No More Sacrifice Zones: We All Deserve Clean Air and Water

Members of CEJN recently attended a Mayoral Candidate Forum organized by the People's Unity Platform. Here we republish the speech by Alfredo Romo of Neighbors for Environmental Justice

Photo by Sarah-Ji, loveandstrugglephotos.com

Photo by Paul Goyette

Buenas noches a todos—Good evening everyone!

My name is Alfredo Romo, I have a story to tell you, Chicago. I am the executive director of Neighbors for Environmental Justice. We educate, advocate and organize with our community to accomplish environmental justice across the city, particularly in communities of color.  We believe environmental justice cannot be separated from racial justice so we are aligned with and advocate to support larger struggles for justice in all forms it takes.

I was born in Mexico and came to this country at a very young age. I am very proud to say that I was raised in one of the most resilient communities of the city of Chicago, the Little Village community.  This community raised me with tough love where I learned to wake up everyday with the grit and desire to make the best of whatever opportunities would come my way.  At the same time, everyday it seemed that those opportunities were hard to come by as I often found myself boxed in due to economic, education and language barriers.

For over the last 20 years  I’ve lived in McKinley Park. I love my neighborhood, I love the community, and I love the park. However, like many Chicago neighborhoods McKinley Park has challenges—with no small number of them directly connected to the decisions coming out of City Hall. 

What do you tell a person when they lose their job because they get sick, then right after that they lose their home and are now forced to go into bankruptcy adding additional economic duress to their loved-ones but above all that they lose their health.  I am that person.  I am a cancer survivor and also a gun victim multiple times that overcame these harsh realities of being exposed to these sacrifice zones. 

I have seen the ways our elected officials abuse our immigrant and low-income communities, and I have seen the results of industrial pollution; but most importantly I have seen the power of our communities to fight against it.

In the cold winter months of 2018 MAT Asphalt was constructed seemingly overnight and without the knowledge of the McKinley Park residents and causing all sorts of environmental problems for the community.   Once again, there was no notification to the community by Chicago authorities and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.  

Up to 96-98% community residents had no clue as to what this heavy industrial facility would produce and how it managed to be constructed in such close proximity to our beautiful park, next door to schools and 1000 ft from residential homes.  

I remembered during that time back in 2018 I stepped out to my early morning routine walks around McKinley Park.  I came around the corner of 37th and Damen when I first noticed MAT Asphalt silos. When I saw the silos going up I knew that our community’s environmental health and the well-being of our families were in danger.  I know first hand because I used to work for a chemical company where I got to see how these operators and companies have a hard time containing their pollution within their premises.  So I brought this information back home to my family, friends, neighbors and nearby schools as other community residents around the neighborhood started to connect to one another about the heavy pollution MAT Asphalt brought. From those initial meetings, Neighbors for Environmental Justice was formed and eventually through our community organizing we were able to get MAT Asphalt’s operating permit rejected from the state and their half-billion dollar bid rejected from the city this past year. 

During this time we kept coming back to this question of how this happened? Many of us couldn’t understand the magnitude of this heavy industrial activity across the street from the park and into a residential community.  

Many neighborhood residents don’t know what the processes are around zoning and permitting, development, implementation, and enforcement.  I mean - what is an air pollution permit?! 

The truth is that the way we do zoning and permitting has a huge impact on our communities and our health. Especially from low-income Black and brown communities that the city uses as dumping grounds for polluting heavy industry. 

We’re going to continue to identify and address neighborhood environmental impacts and we’re seeking to increase transparency in order to have meaningful community involvement in the planning processes around zoning and land-use.  For many of us this is a moral, environmental and a legal argument but it is also a political and policy argument that should be fully recognized and rectified by our elected representatives and city officials to address the cumulative impacts from heavy industry that may result in disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects to our vulnerable communities. 

No more sacrifice zones! We all deserve clean air and water!