SEWRPC Disrespects, Ignores Its Justice Task Force - - Independent Federal Investigation Is In Order

As I had been discussing for the past few days in multiple posts on this blog - - example here - - leaders at the Southeastern Wisconsin Planning Commission (SEWRPC) let its important water supply advisory committee approve Tuesday an incomplete report being prepared by the apparently less-important SEWPRC Environmental Justice Task Force.

Federal agencies recognize environmental justice as a legal operating requirement, and there needs to be an assessment of SEWRPC's dismissive and exclusionary approach to the justice task force that has harmed its ability to do its job.

And this is not the first time that SEWRPC seems tone-deaf to the civil rights implications of its actions, as documented in this posting, with links to two pending complaints.

The report that SEWRPC basically took away from the task force and turned over to the water committee was a consultant's study on the socio-economic impact of having Lake Michigan water diverted to Waukesha, and related water policies regionally.

Carrie Lewis, the manager of the Milwaukee Water Works, and the City of Milwaukee's lone representative on a 32-member water committee - - a hard-working committe, yes, but one set up by SEWRPC's executives as notoriously unrepresentative of the SEWRPC seven-county region population (one Hispanic representative - - since replaced by a Caucasian male - - no African-Americans, no Asians, only two women) - - cast the lone dissenting vote because the justice task force had not yet had its final discussion of the consultant's work and had not taken a vote on whether to endorse the consultant's work.

At one point, SEWRPC was considering allowing the justice task force to conduct its final work on the study by email, but the agency backed down after complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union, and others, about such a process being a violation of Wisconsin's Open Meeting law.

Instead, SEWRPC simply bypassed the justice task force in favor of what it knew would be quick approval action by its water supply advisory committee - - as if that would pass for a fair process or honor the reasons why the justice task force was created in the first place.

More about that in a minute.

But good for Ms. Lewis, and shame on the rest of the members for participating in a procedural charade that effectively marginalizes the justice task force, and keeps it in an agency structure where some committees and their work are more equal than others.

SEWRPC scheduled the next justice task force meeting for 9/2 - - knowing by that time that the water supply committee would have already voted to incorporate the consultant's work into the overall water study.

Because SEWRPC set up the two meetings and their agendas - - and their relative policy impacts - - that way.

SEWRPC says today that any comments the justice task force wishes to make at its post hoc, 9/2 meeting will be incorporated into the final water study - - completing what can only be politely called a you-know-what backwards process, and a shockingly disregard for basic public policy procedures even if issues of minority considerations were taken out of the equation.

But you have to understand the disrespect SEWRPC chose to display towards the volunteers who have sat through many meetings as justice task force members. They accepted an invitation from SEWRPC to do real and needed work and also to help the agency get past its reputation for insensitivity to low-income and minority communities, and to regional racial, environmental justice and equity considerations long-ignored by SEWRPC.

The justice task force was not established in 2007, after 47 years of the agency's existence because SEWRPC realized in a "Eureka" moment of of awareness and self-criticism that its hiring and committee appointment practices repeatedly left out minority representation and work plan focus.

No, it was set up to satisfy criticisms over the agency's insufficient relationships with minority residents and communities that were aired at SEWRPC's mandatory 2004 public federal certification review.

No re-certification, no power to manage certain federal transit and highway funds in the region.

So it set up the justice task force - - and took another two+ years to find members, and get an initial meeting established - - while the water committee, set up in 2005, was working full-steam ahead on a regional water study with barely a shred of minority participation - - but has given the task force a lesser status internally than its higher-profile advisory committees, and has never allowed the task force to even select its own chair.

The dismissive approach by SEWRPC towards a task force it has only grudgingly incorporated into its structure and processes - - the task force had to publicly fight former SEWRPC Executive Director Phil Evenson over getting independent socio-economic analyses included in all SEWRPC regional studies because SEWRPC had not don so on its own - - should most definitely be communicated to federal officials.

Lest SEWRPC be allowed to ignore environmental justice, and to forfeit without consequence any vestige of fairness and genuine interaction towards a large portion of the regional population, already getting minimal attention when it comes to SEWRPC hiring and advisory roles in policy-making.

In a publicly-chartered, 100% taxpayer-funded planning agency, an Environmental Justice Task Force with second-class status reinforced by the agency leadership is a task force that is being prevented from doing its job.

In an agency that is getting away with minimizing - - and that's a generous word - - the value of social and environmental justice in the conduct of its business.

Federal certification reviewers told SEWRPC last year to do a better job engaging the public: does anyone seriously think that kicking the justice task force to the sidelines meets that goal?

The agency gets much of its power from federal transportation and transit agencies, and because the agency has disregarded the outreach and justice components and expectations laid out in its last two quadrennial re-certification reviews by those agencies, an outside and independent federal justice investigation is.

That's the only way we can find out why SEWRPC will not and cannot genuinely engage its minority constituencies.

And probably the only way to drag SEWRPC into the 21st century.

Leave WI I-94 'billion-$-boondoggle' project shelved

Sure does look like the two-year budget Gov. Evers will propose next month will include substantial cuts because of COVID19's damage to the economy:

Wisconsin could face $2B deficit in next budget, report says

Here's one item that should be deleted before the document is submitted soon to the Legislature: planning that would revive and commit the state to spend $1.1 billion on the segment of I-94 that connects the Zoo interchange to the west and the Marquette Interchange to the east.

While that plan was being litigated on environmental justice grounds, Walker killed it in 2017 as unaffordable even though he had been championing the entire $6 billion+ regional 'free'-way expansion program since 2003.

Here's another reason to shelve the project: we know that polluting, publicly-financed projects disproportionately shove dirty air, health problems and economic disadvantages onto communities of color which have historically borne those burdens through government decision-making.

SE WI governments need to address segregation fueled by their decisions

As I have noted often on this blog, the disparities have been fueled by multiple actions by multiple layers of government as far back as the 1950's - - and 50 years later - - and often involve transit, such the Robin Vos-led prohibition against regional transit authorities which can move people to jobs and housing across local jurisdictional lines, to repeated threats to the sparse bus connections which do link urban workers with suburban employers.

In fact, civil rights and public health organizations had to force the Walker administration via litigation to provide a welcome, but hardly restorative sum - - $13.5 million in a billion-dollar project - - for transit during Zoo Interchange construction to put the work into compliance with federal law.

Many of these and related matters are not new to the region, and have been raised often: 

* Here, in 2020:

* Here, in 2019:

* Here, in 2018, even by some in Trump's EPA:

* Here, in 2017:

* And here, in 2010, through local and regional struggles which show how difficult it was to create an Environmental Justice Task Force, (EJTF), within the same Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission which wrote the regional freeway reconstruction plan years ago.

It's ironic that the EJTF noted in November meeting 2019 minutes that transit in Wisconsin - 

SEWRPC photo

- continues to lack dedicated financing and receives (see page 8 of the minutes) only 8 percent of the state's transportation funding.

Also remember that while most of the I-94 segment reconstruction would eventually come from federal funds, there are always state shares, state staff time expenses, and subsequent state interest payments that come principally from gas tax collections - and all of that limits state dollars available to other projects.

How this works was explained in a piece about the construction of the I-94 segment north and south of the Foxconn site.

Hard to build a case that economic justice and environmental justice are making for cleaner air over communities also being handed historically discriminatory government outcomes.

Note that that there is likely to be a greater emphasis on these matters in the incoming Biden administration -

Xavier Becerra Brings Environmental Justice to Forefront

Joseph R. Biden, Jr.’s choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services is the first state attorney general to create an environmental justice bureau.

- that we are seeing handled with intention in precisely the opposite way right through the final days of Trump's presidency: 

The Trump administration on Monday rejected setting tougher standards on soot, the nation’s most widespread deadly air pollutant, saying the existing regulations remain sufficient even though some public health experts and environmental justice communities had pleaded for stricter limits.

Making it clearer why the East-West I-94 project should stay on the shelf.

Tuesday Is Your Chance To Talk SEWRPC And Social Justice To Federal Monitors

Officials from the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration will be in Milwaukee to hear from you as part of the agencies' performance review for the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, (SEWRPC), on Tuesday from 5-7:30 p.m. at the Tommy Thompson Youth Center at the WI State Fairgrounds.

I posted some information about this a few days ago, but below you will find a little history and a few more points that citizens can make to help highlight how SEWRPC's record on environmental justice and fair transportation funding in the region can be improved.

Every four years, the federal government has to certify that a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) like SEWRPC is following federal laws, including civil rights and environmental justice requirements. As the MPO for seven counties in Southeastern Wisconsin, SEWRPC makes recommendations about transportation, land use and natural resource issues, and sets priorities for federal funding of projects. 

For example, SEWRPC wrote and recommended the $6.4 billion regional freeway reconstruction and widening plan: several billion dollars has been spent or committed, while transit in the region is shrinking. 

And SEWRPC's regional water supply recommendations dove-tailed with the City of Waukesha's proposal to divert Lake Michigan water - - Waukesha's water utility general manager and principal architect of the diversion plan was a forceful member of the SEWRPC advisory committee that drafted the regional SEWRPC plan as adopted.

SEWRPC, however, often has failed to address concerns of minority and low-income residents; these every-four-year federal re-certification review meetings and the status-quo affirming reports they produce have left activists feeling short-changed.

After SEWRPC got lambasted repeatedly at its 2004 re-certification hearing, the 2008 re-certification public session was intentionally anesthetized into a more tepid 'open house format - - but citizens who wanted their comments heard by the entire assemblage and not just a stenographer in cubby holes forced the organizers as the meeting began to open up the meeting process.


The 2008 report was delayed a year, yet produced no significant social justice policy or program initiatives.

So activists again need to come out Tuesday and tell these federal officials, with the SEWRPC staff sitting in, that SEWRPC has to work harder to make sure under-served and urban communities get a fair share of our region’s transportation public-dollar spending: 

We need more transit, more job access, more access to affordable housing. 

Key Points

*  SEWRPC Should Use More Federal “Highway” Funds to Expand Transit: 

One important provision in federal transportation legislation allows for the use of certain federal-aid highway program and federal transit program funds for either highway OR transit projects.  This is referred to as flexible funding… In urbanized areas with populations greater than 200,000, MPOs (Metropolitan Planning Organization, like SEWRPC) are responsible for considering ‘flexing’ funds to meet local planning priorities.

SEWRPC should “flex” the funds to expand transit and meet environmental justice needs in Southeastern WI.

*  SEWRPC Should Set Priorities for County & Local Road Projects that Emphasize Civil Rights and Environmental Justice Criteria:  

SEWRPC is responsible for creating our region’s TIP (Transportation Improvement Plan).  Through the TIP, road and highway projects in the seven county region are prioritized for federal funding.  Many MPO’s around the country consider environmental justice criteria in their TIP priorities, but SEWRPC does not. Factors that could be considered include:  1) Does the community that the road project is in provide transit for low wage workers to access jobs in that community? 2)  Does the community have a job/housing imbalance as defined by the SEWRPC Housing Study? 3) Is the project to build new roads or to repair existing roads?  

SEWRPC should include these kinds of criteria in deciding which local and county road projects have highest priority.

SEWRPC’s Lack of City of Milwaukee Presence: 

At SEWRPC’s 2008 re-certification, recommendations were made that SEWRPC develop a greater City of Milwaukee presence, with office space here. This recommendation was made to better engage low-income, minority and persons with disabilities into SEWRPC’s planning decisions and policy recommendations.

It appears no effort has been made towards this.  We should continue to push for this change.

SEWRPC’s Governance:

SEWRPC is run by an appointed Commission of three representatives from each of the seven counties in SEWRPC’s region, and two-thirds of the appointments are made by the Governor.

This sets the tone for ALL of SEWRPC’s planning and policies.  For example, Ozaukee County has 10% of the population of Milwaukee County, but the same number of votes on the commission.  

Milwaukee County has about ¾ of the region’s low income and minority residents and 85% of the region’s African-Americans, but only 14% percent of votes on the commission.  This represents a SERIOUS environmental justice issue for SEWRPC and our region.

Until this issue is resolved, SEWRPC will not be able to truly represent the need of our region. 

NOTE: it is important to recognize that this governance structure is determined by state statute and only a change in state legislation will fix it. 

An issue I've covered for years.

(Written comments also can be submitted until 7/16/12 to: wisconsin.fhwa@dot.gov).

Getting transit equity and environmental justice back on track

I've noted on this blog for years that governments bear a substantial share of the region's burdensome and corrosive legacy discrimination and segregation: 

There should be widespread dissemination of yet another report focusing on Southeastern Wisconsin's worst-in-the-nation segregation, but let's add some history and information to the discussion - - especially with a new Governor more attuned to the needs of cities and their residents.

As I have noted often on this blog, the disparities have been fueled by multiple actions by multiple layers of government as far back as the 1950's - - and 50 years later - - and often involve transit, such the Robin Vos-led prohibition against regional transit authorities which can move people to jobs and housing across local jurisdictional lines, to repeated threats to the sparse bus connections which do link urban workers with suburban employers.

In fact, civil rights and public health organizations had to force the Walker administration via litigation to provide a welcome, but hardly restorative sum - - $13.5 million in a billion-dollar project - - for transit during Zoo Interchange construction that would put the work into compliance with federal law. 

Arguments amplified here, (thanks to UrbanMilwaukee.com):

* Referenced again, and again, on this blog, including this 2013 post, for example: 

*  The Public Policy Forum noted many of these realities in a 2002 study: 

*  The Brookings Institution’s John Austin took note of the penalties of legacy discrimination in a major 2007 study which I noted on my blog at the time: 

Themes repeated with data and links often on this blog, for example, here or here. 

“The lack of housing diversity here suppresses the housing market, promises to accelerate the concentration of poverty, undercuts the local economy, segregates educational opportunities and undermines the wealth-building potential for thousands of families,” said Jeffrey Browne, forum vice president and research director.

That said, I wanted to make sure people saw the important acknowledgment by Preston Cole, Gov. Evers' pick for DNR Secretary still awaiting a confirmation vote by snitty Senate Republicans, that environmental threats fall disproportionally unfairly on low-income Wisconsinites and people of color.

Wisconsin DNR secretary: Climate change an environmental justice issue

“Climate change is also an environmental justice issue,” Cole said. “Everyone is affected by climate change at some point in their lives, but communities of color, low income communities are often the hardest hit.” 

More about why climate science was stripped from a key DNR website and ditched in state planning, here.

References to climate change, rising temperatures and the human activities that cause them have been removed recently from a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources web page.

The revisions were caught by James Rowen, a former reporter and editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who now blogs about state politics. He said this isn't the first time Gov. Scott Walker and his administration deliberately carried out politicized changes to state-sponsored websites, and that it's a reflection of the "chamber of commerce mentality" coming from the state Capitol.  

While the term "environmental justice" may not resonate everywhere - - for example, if Robin Vos was engaged with its importance, he'd have been advocating for transit funding that is declining in Southeastern Wisconsin, the very region he represents and in which the largest numbers of the state's minority and low-income citizens reside:

Unless the Region is able to identify a new source of funding for transit, there will be less transit service in 2050 than is currently provided in the Region. The Region’s existing transit service has already declined about 25 percent from the amount provided in the year 2000. 

And Vos would have never suggested that Wisconsin stop providing a dedicated share of state transportation funding for transit that was already minimal compared to the highway funding he champions and further choked into dysfunction by state-imposed barriers:

As I wrote in 2012, after Vos made his move against the [Regional Transit Authorities], RTA's:

Transit has been outright attacked in the region, led by State Rep. Robin Vos, a legislator from Racine County, a SEWRPC County.

Wisconsin legislators, with the full support of the Waukesha County delegations, used the 2011-2013 state budget to wipe out cooperative, cross-jurisdictional Regional Transit Authorities, which affirmed the anti-transit, anti-Milwaukee position taken by Waukesha's County Board when it refused to join such a body that could have more closely aligned services with Milwaukee.

Even Donald Trump's environmentally-hostile environmental watchdogs said last year that dangerous pollution and literally falls more perilously on minorities in America:

A study conducted by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists found that minority and poorer communities are disproportionately affected by air pollution relative to the overall population.

The findings by five EPA scientists, published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health, found that when looking at areas most affected by particulate air emissions, like soot, there were large disparities between communities differentiated by color and social strata.

African-Americans faced the highest impact, with the community facing a 54 percent higher health burden compared to the overall population, the study found. Non-white communities overall had a 28 percent higher health burden and those living under the poverty line had a 35 percent higher burden.

The report cited historical racism and economic inequality as major factors for the disparity due to the locations of facilities emitting particulate pollution, and used that knowledge as the basis for the study.

In that vein, I'm also pleased to see that Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is proposing to include in a group of transit service extensions a new streetcar line to Bronzeville.

"When we first started talking about the streetcar, I talked about how my vision was to start in the heart of the city and then move into the neighborhoods," Barrett said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "And so today, we're announcing our initial efforts to start the process to extend it into the neighborhoods."

Here's a brief encapsulation from a 2013 piece in Urban Milwaukee of what and where Bronzeville is:

The old heart of Milwaukee’s African America could beat again

Milwaukee's Bronzeville, devastated by freeway construction, remembered and understood by a scholar-artist who sees some rays of hope as the city celebrates Bronzeville Week.

And here is a more recent posting on the city's website:

An official City of Milwaukee event now in its sixth full year, Bronzeville Week has blossomed as the premier celebration of Milwaukee’s rich African American legacy of culture, arts, history and entertainment. It is sponsored by the City of Milwaukee, the Bader Foundation, the Historic King Drive BID, the Milwaukee Bucks, VISIT Milwaukee, Alderwoman Coggs and more. Sponsors for individual events will be highlighted throughout the week.

“Bronzeville Week has become synonymous with arts, culture and commerce and thousands have enjoyed its diverse events and offerings each year. It has truly become an enjoyable and enriching August tradition in Milwaukee, and one that is welcoming to families and people of all ages and backgrounds,” Alderwoman Coggs said.

Barrett's move for streetcar service to Bronzeville follows through on multiple commitments to transit equity - - environmental justice, if you will - - that date to the urban-friendly purposes of the federal funds secured by Congressional Democrats to expand transportation options in the city.

I will note that the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, (SEWRPC), has had for several years a task force that provides a public forum for environmental justice issues and recommends approaches to addressing them.

Born in controversy, SEWRPC's Environmental Justice Task Force holds open meetings. Agendas can be accessed, here, and a more complete picture is here.

So there is a lot of environmental, social and economic justice work to do, but there are signs that state, regional and local authorities in Wisconsin are being assertive to make up for generations of unhealthy and unjust decisions.

SEWRPC Leadership Reverses Course; Now Supports Wider Water Study Analysis

A division between the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and its Environmental Justice Task Force over how studies are constructed and carried out appears resolved.

Ken Yunker, the SEWRPC Executive Director, told Tuesday's Task Force meeting that SEWEPC's staff now supports adding to the draft water supply study and recommendations an independent socio-economic analysis that the Task Force requested be included last year, but to which then-Executive Director Phil Evenson objected.

Evenson had told the Task Force that he was "insulted" by its vote approving the requested independent analysis.

I attended the meeting where the exchange took place, and blogged about it, here.

This may seem like inconsequential inside baseball, but in fact it will substantially improve SEWRPC recommendations and ameliorate long-standing complaints that SEWRPC studies, especially those started and finished in-house, lacke vitality, innovation, credibility and appeal.

It's also a victory for the Task Force and grassroots citizen participation at an agency that has had its outreach problems.

It made no sense to me that SEWRPC would fight with a Task Force it had created following a federal certification review in 2004 - - a review that said SEWRPC needed to do a better job reaching out to communities that felt ignored by SEWRPC procedures.

With the 2008 federal quadrennial review still open, and with criticism of the agency's management, governing structure and funding gaining steam over housing, transit, highway spending and affirmative action, I'm guessing that cooler heads - - or perhaps those who are more politically aware or astute - - are prevailing at the agency.

That's speculation, but it rings true.

Twenty-five months ago, in one of the first postings on this blog - - and 260 of them are focused on SEWRPC and its institutional shortcomings - - I took note of the agency's troubled outreach activities.

Maybe things are changing, these 25 months later:

Monday, February 26, 2007
ACLU Slaps SEWRPC Over Pulseless Outreach

The Wisconsin ACLU, from its Milwaukee offices, has rightly told the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission that the agency is moving far too slowly with the formation of a task force on environmental justice.

SEWRPC has had months to get this outreach effort underway but has not made task force appointments and is not aggressively getting input on appointees from communities to whom this long-overdue outreach effort is aimed, the ACLU says in its new release.

With its laissez-faire approach, SEWRPC is skating on thin ice with watchdog groups like the ACLU, and federal regulators who could use federal civil rights to light a fire under SEWRPC, as the ACLU further reminds SEWRPC by letter.

The Pewaukee-based agency already has minimal credibility with large sections of the region because of its pro-suburban history, and giving the task force formation a low priority only reinforces SEWRPC's negative image.

At this very moment, SEWRPC and other entities are discussing major changes to transit and water management policies that will guide development in the region for generations, and will therefore profoundly impact low-income residents.

Yet those residents are regularly shut out of many of these policy discussions - - a problem the environmental justice task force could help remedy.

If SEWRPC had a comprehensive planning strategy and a more inclusive mentality, it wouldn't need an environmental justice task force in the first place: its commissioners and multiple committees would have integrated genuine environmental justice principles and goals into all their work as a matter of routine.

For example, if environmental justice were an important thread in SEWRPC operations, its last housing plan for our heavily-segregated region wouldn't have been done in 1975, and SEWRPC would have been a champion for transit expansion, not $6.6 billion in new, suburb-serving freeways lanes.

It's a disgrace that community groups representing low-income and minority populations had to demand a task force in the first place, and reprehensible that SEWRPC continues to drag its feet on its implementation.

OK: back to the water study:

SEWRPC officials who guided the three-year water study have said repeatedly that the region has no water supply crisis, so slowing down the study's approval and making it more complete by studying and documenting the effect of water transfers on housing, transportation, job development and other related matters makes all the sense in the world.

Yunker told the Task Force meeting that he saw no reason why the agency's governing body - - a 21-member panel appointed by the Governor and officials from the region's seven counties - - should object to the staff recommendation that the independent socio-economic analysis be added.

It was not made clear at the Task Force meeting how the socio-economic analysis would be added to the study, or who would perform the work.

The Task Force resolution from last October recommended that all SEWRPC studies include an independent socio-economic analysis.

Given the willingness to add the level of analysis to the water supply study, it seems logical to assume that all studies will contain these elements.

You Can Tell The EPA On Monday You Want Cleaner Air In Milwaukee

Sick of unhealthy air in Milwaukee from coal-fired electric company smokestacks? Sick of being sick? Want to make a statement, literally, about the social justice implications of air pollution concentrated in Milwaukee's minority and low-income communities?


The US Environmental Protection Agency is coming to town Monday evening to take your testimony. Background and details below, courtesy of the ACLU of Wisconsin, and a coalition hard at work on this issue:

Everyone deserves to breathe clean air. But WE Energies continues to operate its dirtiest coal plant in the heart of a majority-minority Milwaukee neighborhood. And the air pollution this Valley plant creates subjects these communities to the health problems, like asthma, from polluted air.

This is NOT what environmental justice looks like. 

For more than a year, the Cleaner Valley Coalition - which includes civil rights organizations like the ACLU of Wisconsin, faith communities, and environmental groups - has been fighting for environmental justice by calling on WE Energies to clean up the Valley coal plant. On Monday, we're taking our message to the Environmental Protection Agency: EPA representatives will be in Milwaukee to hear from the community about how poor air quality hurts them and their families and why the Valley plant needs to be cleaned up. 

   

Join others who support Environmental Justice at a

Community Forum with the Environmental Protection Agency
Monday, December 12, 6:00 p.m.

Ascension Lutheran Church, 1236 S. Layton Blvd., Milwaukee 

Earlier this year, coalition pressure led to the announcement by WE Energies that they would explore cleaning up the plant. Although this is a step in the right direction, the Cleaner Valley Coalition wants a commitment to justice now. Tell representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency about your concerns for both racial equality and a clean environment.

Register to attend the event today.

The Cleaner Valley Coalition includes civil rights, faith and environmental groups including the ACLU of Wisconsin, Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin (BHCW), Milwaukee Latino Healthy Coalition (MLHC), Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA), WI Asthma Coalition, Walker Square Neighborhood Association, Milwaukee Inner-city Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), Wisconsin Interfaith Power and Light, Interfaith Earth Network, Clean Wisconsin, Islamic Environmental Group of Wisconsin, Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center, Sierra Club, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Milwaukee Riverkeeper.   

Download a flier for the event or share this email using the share bar to spread the word and invite others.

Pollution Protection Is A Social Justice Issue

Groups want Wisconsin utility regulators to look at the justice implications of the We Energies Valley generating plant's pollution.

As with all matters involving the lax regulation of this large downtown facility - - about time.

Here is their statement:

ADVOCATES REQUEST WISCONSIN PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION TO ADDRESS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IMPACTS OF POWER PLANTS

For Immediate Release: August 11, 2010

Contact: Dennis M Grzezinski , Midwest Environmental Advocates, 414-289-9200, dennisg@midwestadvocates.org Dr. Patricia McManus, Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin, 414-933-0064, bhcpmc@aol.com Karyn L. Rotker, ACLU of Wisconsin Foundation, 414-272-4032 ext 21, krotker@aclu-wi.org

In comments filed on Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Foundation(ACLU-WIF), the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin (BHCW), and Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA) requested that the Wisconsin Public Service Commission address the disproportionate adverse impacts of electric generating facilities on minority and low-income communities in Milwaukee. They seek to ensure that the PSC address these environmental justice issues in deciding whether to retire, mothball, or upgrade existing electric generating units.

“Environmental justice issues are raised most clearly by WE Energies’ Valley generating plant on Canal Street, in the City of Milwaukee. This plant is the utility’s oldest power plant that lacks modern air emission controls,” noted Dennis Grzezinski, MEA Senior Counsel. “It is located in the heart of the State’s largest majority-minority city, between the state’s largest concentration of African-American residents to the north and its largest concentration of Hispanic and Asian residents to the south. While many other old coal-fired power plants in the state are shutting down or being upgraded, the Valley plant has avoided installation of pollution controls.”

Dr. Patricia McManus, President and CEO of BHCW, emphasized that “The adverse health impacts of air pollution, of which power plants are a major source, are well-recognized. Meanwhile, asthma, caused and exacerbated by air pollution, affects nearly 100,000 Wisconsin children under age 18; is far more common in southeastern Wisconsin; and is far more prevalent among blacks than whites. The problems are exacerbated by the fact that Milwaukee has been designated by the EPA as out of compliance with air quality standards.”

“In contrast to the negative effects created by the Valley plant, WE Energies’ coal-fired generating plant in Port Washington, a community with very few non-white residents, was razed and replaced with a cleaner, natural gas fueled plant. In Oak Creek, another overwhelmingly white community, four old coal generating units were retired, construction of the second of two new units with pollution controls is nearing completion, and four other old coal generating units are continuing in operation with installation of improved air emission controls,” added Karyn Rotker, ACLU-WIF Senior Staff Attorney.

“The different treatment given the Valley plant raises questions of compliance with the requirements of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and of federal environmental justice requirements. We urge the PSC to address them.”

Environmental Justice, US Law And Government Action

I noticed that there are comments in a posting about SEWRPC that showed misunderstanding of environmental justice.

Here's some history.

And more information from the US Environmental Protection Agency, which created an office of environmental justice under President George H. W. Bush in 1992.

The US Federal Transit Administration and Federal Highway Administration also follow environmental justice principles.

You can read all about that history and law, here.

And those agencies also pass millions of dollars in our seven-county region through SEWRPC, and monitor SEWRPC's performance every four years to make sure SEWRPC is in compliance with federal policies.

Which is why SEWRPC, after a contentious federal hearing in 2004 related to the agency's continuing regional role in transportation planning and spending, established its Environmental Justice Task Force in 2007.

ACLU Slaps SEWRPC Over Pulseless Outreach

The Wisconsin ACLU, from its Milwaukee offices, has rightly told the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission that the agency is moving far too slowly with the formation of a task force on environmental justice.

SEWRPC has had months to get this outreach effort underway but has not made task force appointments and is not aggressively getting input on appointees from communities to whom this long-overdue outreach effort is aimed, the ACLU says in its new release.

With its laissez-faire approach, SEWRPC is skating on thin ice with watchdog groups like the ACLU, and federal regulators who could use federal civil rights to light a fire under SEWRPC, as the ACLU further reminds SEWRPC by letter.

The Pewaukee-based agency already has minimal credibilty with large sections of the region because of its pro-suburban history, and giving the task force formation a low priority only reinforces SEWRPC's negative image.

At this very moment, SEWRPC and other entities are discussing major changes to transit and water management policies that will guide development in the region for generations, and will therefore profoundly impact low-income residents.

Yet those residents are regularly shut out of many of these policy discussions - - a problem the environmental justice task force could help remedy.

If SEWRPC had a comprehensive planning strategy and a more inclusive mentality, it wouldn't need an environmental justice task force in the first place: its commissioners and multiple committees would have integrated genuine environmental justice principles and goals into all their work as a matter of routine.

For example, if environmental justice were an important thread in SEWRPC operations, its last housing plan for our heavily-segregated region wouldn't have been done in 1975, and SEWRPC would have been a champion for transit expansion, not $6.6 billion in new, suburb-serving freeways lanes.

It's a disgrace that community groups representing low-income and minority populations had to demand a task force in the first place, and reprehensible that SEWRPC continues to drag its feet on its implementation.

SEWRPC Warned Against Possible Open Meeting Violation

Staff at the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission want a key task force to wrap up its work "via email."

An attorney for the ACLU of Wisconsin is advising SEWRPC against that process because it would violate the Wisconsin open meeting law.

An important issue is involved: work by consultants for the SEWRPC Environmental Justice Task Force looking at possible socio-economic impacts of the agency's draft water supply recommendations - - including an endorsement of diverting Lake Michigan water to Waukesha.

The consultants held public focus group sessions and the task force has discussed the issues at length in public meetings since the winter. What remains is task force action on the consultants' work, and presumably, a vote on a resolution to express the task force conclusions.

Those conclusions will be forwarded on to the SEWRPC water advisory committee, and then on to other SEWRPC committees and the full commission.

Below are the relevant emails: the first is from SEWRPC outreach staffer Gary Korb, and the response is from ACLU attorney Karyn Rotker:


-----Original Message-----
From: Korb, Gary K. [mailto:GKorb@SEWRPC.org]
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 10:57 AM

Parties interested in SEWRPC's Environmental Justice Task Force:

In presenting findings of the Socio-Economic Impact (SEI) Analysis during
the July 8th meeting of the Task Force, Dr. Rast of UW-Milwaukee's Center
for Economic Development indicated that the Center would wrap up activity on
the SEI by July 30, 2010. He requested that final review by the Task Force
occur via email. We are providing you with the final materials which the
Task Force has received and will highlight several key points.

No Significant Socio-Economic Impacts Found/Procedural Recommendation For
the Future The Center staff summarized the SEI of the Regional Water Supply
Plan (RWSP) using a PowerPoint handout, which is attached above. The SEI
responds to a series of five questions, addressing population distribution,
job distribution, fiscal health and well-being of communities with
relatively large populations of low and moderate income families, housing
and land use patterns, and Federal regulations on civil rights and
environmental justice-for each of the preliminary draft recommendations of
the RWSP. In sum, no significant socio-economic impacts were found.

There is a key recommendation in the SEI for any future updates to the RWSP,
that one or more representatives be selected from either the EJTF or the
environmental justice community to serve on the technical advisory
committee. As noted on July 8th, the Task Force in 2008 recommended a
policy to SEWRPC-which is being implemented-stating that all future advisory
committees will have a member or liaison specifically representing
environmental justice interests.

Waukesha Water Utility's Diversion Application/Unlikely Socio-Economic
Impacts Under Any Alternative Also on July 8th , there was one remaining
question regarding whether or not cost differences between the alternatives
set forth in the Waukesha Water Utility diversion application would have any
differential socio-economic impacts, particularly if either of Waukesha's
groundwater alternatives would need to be implemented. The UWM Center
offered to investigate this question, comprising an evaluation of what was
perceived by some parties as a remaining "loose end" in the SEI.

The findings can be seen in the attachment above, are being fully
incorporated into Chapter 4 of the SEI after the subsection entitled
Comparison of Wholesale and Retail Water Supplies, and are reflected in the
final bullet point at the bottom of p. 6, Chapter 7 (also attached). The
UWM analysis concluded that a definitive answer was impossible due to
assumptions on cost that may change over time. However, socio-economic
impacts were unlikely, since current estimates are that future water rates
in the Waukesha Water Utility service area will be significantly higher than
in the Milwaukee Water Works service area, regardless of alternative.

Future Steps
With the additional analysis completed, UWM has indicated that its work will
be finished within the next week. The Commission would like to thank the
Center for Economic Development and its staff, particularly Policy Analyst
Kate Madison, for the extra effort involved in conducting and documenting
the SEI and addressing all EJTF questions and comments. The Task Force is
similarly thanked for the time and energy invested in the SEI review
process. Background information on the SEI and earlier chapters are
available on the UWM website: http://www4.uwm.edu/ced/sewrpc/index.cfm.

After July 30th, the findings of the SEI will be summarized, along with a
synthesis and response to all public comments received on the preliminary
draft RWSP, with documentation occurring in the recommended plan chapter
(Chapter X) of forthcoming SEWRPC Planning Report No. 52, A Regional Water
Supply Plan for Southeastern Wisconsin. The Summary and Conclusions of the
SEI (Chapter 7) will become an appendix to the Planning Report. All of
these materials will be provided to the Regional Water Supply Plan Advisory
Committee for review and consideration, and then forwarded to the Regional
Planning Commission.

Sincerely,

Gary Korb
Regional Planning Educator
UW-Extension working with SEWRPC
gkorb@sewrpc.orggkorb@sewrpc.org>


Gary:

In reviewing Wisconsin's Open Meetings Law, it appears to me that conducting
the process in the manner described below violates the law. For the EJTF to
discuss, or take any action on, the SEI, it must do so at a meeting properly
noticed and open to the public as set forth in state law. Email exchages on
listserves are "meetings" within the meaning of the law, but those list
serves are not open to the public. Considering the SEI is not an action
that falls within any exemption to the Open Meetings Law.

Therefore, I request that SEWRPC act immediately to ensure that all
discussion of the SEI take place in an open meeting of the EJTF; that SEWRPC
release any information on discussions that have been held to this point in
non-public meetings; and that the final action on the SEI be delayed until
after that open meeting has occurred.

Karyn

_______________________________________
Karyn L. Rotker
Senior Staff Attorney
Poverty, Race & Civil Liberties Project
ACLU of Wisconsin Foundation
krotker@aclu-wi.org
www.aclu-wi.org

Justice Task Force Should Weigh In On EPA Input Request; Will SEWRPC Permit It?

The US Environmental Protection Agency is looking for comment on a proposal that would require environmental justice considerations be included during agency rule-making.

Sounds like a good idea - - if you believe that environmental justice is an important standard for government to meet.

Wonder if the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, which has an Environmental Justice Task Force, and that coincidentally is meeting on September 2nd, will take a crack at weighing in?

Here is a link to the EPA request.

And the EPA work on the matter to date.

SEWRPC's relationship with its task force has been rocky, as I have mentioned: Thursday's meeting - - 4 p.m. at IndependenceFirst, 540 S. First St., Milwaukee - - should have a lively discussion about how it was that the task force had not voted on accepting a consultant report about water sourcing and policy in the region - - but SEWRPC managers moved the report anyway for adoption at a water policy advisory committee last week.

Environmental justice, or environmental injustice?

Some lesser known justice facts about Milwaukee & Wisconsin

[Updated, 8/16] Media and others interpreting civil unrest in Milwaukee might want to dig deeper into a few issues:

*  Cities are creatures of the state in Wisconsin, and during the Scott Walker era, Milwaukee has lost state-supplied revenue - - the program dates back decades as a substitute for local income tax collections - - and also lost the ability to expand its budget above state-mandated limits.

*  The "hypersegregation" label applied to Milwaukee is regional, tolerated for decades.

Many of these issues and impacts have been studied and reported to death, but the state and region resist meaningful change.

*  The state put a permanent limitation on Milwaukee's growth, tax base, job market and citizen opportunities when it froze the city's borders in 1955 through the so-called anti-annexation "Oak Creek Law." No other Wisconsin municipality has had its borders - - and its future - - fixed by a special state law.

As a result, suburbanization around Milwaukee boomed, and with it also a proliferation of discriminatory housing local ordinances which, though ruled illegal years later, remain camouflaged through legal substitutes mandating expensive, relatively large site and interior square footages in Chenequa, in Waukesha County, for example, or on big lot minimums in Mequon, in Ozaukee County, that for decades effectively kept residency upper-income, thus predominately white.

No other Wisconsin municipality has had its borders - - and its future - - politicized, influenced and fixed - - by a special state law: 

Through the use of restrictive covenants, exclusionary zoning, and aggressive police patrols, these suburbs have over the years tried to keep the City of Milwaukee, as a real and symbolic embodiment of the “urban,” out of their self-styled sanctuaries. These policies, in turn, have had the effect of concentrating the poor, people of color, single moms, and unemployed young men in the City of Milwaukee itself. The new suburbs form what [historian John] Gurda calls the “iron ring” around the City of Milwaukee, and there is no obvious way to break through the ring.

Interestingly enough, the new suburbs are the very communities in which support for Governor Walker is strongest. 

*  The state created a seven-county Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission in the late 1960's made up of Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Walworth, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha Counties. 

SEWRPC, with staff and headquarters in Western Waukesha County that is far from Milwaukee, literally and philosophically, prepares influential studies, provides technical assistance to governmental agencies in matters such as land use, housing, water and transportation, and has the power to approve certain highway projects paid for with federal funds.

All effect job creation, access, distribution, and economic opportunity.

The commission's makeup, focus and output is heavily suburban and exurban.

Each of the counties has three commission seats. For most of its existence, the commission had no African-American members.

Most of the region has higher incomes and housing values than does Milwaukee. 

Commissioner appointments are controlled by the Governor and the counties.

The City of Milwaukee, with a population larger than all the non-Milwaukee counties, and by far the largest number of transit dependent, minority and low-income residents in the region and state, has no designated commission seat or appointing authority.

Yet the commission's budget comes 100% from taxes, so the city of Milwaukee and its residents are taxed through a routine county appropriation without representation for commission purposes.

Milwaukee County transferred just over $800,000 to SEWRPC ' S 2016 budget, more than any other county share, for which city residents received little direct benefit and over which they had no direct control.

I noted SEWRPC's disconnect from minorities in this blog's first month in February, 2007.
----------------------------

The Wisconsin ACLU, from its Milwaukee offices, has rightly told the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission that the agency is moving far too slowly with the formation of a task force on environmental justice.

SEWRPC has had months to get this outreach effort underway but has not made task force appointments and is not aggressively getting input on appointees from communities to whom this long-overdue outreach effort is aimed, the ACLU says in its new release.

With its laissez-faire approach, SEWRPC is skating on thin ice with watchdog groups like the ACLU, and federal regulators who could use federal civil rights to light a fire under SEWRPC, as the ACLU further reminds SEWRPC by letter.

The Pewaukee-based agency already has minimal credibilty with large sections of the region because of its pro-suburban history, and giving the task force formation a low priority only reinforces SEWRPC's negative image.

At this very moment, SEWRPC and other entities are discussing major changes to transit and water management policies that will guide development in the region for generations, and will therefore profoundly impact low-income residents.

Yet those residents are regularly shut out of many of these policy discussions - - a problem the environmental justice task force could help remedy.

If SEWRPC had a comprehensive planning strategy and a more inclusive mentality, it wouldn't need an environmental justice task force in the first place: its commissioners and multiple committees would have integrated genuine environmental justice principles and goals into all their work as a matter of routine.

For example, if environmental justice were an important thread in SEWRPC operations, its last housing plan for our heavily-segregated region wouldn't have been done in 1975, and SEWRPC would have been a champion for transit expansion, not $6.6 billion in new, suburb-serving freeways lanes.

It's a disgrace that community groups representing low-income and minority populations had to demand a task force in the first place, and reprehensible that SEWRPC continues to drag its feet on its implementation.

-------------------------------

In recent years, the commission did establish a task force on economic justice, but only after initial resistance at the top and successful pressure from citizen and civil rights organizations.

The same kind of pressure recently led to federal civil rights litigation which forced the state to add a relative pittance - - about $13 million dollars worth of temporary transit services - - to a billion-dollar regional highway expansion at Milwaukee's western border with more affluent, faster-growing Waukesha County which the state is building at the recommendation of the commission.

More billions have been spent and will be added in future years to the same freeway expansion principally serving white, affluent areas in the region without  transit extensions.

*  Waukesha County, GOP state legislators, and then-GOP Gov.Tommy Thompson blocked light rail connections between the City of Milwaukee and Waukesha County then went further and blocked light rail development within the City of Milwaukee.

A summary story about light rail, regional politics and disparities and SEWRPC, here.

Some years later, Waukesha County officials pulled the plug on a jointly-funded bus line that connected the two counties, thus depriving Milwaukee residents of reasonable access to out-county jobs who, in large numbers, have no access to an automobile.

*  As has been par for the course, the state just helped win for the City of Waukesha a jobs-and-growth guaranteeing diversion of water from Lake Michigan

In other words, state and regional policies have kept Milwaukee and its residents land-locked, economically stunted, disconnected from neighboring wealthier, whiter areas and thus segregated - - regionally - - by race and economic status.

This blog has covered these issues for nearly ten years. There are hundreds of posts with supporting documentation. Use the index box at the upper left.

if we're going to have a discussion about segregation, let's look at the bigger picture.