Breathe In, Breathe Out
Here’s how Midwest environmental justice orgs are fighting some of the nation’s worst air quality battles
When we think of air pollution, cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco might readily come to mind as the country’s worst air quality offenders. But a recent study released by the American Lung Association set its sights on Midwest cities like Chicago, Indiana, Detroit, Kansas City, and Cincinnati, ranking them among the lowest air qualities nationwide. Citing high levels of year-round particulate pollution, the study found that most of this poor air quality was due to industrial pollution and transportation. Beneath the surface of this finding is another truth–when it comes to the costs of air pollution, low-income communities and communities of color pay the highest price. In the nation’s fenceline communities–neighborhoods and counties that live next to power plants, fossil fuel-powered factories, and major traffic hubs–people of color are often overrepresented, and at a higher risk of death from exposure to air pollution.
This report affirmed core issues that many environmental justice organizations across the region have been mobilizing around for decades. This week, we’re highlighting three major air quality battles that our partners have been fighting. From advocating for higher federal air quality standards, to fights against proposed city projects that would increase neighborhood air pollution, they are at every level of the fight to improve the air we breathe throughout the Midwest.
Rise4EJ and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards
Soot pollution–also known as fine particulate matter pollution–is one of the deadliest forms of air pollution. Typically released from factories that are burning fossil fuels, vehicles, and power plants, soot pollution exposure has been linked to respiratory and cardiovascular issues, as well as certain forms of cancers.
On February 7th, the EPA finalized fine particulate matter updates to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The standards update is long overdue–after twelve years of the same annual limit of twelve micrograms per cubic meter, the Biden administration has now reduced that limit to nine micrograms per cubic meter. This new regulation comes four years after a panel of air quality experts convened by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) panel deemed the EPA standards insufficient for protecting public health–a finding that the Trump administration roundly ignored. This national policy update was the result of longstanding advocacy efforts from grassroots organizations and networks of scientists and community leaders like Kansas City’s Beto Lugo-Martinez, a member of partner org Rise4EJ. But as Lugo-Martinez reminds us in the joint statement from UCS on the ruling, the work of regulating particulate matter is far from over.
“We must take into account ultrafine particulate matter, for which there is no health or regulatory standard,” Lugo-Martinez said.
“EPA action to strengthen the PM2.5 [soot] standard will not address the injustice of this pollution without enforcement data, violations, and permits…Many states utilize the Cross-State Air Pollution rule as a loophole to not implement, maintain and enforce the NAAQS and provide robust State Implementation Plans.”
Other experts have also pointed out that the standards could have been even higher in compliance with the EPA’s 8-10 micrograms range recommended by their Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. In comparison, the current World Health Organization annual target for fine particulate matter pollution is 5 micrograms per cubic meter annually.
While the fight is far from over, this new standard represents the long road of advocacy efforts by Rise4EJ and others to ensure that fine and ultrafine particulate matter pollution is reduced for communities across the country. According to EPA estimates, 4,500 premature deaths will be prevented with this change to NAAQS.
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization launches the Chicago Trucks Data Portal
As the nation’s largest freight hub, Chicago’s truck emissions have an outsized impact on the health of its residents. Despite making up just 7% of on-road vehicles in the city, trucks account for 59% of particulate matter emissions from vehicles, according to a recent study by the Natural Resources Defense Council. These emissions from diesel powered trucks can often be deadlier than vehicular gas exhaust–the state of Illinois now ranks fifth in the nation for the highest number of diesel-related deaths according to the Respiratory Health Association.
Residents of Chicago’s fenceline communities living next to major highways, industrial sites and corridors bear the brunt of this pollution–paying in respiratory issues, chronic illness, and premature deaths. Decades of systemic racism throughout the urban planning of major U.S. cities has relegated many communities to de facto sacrifice zones for the pollution that is a byproduct of large scale industrial projects, factories, and heavy vehicle traffic.
When Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) launched the Chicago Trucks Data Portal in April, it was to fight back against this environmental injustice and to support what many residents of Chicago neighborhoods flooded with truck pollution already knew–that a solution was urgent. As one report interviewee, youth climate activist Tonyisha Harris, said, “There’s an urgency to heavy-duty truck pollution because it’s diminishing the quality of lives and communities that are suffering the most from it. You simply cannot wait on asthma. It’s so disruptive to your day-to-day life and causes so much anxiety because you never know; is this going to be the asthma attack I don’t wake up from?”
The portal dives deep into data findings from 24-hour camera counts of truck traffic in neighborhoods across Chicago conducted in 2023. In one day, the report listed 5,159 trucks and buses passing through the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Archer Heights alone, with as many as 432 trucks coming through the neighborhood each hour. While the EPA has recently announced new greenhouse gas standards for heavy-duty vehicles manufactured in 2027 and beyond, business as usual in neighborhoods like Archer Heights means thousands of additional diesel-powered trucks and buses daily, and thousands of more breaths of polluted air for residents during that time.
LVEJO and other environmental justice organizations know that communities cannot wait this long to breathe clean air. For many residents, these pollution levels can be a matter of life or death. The data collected from the Chicago Trucks Data Portal will be lifesaving for many, putting numbers behind the lived experiences of Chicagoans in the hopes of advocating for legislative pathways to zero emissions vehicles statewide.
Community Members for Environmental Justice and Minnesota’s Amortization Bill
Last May, a surprise EPA visit to the Smith Foundry in Minneapolis’ East Phillips neighborhood uncovered a bevy of air pollution violations at the site. The Smith Foundry is an iron metal processing plant that sits just a few blocks from the offices and homes of our partners at the Little Earth Residents’ Association. The EPA findings cited nine different federal violations of the Clean Air Act between 2018 and 2023, with the Foundry regularly emitting nearly twice the limit of allowable air pollution under state permits. The visit also revealed the Foundry’s failure to protect employees from exposure to hazardous chemicals like carbon monoxide and crystalline silica. Although the Foundry has since been fined by the EPA and is now under a federal enforcement process, cities like Minneapolis are often left with their hands tied when it comes to shutting down major industrial sites that have been grandfathered into statewide use laws in Minnesota.
In response, Community Members for Environmental Justice (CMEJ) have championed SF4316 during this legislative session; a bill that would authorize cities across the state to eliminate a use by amortization for businesses involved in industrial uses, production and processing. As a call script drafted by CMEJ leaders explained, “under the current law, cities can change their zoning laws, but they cannot ask for ‘grandfathered in’ uses to end.”
A graphic designed by Hawwa Youngmark (she/they) for the CMEJ campaign to get a second hearing for the Amortization bill in April. Image courtesy of Roxxanne O’Brien.
Amortization in city zoning codes allows municipalities to set a compliance date for nonconformities to end nonconforming use. Nonconformities like the Smith Foundry are businesses that do not meet current municipal codes, but were grandfathered into them because they were up to standards at the time of the law change. With this existing loophole, many nonconformities that are polluting fenceline neighborhoods in Minneapolis cannot be mandated by the city to phase out their current operations. The SF4316 bill aims to change this by incorporating production, processing and industrial uses facilities into the exceptions clause of the law. This amendment would enable Minnesota cities to introduce, adapt, and enforce ordinances that protect residents from pollution and environmental health hazards posed by neighboring facilities that fall under these categories as defined by the city. Plans to phase out facilities like the Smith Foundry could at last be implemented by the city of Minneapolis.
On March 14th, House of Representatives State and Local Governance committee members heard testimony in support of the bill from city council members, neighborhood residents, and environmental justice leaders in Minneapolis, including CMEJ Executive Director and MWEJN Leadership Team member Roxxanne O’Brien. The bill has now been laid over into omnibus for consideration, but has also been dropped from the House omnibus—an outcome that has left CMEJ and community advocates uncertain about what will happen next in the legislature.
Visual notes created by Hawwa Youngmark (she/they) at a meeting with Hope Community/Parks and Power in Minneapolis. Image courtesy of Roxxanne O’Brien.
In the meantime, CMEJ is continuing their work on the ground, meeting with the local Teamsters union that represents Foundry workers to discuss the impacts of the bill on the health and wellbeing of their members at the site. Part of their strategizing also includes bringing a just transition framework into these conversations, where job security for workers at nonconformities and community health can unfold alongside one another.
“It’s essential to recognize that the detrimental health effects of major polluters don’t just affect our community members but also the individuals employed within these facilities,” CMEJ wrote in a recent update.
But there’s still a larger battle at play in building a coalition of support for the bill. CMEJ acknowledged that when it comes to the shared interests of people on either side of the Foundry walls, systems of structural power can often create the illusion of division.
“A huge benefit of white supremacist structures is their ability to pit two people who are in the same boat against one another… Amortization would benefit the health of both the community members and the employees of corporations that exploit them. This is our common ground.”