Standing in front of National Engineering Products, a chemical facility that shares a wall with an Ivy City family’s home, Ward 5 Council member Zachary Parker (D) announced that he was introducing legislation that would increase scrutiny of the factory and similar small polluters across the District.
“The District has concentrated many sources of pollution in communities where residents are already struggling to make ends meet,” Parker said at a press event Monday morning. “They’re already facing and suffering from preexisting health conditions; they’re exposed to hostile built environments and high concentrations [of pollution] where there are fewer resources to push back against harmful land use, and where communities are resilient but vulnerable.”
If passed, the Environmental Justice Amendment Act of 2023 would require an official Cumulative Impact Statement whenever polluting facilities seek to obtain or renew a permit within communities facing high pollution burdens. The legislation would apply to a wide range of facilities, including waste transfer stations, concrete plants and scrap metal operations, among other things. All government agencies granting permits or licenses would need to consider these facilities’ impacts within the context of the other pollution sources in the area.
“The Department of Energy and Environment, we know they regulate, they oversee these facilities—but it’s a different experience when you’re living, breathing it every day, versus when you’re just coming out to do an inspection,” said Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Rhonda Hamilton, of Buzzard Point. “These facilities have no on and off switch: we’re always exposed to them. So I feel like this legislation is going to finally hold them accountable at an additional level.”
The 18-page bill would also create a new energy and environmental justice office within the D.C. Department of Energy and the Environment. The agency would be required to utilize the Center for Disease Control’s Environmental Justice Index, a mapping tool that analyzes 36 environmental, social and health factors at the census tract level.
Parker’s bill defines an “overburdened community” as any census block group in the top quarter in the CDC’s index, or in the second-highest quarter but next to a community in the highest quarter. That definition includes every single census tract in Wards 7 and 8, as well as nearly all of Ward 5 and a significant piece of Ward 4.
Community advocates in Ward 5 neighborhoods like Ivy City and Brentwood have long pushed for stricter regulations on new and existing polluters. Both neighborhoods score a 0.89 for air pollution on the CDC’s index, which means they experience more air pollution than 89% of all census tracts in the nation.
Much of the area’s pollution comes from toxic emissions from diesel vehicle emissions. During the hour-long press event on Monday morning, more than a dozen enormous trucks rolled by on Fenwick Street NE.
Additionally, about half of all the District’s land zones for industrial use sits in Ward 5. Often, there is little or no buffer between industry and residential neighborhoods.
“The [Fort Totten waste] transfer station has a wild smell—when company comes, you can smell the fumes, you can smell the stench, and it’s just a nightmare,” Sharon Edwards, a 25-year Brentwood resident, said in remarks at the announcement.
Edwards named several other nearby polluters, including an asphalt producer and a paving company, that she believes contribute to high rates of asthma and other health issues in her community.
Currently, D.C.’s 1989 Environmental Policy Act only requires companies or agencies to do an official environmental impact statement if the proposed project costs more than $1 million. The new bill aims to make it harder for smaller polluters to fall through the regulatory cracks, said Abel Amene, an organizer with the energy justice group We Power DC who worked closely with Parker’s office during the bill’s drafting.
“This facility [National Engineering Products] doesn’t even require a minor source permit, because it is a very small hazardous waste generator,” Abel told The Informer. “We are amending the law, to change it so that even if you have to register as a very small, hazardous waste generator, you still need a cumulative impact assessment.”
More than 20 Ward 5 community members and D.C. environmental justice advocates came to the event to show support for the bill. Speakers included Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners Rhonda Hamilton, of Buzzard Point, and Sebrena Rhodes, of Ivy City, both of whom have been outspoken about environmental justice concerns in their districts.
Council member At-large Kenyan McDuffie (I), who previously represented Ward 5, also spoke. He and Council member Christina Henderson (I-At-Large) co-introduced the bill.
Parker said he hopes to have a hearing on the bill, which will go to the Committee on Transportation and the Environment, within the next month.
In an interview, Rhodes said she was “very confident” that lawmakers would get the legislation over the finish line.
“If they don’t allow this bill to pass, then that means that they’re a part of the problem,” she said. “Then they’re not into protecting the people, they’re not into protecting our communities; they are pretty much protecting the businesses that are polluting our city — and that shouldn’t be.”