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Environmental justice advocates and activists in Michigan are adopting new tactics to combat polluters in the state.
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Activists are leaning into community science, which involves residents gathering data on pollution in their communities and using that data to pressure regulators and polluters to take action.
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Activists are also working to build coalitions across different communities and organizations to increase their collective power and influence.
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Activists are also increasingly engaging in direct action, such as protests and civil disobedience, to draw attention to environmental issues and pressure polluters and regulators to take action.
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EJ activists are also engaging in legal battles to hold polluters accountable for the harm they have caused and to force regulators to enforce environmental laws.
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Activists are working to build a movement for environmental justice that is led by communities most impacted by pollution and that centers the voices and experiences of people of color and low-income communities.
By Public News Service | February 06, 2023
During the early 1970s, Michigan enacted a bold set of environmental laws that helped form an unprecedented check on the nation’s industrial heartland. The state’s water and air quality standards went beyond the minimum set by federal law, and it became a leader in managing natural resources and protecting wetlands.
But it wouldn’t last long.
The 1990 election of Gov. John Engler ushered in a new era of deregulation, and, for the next several decades, governors and a largely GOP-controlled Legislature shredded environmental protections while defunding and gutting the state’s regulatory agencies.
The sustained assault hobbled regulators, who are now often unwilling or unable to hold polluters accountable, and the results are in – Flint’s water is poisoned, dangerous air pollution chokes Detroit, and PFAS-contaminated water is killing residents, among other environmental crises.
But now Michigan’s polluters face a new kind of check. A loose coalition of environmental attorneys and activists are increasingly confronting industry with a multi-pronged approach – suing to force companies to follow the law, stepping in during the permitting process and waging campaigns to raise awareness of corporate misdeeds…
The rise has been accompanied by a new focus on environmental justice issues in low income communities that bear the brunt of industries’ wrongdoing and political indifference. A new generation of activists from Detroit and other cities has risen, increasingly working with long-established environmental groups (many of whom are new to environmental justice issues) to pressure policymakers.
Read more from Public News Service.
