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If the Government Won't, the People Will...
See Also: The fight for jobs and environmental justice: Lessons and next steps in the campaign against the IES incinerators
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Community Victory Shuts IES Incinerators In California by Bradley
Angel The long community fight to close the Integrated Environmental Systems (IES) medical waste and solid waste incinerators in Oakland, California has ended in victory. In the face of escalating community protests and direct actions, the IES incinerators shut down on December 10th. This is a tremendous David versus Goliath that should inspire people everywhere fighting for community health and environmental justice. The victory is also significant as it marks the end of commercial incineration of medical waste in California. IES moved into the predominantly low-income community of color in the Fruitvale district of East Oakland in the early 1980's, and began incinerating medical waste and solid waste without thorough environmental review or public hearings. The siting of IES in this neighborhood followed the pattern of dirty industry targeting communities of color and other low-income communities for dangerous facilities that the heads of industry and government would never want in their own community. IES benefited from an extremely cozy relationship with government regulators, particularly the Bay Area Air Quality Management District - an agency notorious for lax enforcement and rubber-stamping permits for polluters. The Air District routinely approved IES' annual operating permit, and consistently denied coalition requests for public hearings on the permit renewal. Despite IES' claims that their incinerators were "state of the art," the routine emissions of dioxin, mercury and other pollutants, the ongoing violations, and government complicity with this polluter inspired the community to take action. The Coalition for Healthy Communities and Environmental Justice formed in early 1998 to unite Oakland and Alameda residents living near the incinerators with community, health, environmental justice, labor, cancer, religious, youth groups and teachers in this campaign. The coalition called on IES to replace the incinerators with safer non-incineration technologies to protect community health and the jobs of workers. Greenaction, Center for Environmental Health, Commonweal and PUEBLO were instrumental in launching the campaign. The Coalition effectively worked within and outside of the "system" to win this struggle, but we knew that ultimately the community would have to shut the incinerators ourselves. The coalition used all tactics available to pressure IES and their friends in government. We educated and mobilized the community, going door to door with multilingual teams of organizers and multilingual fact sheets and action alerts. We worked with teachers and parents in the many schools located near the incinerators. Teachers became very involved in response to numerous cases of cancer among their ranks. Community organizing meetings were held every two weeks in the evening, hosted by community groups such as the Latina senior citizens in the Las Bougainvilleas housing project near the incinerators, the National Latina Health Organization, Asian and Pacific Islanders for Reproductive Health and the Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation. One very important strategy was to organize to stop the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from approving IES' Title V Clean Air Act permit application. These government agencies who are supposed to protect public health and the environment worked hard to approve IES' Title V permit application, even though IES had hundreds of permit violations, including repeated excess emissions and uncontrolled bypasses of their pollution control equipment. Both the Air District and the U.S. EPA were prepared to approve the Title V permit even though the law is clear that a company that cannot assure compliance should not get a Title V permit. It was clear to the community that IES could never assure compliance, but the government tried to evade the law's mandate. When the community coalition demanded that the government must also deny the permit based on violations of environmental justice and civil rights, the Air District even claimed that federal civil rights laws did not apply to their decision-making. In response to this environmental injustice and racism on the part of the government, the coalition took to the neighborhoods to ask residents to sign written statements (which we prepared in English and Spanish) demanding a denial of IES' permit application, calling for a public hearing, and asking for written notification of opportunities for public comment. We submitted about 6,500 signed statements from the community, and the Air District was forced to hold a public hearing and notify all of these people of the hearing. Hundreds of people attended the hearing, and were united in opposition to the incinerators. Compelling factual testimony was submitted to make a strong record if we needed to appeal and challenge any permit approval. In response to our efforts, in January 2001 Air District staff issued a draft recommendation of a permit denial, sending shock waves through their agency and the U.S. EPA. However, pressure from top Air District and USEPA officials stopped the permit from being denied. But pressure from the community coalition stopped approval of the permit: we were at a stalemate. The coalition also vowed to appeal any permit approval, and promised to utilize Title V's citizen enforcement provisions to take legal action if the permit was approved and IES violated the permit. The coalition closely monitored IES repeated permit violations, and objected to the lack of serious - or any - fines issued by the agencies despite the numerous ongoing violations. The Air District consistently delayed action on the notices of violations, but the coalition effectively used the violations to educate the public and the media that IES was not a good neighbor. At the same time, our coalition (including local Health Care Without Harm members) worked to educate and encourage health care institutions that were IES customers to move away from incineration and to reduce their use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics and mercury-containing devices. For example, students at Stanford organized a successful campaign to pressure the Stanford Medical Center to implement health care pollution prevention practices and to phase out their use of incineration. This victory was significant as Stanford was one of IES' biggest customers. During the last four years the protests at IES' front gate grew in size and intensity. Young and old, people of all colors and walks of life came together in larger and larger numbers to demand an end to incineration. In March of 2001 Catholic school students held a procession and vigil at IES' front gates. On June 28, about 400 people took part in a spirited protest at IES, and vowed to begin direct action if IES would not negotiate in good faith. We entered into negotiations with IES to discuss a reasonable time frame to phase the incinerators out, but IES was determined to keep the incinerators operating. When negotiations broke down
due to IES' refusal to commit to an eventual end to incineration, One week after the blockade, and in an attempt to derail further protests, IES got the local Oakland City Council president - who received campaign contributions from the company - to hold a big press conference to announce a "settlement" to partially reduce incineration. Their press conference backfired when it was met with a strong protest from community residents who were infuriated at elected officials siding with an unpopular polluter. The community and coalition vowed to continue the campaign until IES agreed to completely end incineration. On August 22 the coalition held an around the clock 24 hour vigil at IES to demonstrate our determination to shut the incinerators. Dozens of people stayed all night, braving the foul odors and toxic emissions from the incinerators, and many more supporters joined in throughout the day and evening. As always, hundreds of people passing by in their cars honked their support of the protest. On September 5th a second blockade was held, with protesters locking themselves to the front gate and sitting in front of waste trucks. Undaunted by this second round of arrests, the coalition promised to keep escalating the pressure. In November, a candlelight vigil turned into an impromptu blockade as IES tried unsuccessfully to move a truck through the peaceful crowd. It now became clear to IES that they could not keep the incinerators operating forever. On December 10, IES closed the incineration facility down. Stericycle, the country's largest medical waste treatment company, purchased IES' customer list and contracts. The coalition has demanded that IES' parent company and Stericycle hire laid-off IES workers under the same or better union contract. Some workers have been rehired, and we are continuing to pressure the companies on the jobs issue. According to Stericycle officials, they are now sending waste formerly handled at IES to Stericycle autoclave facilities around the state, and to Stericycle incinerators in Arizona and Utah. The Bay Area coalition is now helping the other communities with incinerators take action to stop this dangerous toxic technology. The victory against the IES incinerators hopefully will inspire other communities to know you can win against all odds, even when you fight a powerful corporate polluter that is backed by government agencies and officials. One of the favorite chants during our many protests at IES through the years was "If the government won't, the people will, close the incinerators!" At the recent victory celebration in East Oakland, the community and coalition was proud of the fact that it was the people's struggle and determination that won this victory. |