Rhode Island proposes Environmental Justice Act

The state of Rhode Island has proposed a bill that would create “environmental justice focus areas” where state agencies would have more discretion in permitting a variety of industrial land uses that tend to pollute, including several that are part of the recycling process.

The Environmental Justice Act (HB 6196) would create a process to ensure community members in environmental justice areas are heard and give regulating agencies more discretion in issuing permits, Rhode Island Rep. Karen Alzate said during a March 30 meeting of the House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.

“The bill will help to create a process for … regulating agencies to make decisions on certain communities or indoor permits so that … these areas don't continue to be toxic dumping grounds,” said Alzate, who proposed the bill. “This bill will allow for regulating agencies to have tools to deny permits that cause harm to these particular areas and or communities.”

She said one area that could become an environmental justice (EJ) focus area is the Port of Providence, which includes many industrial facilities.

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If passed, the Environmental Justice Act would change the permit approval process in EJ focus areas for a number of facilities:

• electric generating facilities;
• resource recovery facilities or incinerators;
• sludge combustor facilities or incinerators;
• transfer stations, recycling centers or other solid waste facilities;
• landfills “including but not limited to, a landfill that accepts ash, construction and demolition (C&D) debris or solid waste;”
• medical waste incinerators;
• pyrolysis or gasification facilities;
• scrap metal facilities;
• auto salvage operations or facilities;
• asphalt plants;
• petroleum storage facilities;
• ethylene oxide manufacturing or storage facilities;
• C&D processing facilities; or
• “the renewal of any permit listed.”

While the standard would be higher for these facilities to be permitted in EJ focus areas, it still would be possible to obtain permits. The applicant would need to provide an environmental impact study, including cumulative impacts on the area. The report would need to be submitted to the municipality where the proposed facility would be located, and the applicant would need to organize and conduct a public hearing, providing public notice three weeks prior to the hearing, according to the proposed bill.

In addition to organizing and paying for advertising for the public hearing, the bill also would require the applicant to generate a transcript of the event within seven days of the hearing.

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) or local council would be able to “deny a permit application in an environmental justice focus area upon a finding that the approval of the permit would, together with the cumulative impacts posed by the existing conditions, … constitute an unreasonable risk to the health of the residents of the environmental justice focus area or to the environment in the environmental justice focus area,” according to the proposed bill.

Areas that could qualify as EJ focus areas are those that include “one or more” of the following characteristics:

• an annual median household income of not more than 65 percent of the statewide median household income;
• a minority population equal to or greater than 40 percent of the area’s total population;
• a population in which 25 percent or more of the households lack proficiency in English; and
• a minority population of 25 percent or more of the area population and an annual median household income not exceeding 150 percent of the statewide median household income.
  

During the March 30 meeting, several individuals spoke on the matter, including Danielle Waterfield, chief policy officer at the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. Waterfield said she’s disappointed that recycling facilities are specifically targeted in the bill.

“We are worried that this bill may inadvertently hurt or harm recycling in Rhode Island by removing readily accessible recycling facilities,” she said, adding the bill could “stunt innovation” that otherwise would help the state expand recycling.

Waterfield said the bill “needs clarification on the local community public comment section" and that public comment should be limited to residents of the areas affected by the proposed facility and proposed a verification process be added to the bill, ensuring local residents are represented and that the hearings are not dominated by out-of-town interests.

Rhode Island Rep. Arthur Handy said the point of the bill, in part, is to give a stronger voice to residents of the EJ focus areas.

“People in communities where these facilities are proposed are often up against it in terms of resources and expertise,” Handy said. “If they want or need to bring others from the outside in to help them sift through all the information that they’re given and, yes, lend their moral support [and] their political support as they evaluate these facilities and potentially oppose them, they should be able to do that.”

Waterfield also said the bill ought to consider the benefits recycling facilities provide to the environment, not just the local costs.

“Recycling is intertwined with the public interest, providing environmental and economic benefits,” she said. “Yet this bill gives no consideration at all to the recycling operations that have environmental measures and practices already in place to protect their communities.”

Waterfield also suggested including a cost/benefit analysis for the community in terms of jobs and costs to municipalities that manage materials.

Speaking in favor of the bill was Jed Thorp, Rhode Island director of Washington-based Clean Water Action, who said the bill is among Clean Waste Action’s biggest priorities in Rhode Island.

One of the great strengths of the bill, in addition to defining the EJ focus areas, is that it would empower the DEM and Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council to consider the cumulative impact of proposed facilities in addition to those already in an EJ focus area, he said.

“Right now, the DEM really has no ability to look at cumulative impacts when they make permitting decisions,” Thorp said. “At no point is the DEM able to take a step back and say, ‘Well, wait a second. Now we have five or six different, you know, sources of air pollution in this neighborhood. You know, what about the cumulative impacts of all that pollution?’ This would give them the ability to consider that. It doesn’t mandate them to make decisions based on this, but it would give them the authority at least to consider cumulative impacts when they make permitting decisions.”

A companion bill also has been proposed in the Rhode Island Senate.