of Energy grant funded design charrettes with Khalsa Design of Somerville, Mass., which helped create a vision for the community, identify the challenges and coordinate the solutions.Ī $650,000-grant through the U.S. It’s a cycle.”įaced with a vast array of issues, the ReGenesis project was selected in 2000 as a national demonstration project by the EPA’s Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice. Crime causes more people to leave, and then more properties are abandoned. Those abandoned sites in the community caused environmental concerns but also health issues. When you look at it holistically, then you can see what is needed. “If you do that, you miss the big picture.
“You can’t separate environmental justice from social and economic justice,” Mitchell says. Crime was high in some parts of the community, where prostitution and illegal drug activity were regularly observed.Ī historic photo of the abandoned fertilizer plant, (top left) which has since been designated a Superfund site. Many industrial, commercial and residential properties sat abandoned. Census, with 25% living below the poverty line and an unemployment rate of 10%. At that time, the Arkwright and Forest Park communities were 96% African American, according to the 2000 U.S. Throughout the early years of ReGenesis, Mitchell says he began to better understand that social, economic and health issues within the community were inextricably linked.
Mitchell’s own sister, he learned, died of sepsis as an infant. Other residents reported unusually high cases of other cancers, miscarriages and stillborn births. Meanwhile, health surveys revealed that 62 people within a one-mile radius in the community died of lung cancer or respiratory disease over a 22-month period. Six brownfield sites have also been identified in the community.
Both the plant and landfill were designated as Superfund sites. Between the plant and the landfill, a series of EPA investigations detected 70 contaminants, including mercury and lead, with 30 at levels three times above allowable maximum contamination. In addition to the fertilizer plant, Mitchell grew up down the road from a former landfill.
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