Environmental Justice Advocacy & Government Accountability
WE ACT’s Environmental Justice Advocacy & Government Accountability Program Area builds community power through organizing to impact policy and systems change. Monitoring key legislation on the State, local and national levels, WE ACT alerts the community to developments that impact their health and quality of life. Interfacing with City Council Members, State legislators and Federal officials, WE ACT facilitates access from the streets and barrios to hallowed halls and State Houses, empowering residents to speak for themselves. WE ACT’s work on government accountability has led to demonstrable changes in government practice, leveraged real resources to ensure the protection of the environment and human health in communities-of-color, and has developed replicable models for change that have been implemented by other similarly situated communities. Some of our past successes include the following:
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WE ACT conducted a Clean Fuel/Clean Air MTA Accountability Campaign that created the political will for the Governor and key state legislators to mandate that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) make hundreds of alternative fuel bus purchases and retrofit diesel depots to compressed natural gas. WE ACT’s ongoing campaign was a catalyst for the MTA investing in diesel retrofits and hybrids. The MTA now boasts that it has the cleanest fleet in the nation. WE ACT is now in a dialogue with the MTA regarding the closure and/or retrofitting of MTA depots. Citywide, one-third of the City's bus fleet is housed in Northern Manhattan above 99th Street.
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WE ACT organized hundreds of Harlem residents in a sustained 8-year government accountability campaign utilizing direct action, civil disobedience, negotiation and litigation to convince the City of New York to commit $55 million to abate environmental pollution from a (then) newly constructed, “state-of-the-art” local sewage plant - the North River Sewage facility. This campaign was a catalyst for the organization's creation, and resulted in a $1.1 million settlement against the City in 1993.
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WE ACT organized a Northern Manhattan Environmental Justice Coalition of 40 community organizations to ensure that Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to overhaul New York City's solid waste disposal system – which included the reopening and expansion of the 135th Street Marine Transfer Station (MTS) – did not result in the disproportionate effects of the plant being born by Northern Manhattan’s community residents. In October 2004, the Mayor announced that the 135th Street MTS would not be reopened. In March 2007 the City agreed to join a WE ACT-led community-based planning process to convert the MTS to multi-use purposes benefiting the community.
Our current projects include the following: