Justice

“NJ schools are intensely segregated along racial and class lines. The concentration of poverty is extreme. In Abbott districts, racial minorities makeup 90-95% of enrollments and students classified as in poverty represent 90-93%“
David Sciarra, Education Law Center

Bill WolfeAvery Grant, Long Branch, moderated

The South Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance (SJEJA) held a statewide conference on “The Crisis of Building Schools on Contaminated Sites and Unhealthy Schools in New Jersey” last Saturday at Thomas Edison College in Trenton.
The event focused on huge disparities in educational opportunity and the disproportionate environmental health threats that urban and minority children face at school.
The Conference featured special guest speaker Lois Gibbs, the nationally recognized upstate NY “housewife” who founded the anti toxics movement based on her family experience at the notorious “Love Canal”.

Bill WolfeRoy Jones, Co-Chair, SJEJA

Remarkably, the NJ School Construction Corporation (abolished and reestablished as the School Development Authority) has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of educational funds intended to benefit disadvantaged black children on acquisition of contaminated land and construction of schools on toxic waste sites, including Superfund sites. Such a practice would not be tolerated and never happen in wealthy suburban white school districts. Here’s a link to the video of the presentation by SJEJA Co-Chair Roy Jones (thanks to Peter Montague for shooting and sharing video):
http://www.motionbox.com/video/player/a098dfb9121fe328/

Bill WolfeDavid Sciarra, Director, Education Law Center, legal champion of the “Abbott v. Burke” equitable school funding decision

David Sciarra spoke about the continuing challenges facing Abbott districts. He emphasized the need for additional $2.5 billion in school construction funding and the gross segregation and concentration of poverty in the Abbott school districts.
Lois Gibbs was astonished that – 30 years after the tragedy of Love Canal where a community was built on top of a toxic chemical waste dump – that she was speaking in NJ (of all places) to oppose construction of new schools on landfills and toxic waste sites. Gibbs explained how government policies based on cost benefit analysis and risk assessment decide who lives and who dies. “The system is set up to keep us from winning… The results of cost benefit analysis really mean that poor and working class people don’t matter. We are expendable.” she said.

Bill WolfeLois Gibbs, of “Love Canal” fame, Director of the Center for Health, Justice and Environment

Bill WolfeDr. Peter Montague, longtime anti-toxics activist, founder of Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News, and nationally recognized proponent of the Precautionary Principle

Peter Montague, longtime anti-toxics advocate, presented recent scientific findings about health effects of industrial chemicals, which have shown to mimic hormones and impact human growth and reproduction at extremely low levels. He highlighted the ned for a precautionary approach. This would put the burden on the chemical industry to show reasonable evidence of no harm before marketing and introducing chemicals into the environment.

Bill WolfeDr. A.S. Mahdi Ibn Ziyad, Congressional candidate in NJ’s First District, environmental justice activist, teacher and adjunct professor

Dr. Ziyad spoke of the need for social and economic change to promote justice – he is a candidate for Congress in NJ’s 1st Congressional District. He emphasized that one of his platform priorities in environmental justice.

Bill WolfeAlgernon Ward, chemist adn community activist, Trenton

Algernon Ward presented a case study of successful community organizing to block construction of the Martin Luther King Jr. school in Trenton. Toxic soils were imported to the site and used as “clean fill”. The outraged community organized and forced the SCC to demolish the partially built structure ($27 million loss) and cleanup the site before building a new school there.