Just cause

The Cellucci administration just drafted activist Veronica Eady to craft an environmental-justice policy for the state. Can she make a difference?

by Ben Geman

From her home in the Fort Hill area of Roxbury, she'll walk past the route of the diesel-spewing 49 bus, which runs from Dudley Square into downtown. The 49 isn't supposed to be there at all; it lingers in asthma-plagued Roxbury 12 years after the old elevated Orange Line on Washington Street was taken down, long after replacement service was promised. Every day, Eady will be reminded of what it means to be a second-class environmental citizen.

When she gets to work, though, she may be able to do something about it. Eady is filling a new state position as the Environmental Justice/Brownfields Program Director. The brownfields part of her title refers to the state's goal of cleaning up contaminated industrial sites so they can be used productively. The environmental-justice part, however, isn't as easily defined.

According to the precepts of environmental justice, the Number 49 bus isn't just a transportation issue, it's a civil-rights issue. For years, environmental-justice advocates have asked why low-income and minority communities so often bear the brunt of environmental hazards. It's a phenomenon that's clearly visible in the South, where low-
income and minority neighborhoods sit in the shadow of chemical plants along "Cancer Alley"; it's visible, too, in the Boston area, where waste-handling sites are clustered more thickly in Roxbury than anywhere else, and where the MBTA spends millions to improve rail connections to the suburbs while dragging its heels on replacing the relatively dirty buses that serve inner-city residents.

So, too, is the phenomenon visible in Worcester's 200 brownfields, many of which are large, heavily contaminated sites clustered in low-income, minority areas. (The city administration's now trying to redevelop the 18-acre, mostly abandoned South Worcester Industrial Park in a more "neighborhood-friendly" way, including residents and environmentalists on the project task force.) And the Regional Environmental Council has focused on raising public awareness of toxins used at auto-body shops concentrated in Main South and Piedmont.

Activists pressing state officials on these and similar issues -- such as the prevalence of incinerators in the Merrimack Valley -- have brought environmental justice to the state's attention. The Department of Environmental Protection is reviewing regulations on siting of waste-handling facilities to take "cumulative impact" from multiple pollution sources into account. Perhaps even more promising is an environmental-justice bill winding its way through the state legislature. And, of course, there is Eady's new position, in which she'll be crafting statewide environmental-justice policy. Even with awareness of the issues growing, however, she has her work cut out for her: many people have yet to learn exactly what environmental justice is.

There's also another possible obstacle. Although she'll serve under environmental-affairs secretary Robert Durand, her ultimate boss is Paul Cellucci -- a pro-business Republican who, despite some encouraging environmental positions, has a mixed record on green issues. Eady's downtown office may be only a mile or two from the location of her previous job with the grassroots environmental group Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE), but in some ways it is light-years away.

UNTIL JUST days ago, the 37-year-old Eady was the executive director of ACE. Located in Roxbury, the organization advocates for and offers legal counsel to community groups dealing with environmental-justice issues. In Boston, ACE has helped fight a proposed asphalt plan for the South Bay area and pressed for alternatively fueled buses; in Lowell, working alongside residents of a blue-collar neighborhood, it's attacking plans to build a waste-handling station near a badly contaminated Superfund site.

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IF VERONICA EADY needs motivation in her new downtown job, she'll find it on the way to work.

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That's a far cry from life in the Paul Cellucci administration. Cellucci's highest-profile brush with environmental justice wasn't exactly encouraging. When the Environmental Protection Agency reviewed Logan Airport's proposed runway expansion earlier this year, regional EPA head John DeVillars came out against the plan and voiced concern for surrounding communities; his strongly worded criticism specifically mentioned environmental justice.

But Cellucci continued to push hard for the runway. Durand, his own environmental-affairs secretary, raised environmental concerns about expansion at Logan, but Durand's office ultimately gave the plan a preliminary green light.

But Eady is hopeful about what she can accomplish in her new position. She wants to take an inventory of environmental-justice concerns statewide. She wants to begin talking with businesses about the concept. And she wants to craft policy that focuses on fair economic and environmental planning.

"It's creating a policy for the state in environmental justice when currently one does not exist," says Eady of the Environmental Justice/Brownfields Program. "Creating an environmental-justice strategy that relieves some of the excess environmental burden on low-income and minority communities."

Adds Gina McCarthy, the state's assistant secretary for pollution prevention, "Our hope is that rather than doing things on a reactive basis . . . that this position will take a lead role in developing a statewide policy on how to think more creatively in addressing environmental challenges in urban areas."

Should it pass, the environmental-justice bill will be a useful tool for Eady. Currently, state environmental officials can designate areas of "critical environmental concern." The proposed legislation, sponsored by State Senator Dianne Wilkerson (D-Roxbury), would expand that idea so that officials could also create areas of "critical environmental-justice concern" -- giving special protection to already overburdened areas. It would be left up to Eady and her colleagues at the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs to determine the scope of the legislation.

JOHN RUMPLER, an environmental attorney with ACE, points out that the pending bill and Eady's appointment, among other signs, "speak volumes about how high this issue has risen on the radar screen."

Not everyone is going to be happy about that. Business leaders, for example, are often wary of anything that smacks of new environmental regulation. Brian Gilmore, executive vice-president of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, is a fan of brownfields redevelopment, but he looks at the other half of Eady's job with a lot more skepticism, fearful of "another layer of bureaucracy" that could hinder development.

Eady speaks of open dialogue with corporate interests, but she also acknowledges her priorities explicitly -- and they won't be music to the ears of people like Gilmore. "My objective is to preserve public health, to relieve some of the environmental burden," she says, "whether that means shutting down facilities that are violating environmental laws or creating major problems, or looking at the cumulative public-health impacts a certain area may have and not [allowing] more impacts into that area."

Environmental and community activists believe there's enough room, even in Cellucci's tent, for Eady to pursue those goals. "I think a lot depends on how much latitude she is given within the administration," says Trish Settles, director of community development at the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. "Durand has been pretty good about some of these issues, and we will keep our fingers crossed that he uses her to her full potential."

"It's set up to do the right thing; I think the question is whether this is window dressing or whether they will push it so the ideas and the policies to address environmental justice are actually implemented," adds Matt Wilson, executive director of the Toxics Action Center. "To pick someone like Veronica, who has been an advocate for this, is a good sign."

In a way, Eady's challenges mirror those of the man who appointed her: Robert Durand. The environmental-affairs secretary, a former Democratic state senator, brings a solid environmental record to the Cellucci administration and has said he wants to make sure Cellucci is solidly green. On the other hand, he has been forced to compromise -- as a recent profile in Commonwealth magazine points out, he had to drop his devotion to a land-transfer tax that could have been used to fund open-space preservation.

And just this month, Cellucci again took a swipe at the environment. In a line-item veto, he stripped the Central Massachusetts Economic Development Authority (CMEDA) of $239,000 to be used by the authority, which oversees the clean-up of Worcester-area brownfields sites, thus putting in jeopardy the future of the fledgling operation.

One of Eady's toughest tasks will be finding places for the polluting facilities that she wants to keep out of already overburdened communities. When a waste facility, for example, is opposed on environmental-justice grounds, it has to go somewhere else -- and wealthier communities often have more resources to fight.

"She will not have an easy job," predicts Lois Gibbs of the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, located near Washington, DC. "But . . . I think she will be able to figure out a way, not to make everyone happy, but a way to be protective of people in environmental-justice communities and, at the same time, help corporations move in the right direction."

"She's fair and she is honest and she is a fighter," adds Gibbs, who two decades ago led her neighbors in the fight to hold polluters and the government responsible for the hazardous wastes that were dumped at Love Canal. That struggle helped lead to passage of the federal Superfund legislation. By its nature, she points out, environmental justice is about conflict. "The fact that you are talking about environmental-justice communities means that communities are being sacrificed," she says.

THE LOGAN runway, perhaps the state's highest-profile environmental-justice conflict, is one issue Eady isn't particularly eager to talk about just yet.

"That question is not fair," she says, laughing, when asked about it. Noting that she's "choosing her words carefully," Eady points out that unlike other types of facilities targeted by environmental-justice advocates, an airport infrastructure that already exists is difficult to replicate elsewhere. She hints, though, that she'd like to weigh in on the contentious and complex issues facing the state. "I think that my presence here could possibly help with a future difficult decision like this," she adds.

Eady cites the job she is leaving as a training ground for her new post, but her preparation extends beyond the work she did with ACE. She became interested in environmental justice as an attorney with the EPA and went on to work for the Sierra Club's Legal Defense Fund. She has taught law students about environmental justice at Stanford University, and even helped launch an environmental-law clinic in Siberia.

But her new job offers "a unique opportunity to make a broad impact," Eady says. "Since ACE works so hard on these issues, highlighting deficiencies in state policy, I felt like I was in a unique position, really familiar with the area where the state needs to beef up its policy and be protective not just of the natural environment but also of its public health."

Still, she warns, creating a new state position won't fix everything. "This is not the answer to everyone's prayers," she says. "They will still have to fight. But it makes their struggle a little bit easier."

Ben Geman can be reached at bgeman[a]phx.com.