disproportionately people of color. Nonetheless, lead toxicity is just one issue relating to what’s termed Environmental Justice.
Other issues include access to healthy food, green spaces, trails, transit, swimmable water, deep-well pools, safe housing and healthy air quality. Numerous groups and individuals here are focused on one or more environmental justice issues. In seeking solutions, starting points include documenting inequities and increasing community awareness—especially among people with the power to help fix such problems.
The environmental justice movement began in the 1980s, following studies revealing that a disproportionate number of polluting industries, power plants and waste disposal areas were located in communities with high ratios of people of color or lower incomes. Advocates sought to ensure fair distribution of environmental burdens among all people regardless of their background. Those addressing environmental injustice invariably say its roots are complex and intertwined with racism and segregation. In hyper-segregated Milwaukee County, the challenges can be daunting. Tackling them requires many-pronged approaches, and efforts often overlap.
Numerous scholars and students at UW-Milwaukee have been conducting research about environmental justice. The Milwaukee Environmental Justice Lab at UWM is a “multi-disciplinary consortium of university and community scholars engaged in documentation, analysis and action on difficult environmental issues facing our communities.” Ryan Holifield, associate professor of geography at UWM, is the lead editor of the Routledge Handbook of Environmental Justice, a 2017 collection of 50 original articles contributed by more than 90 leading scholars.
According to Arijit Sen, a professor in UWM’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning, “Environmental justice claims need to be supported by clear evidence and an explanatory process. There are three forms of EJ claims: procedural, distributive and claims of recognition.” In this context, recognition refers to the political struggle for the acceptance and respect for “difference” in terms of ethnicity, age, gender and so forth.
Students doing research through Sen’s Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School directly engage with people within communities being studied. They gain first-hand knowledge about how and why “some people do not have a voice or power to influence decisions being made” that affect their daily lives and health. “Because the roots of environmental injustices tend to be structural, procedural and historical, individuals often have difficulty understanding how they can help make needed changes,” Sen says.
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Access to Green Jobs and Green Spaces
August Marie Ball has been connecting people in Milwaukee to green jobs and hands-on service to public lands for 14 years. Ball works with youth and ecologically focused organizations to “create equitable pipelines and policies that promote diversity, inclusion and retention of people of color in the environmental field.” Initially, she coordinated Milwaukee’s chapter of the Student Conservation Association, a national nonprofit organization, until local funding dried up. She then worked as Milwaukee County Parks’ community engagement coordinator for about two years. Ball now leads Cream City Conservation and Consulting. The Urban Ecology Center was one of the first organizations locally to enlist August’s support in developing equitable programming.
Speaking about environmental justice at a recent local Sierra Club meeting, Ball said that white people still hold 97% of leadership positions in green organizations. Overall, those employed in green jobs still overwhelmingly identify as white. According to Ball, it will take more than good intentions to change those stubborn statistics: “Genius is equally distributed. Access is not.”
Accepted but inaccurate narratives must also be debunked, said Ball, who describes her background as “part black, part Choctaw and part ‘regular,’” humorously referencing whiteness as the norm. Green 2.0, a 2014 national report on the lack of diversity in the mainstream environmental movement, identified “unconscious bias, discrimination and insular recruiting” as the top three barriers to increased diversity.
One “myth” expressed by white people is that “people of color are just not interested in working for environmental organizations or don’t have the relevant skills.” In fact, Ball said, a key limiting factor is that most organizations primarily recruit talent through referrals. She asked Sierra Club attendees to each think of five people they see regularly not related to them. “How similar are the demographics of those people to your own? A key drawback of networking is that most people’s associates are clones of themselves.” Although that’s normal—an aspect of “tribal safety”—Ball said it’s not conducive to promoting diversity. Growing a more-inclusive work force requires going beyond usual networking and ways of thinking about difference. “We must be actively anti-racist. It’s not enough to think racism is bad.”
Ball said another myth is that “Black and brown people are too busy being poor to care about the environment.” Extensive research data reveals that they actually care more.” That includes passing down generational knowledge and indigenous lore. Also, throughout history, African Americans have been at the center of environmentalism. Brenda Coley and Kirsten Shead, co-executive directors of Milwaukee Water Commons, recently outlined the contributions of some of those leaders in an op-ed in Urban Milwaukee. Historic figures include George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman and Charles Young, while nationally recognized leaders today include “Planet Walker” John Francis and Milwaukee’s urban-agriculturalist Will Allen.
Rethinking Mainstream Environmentalism
David Thomas, coordinator of the Sierra Club Great Waters Group's Nearby Nature project, summarizes some of the club’s racial blind spots relative to membership, mission and priorities. He says the organization was founded in 1892 to “provide outings for wealthy white men. Our group must now create inclusive relationships or become irrelevant.” To increase awareness about environmental justice issues, Thomas encourages members of the predominantly white group to “patiently build authentic relationships, not be missionaries.” He recommended self-study of white privilege and reading books such as White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo. When thinking about any injustice, such as barriers to accessing green space, he said, “We need to ask, ‘Who created this problem?’ and ‘Whose responsibility is it to fix it?’”
Sierra Club’s Nearby Nature is an environmental justice and equity initiative “to build healthier and more resilient communities everywhere.” Six local campaigns were funded in 2018 across the U.S. The club’s Great Waters Group is focusing its efforts in neighborhoods stressed by poverty and racial injustice, particularly in Milwaukee’s 30th Street Corridor and Lincoln Creek Greenway. Nearby Nature is currently redefining its mission given its new relationship with the Midwest Environmental Consortium.
Thomas also cites a 2017 study by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy titled Reconnecting Milwaukee: A BikeAble Study of Opportunity, Equity and Connectivity. It revealed that “Milwaukee’s exemplary trails, including the Oak Leaf Trail and Hank Aaron Trail, serve as critical infrastructure for city residents, connecting communities and offering transportation and recreation benefits to those who use them. But the benefits that trails bring are not equitably shared…”
Neighborhoods experiencing inequality in Milwaukee—“those where a concentration of the population lives under the poverty line, is unemployed, does not have a high school degree, does not own a vehicle and is either African American or Hispanic—disproportionately lack access to biking and walking facilities,” the study found. That lack affects access to employment centers and schools as well, not just recreation. A coalition led by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s Route of the Badger project began meeting in 2017 to focus on the long-term goal of a “Rails-With-Trail” recreational trail along the 30th Street Corridor.
Dealing with the dire consequences of lead poisoning has spurred numerous local interventions. Dominican Center, a community development organization based in the Amani neighborhood, recently partnered with Hunger Task Force on a campaign titled “Well-Fed Means Less Lead.” It focused on increasing awareness about lead issues and knowledge of measures to prevent and deal with toxicity, including by eating foods that slow the rate of absorption of lead. The campaign included radio, TV and billboard ads to build awareness. The Dominican Center is now working to install filters on faucets in Amani homes that have lead-based laterals.
These efforts are just a few among many focused on environmental inequities in Milwaukee. Achieving the goal of environmental justice will require the collaborative engagement, creativity and political will of many.
