Juneteenth, observed on June 19th, commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and serves as a powerful reminder of the continued struggle for equality. It’s a day not only to reflect on the past, but to confront the injustices that continue to persist, especially those that disproportionately impact marginalized communities.
Environmental justice seeks to address the unequal burden that low-income and communities of color face from pollution, lack of access to clean water, and limited green space. These inequities contribute to long-standing health disparities and reinforce cycles of social and economic disadvantage.
Recognizing environmental justice as part of Juneteenth highlights the deep connection between racial equity and a healthy environment. It calls for stronger policies that protect vulnerable communities and ensure equal access to clean air, safe water, and natural resources.
By integrating environmental justice into our Juneteenth reflections, we honor the legacy of resilience and reaffirm our commitment to building a more just and equitable future. Here are a few updates on how we're making an impact with our environmental justice work.
National
In the last five months, beginning with Day 1 executive orders, the Trump administration has launched a sweeping rollback of environmental justice protections— dismantling key programs like the Justice40 Initiative, eliminating the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, and revoking a decades-old executive order that required agencies to prevent environmental discrimination. These actions strip vital resources and voices from low-income communities and communities of color, who already face the greatest burdens from pollution and climate change. Environmental justice is about fairness, equity, and ensuring every community has access to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment.
These actions reflect an alarming disregard for frontline and fenceline communities and the most vulnerable among us. By dismantling environmental justice initiatives at the same time as weakening environmental protections, the Trump administration is prioritizing developers and polluters much higher than the health of our communities. Without a doubt, these actions are opening the doors to even more pollution and public health risk.
It is clear that our work is more important than ever. Clean Water Action will continue to prioritize environmental justice. We are committed to supporting all communities—regardless of their race, wealth, or background. We will amplify and empower the local voices of affected communities. We will never back down from holding polluters accountable to ensure a healthier, more equitable environment for all.
You can learn more about our defense of Environmental Justice work here!
California
In California, Clean Water Action’s top environmental justice priority remains the implementation of the Human Right to Water. Five years after our success in creating the SAFER program, more than 800,000 Californians have achieved access to safe water. But millions more in both urban and rural communities continue to struggle to afford safe drinking water. We’re working to address that need on several fronts, including promoting source water protection, working with polluters to provide replacement water to impacted communities and collaborating with water agencies to create a statewide low-income rate assistance program (which energy utilities have provided for more than 3 decades!).
On a local scale, in Kern County, the community of Lost Hills is creating its own Local Community Emissions Reduction Plan, and we recently won funding to conduct a community health survey to quantify the impacts of multiple pollution sources on the local community.
Connecticut
Connecticut is among the leaders in addressing equity, especially in providing communities in need with real access to energy efficiency programs. Many communities, such as those with many renters or language-isolated populations who can’t easily access information, need new strategies to fully tap into energy efficiency benefits, and Clean Water is modeling this work in Waterbury, Connecticut. Our team, led by Sharod Blizzard, and local partners are innovating new ways to connect with grassroots leaders and families who would like to conserve on energy use and energy bills.
Seven of eight Connecticut counties scored a D or F on the American Lung Association’s State of the Air report, with disproportionate impacts on Environmental Justice communities. That’s why Clean Water Action fought for passage of The Climate Bill (HB 5004), which sets new, stronger targets for clean energy and directs the state to develop strategies and policies that strengthen the state's climate mitigation, clean energy, resilience, and sustainability programs, particularly for vulnerable communities.
Washington DC
In Washington DC, Clean Water Action is dedicated to playing a supporting role with our partner, the Anacostia Park and Community Collaborative (APACC). APACC is a community-led effort that brings together organizations and community members to collaboratively drive progress toward eco-resilience, fair access to quality green space and the benefits of such space, and better District policies for disfavored communities in Wards 7 and 8. APACC's work includes education on issues most impacting their communities, bringing experts and DC government officials into the community to share information, and providing space and support for network partner projects and programs for DC residents. Clean Water acts as fiscal sponsor to APACC and engages as an active partner in the network’s efforts.
Maryland
In Maryland, we’ve made big strides on many of our environmental justice campaigns this year. With the passage of the Reclaim Renewable Energy Act in April – a Clean Water Action priority for the past eight years straight – Maryland has stopped greenwashing trash incinerators as “renewable energy” and propping them up with subsidies intended for renewable energy. This has been a longtime demand of frontline community groups fighting to shut incinerators down or prevent new incinerators from being built in Maryland throughout the last two decades. With these subsidies eliminated, the work continues to transition Maryland away from trash incineration.
We've also worked hard in the last two months pushing the Baltimore City Council to amend the City’s budget and invest in Zero Waste. This push follows up on the South Baltimore Community Land Trust’s Title VI Civil Rights Act complaint against the City government for failing to plan a transition away from trash incineration. Just this week on Monday, the City Council amended and passed the budget to invest an additional $750,000 in composting: a step in the right direction, but much more is needed.
We’ll keep working to transition away from the trash incinerator locally and for environmental justice policies statewide, following up on this year’s CHERISH Our Communities Act. This policy would have enshrined cumulative impacts analysis and protections in the permitting system like New Jersey, Minnesota, and New York have adopted. Despite strong community support, the bill faced strong headwinds from polluting interests in the state legislature this year and did not pass, but we’ll keep fighting to pass the CHERISH Our Communities Act next year.
Massachusetts
Clean Water Action is standing with our allies in the Environmental Justice Table fighting for legislation to improve air quality. We recently co-hosted a community Asthma Justice Rally in East Boston, a neighborhood overburdened by air pollution from transportation. During this rally, residents demanded legislative action and learned how to protect their families from harm in the interim with DIY air filters and asthma treatment protocols. No one should have to fight to breathe because of where they live.
Michigan
Too few Michigan lawmakers regardless of party affiliation are willing to take environmental justice seriously, reducing environmental justice issues to hollow talking points while passing legislation that leaves impacted communities bearing the brunt of industrial pollution. Further, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) is poised to have the final decision later this year on whether or not Enbridge Energy will be allowed to drill an oil tunnel for their Line 5 pipeline under one of the most sensitive parts of the Great Lakes ecosystem, trampling Indigenous communities and their Treaty rights in the process.
Clean Water Action is continuously fighting back against these policies in the legislature and working hand in hand with our Anishinaabe allies to lead the movement opposing continued operation of the Line 5 pipeline in any form.
We’re also going on the offensive. When wealthy corporations can make huge political contributions and buy our elections, they get an outsized influence in Lansing. We are working to ban monopoly utilities like DTE and Consumers Energy, as well as government contractors like Blue Cross Blue Shield and 3M, from using political contributions to buy out our political process. When the voices of the many outweigh the voices of the well-funded few, our Democracy can work to protect the environment and prioritize the communities that have been disregarded and left out of the process for too long.
Minnesota
While Minnesotans pride themselves on our state’s quality of life, that quality is not shared equally. Despite an overall reputation for being a great state to live in, Minnesota has some of the worst racial disparities of any state in the US. This goes beyond economic factors and includes health issues caused by disproportionate exposure to pollution. Previously, Clean Water Action helped Minnesota become the third state to pass a comprehensive cumulative impacts law, with the goal of addressing the harm that polluting industries have caused to our historically marginalized communities. Going forward, this law emphasizes bringing in environmental justice communities to have a say in how the law will be implemented. We have also seen and supported major wins in Environmental Justice communities fighting to shut down polluting facilities and build community-led and -owned projects, such as the East Phillips Urban Farm Project.
New Jersey
Until June 19, 1865, news of the Emancipation Proclamation did not reach everyone. The last slave to be freed in New Jersey was not until January 23, 1866, when a state constitutional amendment was signed. In the present day, we are still fighting for justice through the lens of environmental justice, as all communities deserve to be free of pollution, have a healthy environment, and have full knowledge of and involvement in decisions that affect them. We are focused on ensuring that New Jersey's Environmental Justice law (2020) serves as a partial remedy to the cumulative injustices that disproportionately impact black and brown communities being poisoned by large polluting facilities. Clean Water Action also works every day to tackle other environmental, health, and racial injustices, including the proliferation of warehouse and port diesel pollution, unsafe drinking water in New Jersey's state prison system, and a greater number and toxicity of ingredients in beauty products marketed to women of color. You can stand with us in righting the wrongs of the past and setting a new course for our future.
Pennsylvania
Clean Water Action has worked on environmental justice in Pennsylvania for many years, with programs in low-income Black and brown communities in both Philadelphia and the Pittsburgh area. By working to address community priorities around improving air quality, addressing lead exposure, supporting community greening and reducing sewage overflows and flooding, Clean Water Action is helping increase the capacity of the local community organizations that we partner with. Our recent Philadelphia Environmental Justice Summit on the theme of "The Invisible Labor of Community Leaders" brought out 150 residents to recognize the many community-based organizations with longstanding histories in environmental justice neighborhoods in Philadelphia.
At the state level, Clean Water Action continues to bring residents from environmental justice communities to Harrisburg to connect with state lawmakers. At a recent lobby day, community members were able to directly connect with their representatives and ask them to enact proposed legislation HB 109, which would require cumulative impact assessments for new pollution sources in Pennsylvania. Modeled on legislation Clean Water Action helped pass in New Jersey, HB 109 would give Pennsylvania the authority to respond to residents who have long suffered from living in ‘sacrifice zones’ where higher pollution levels have been tolerated. After a successful state legislative hearing in Chester, PA (a community that has long suffered from environmental racism), HB 109 was voted out of committee and is waiting for action on the floor of the State House.
Texas
The Harris County Commissioners Court in Houston voted to adopt one of the nation’s first Climate Justice Plans at this level of government. Harris County is the third-most populous county in the U.S., encompassing Houston and eighteen adjacent cities and towns and totaling more than 5 million residents. See the Harris County, TX Climate Justice Plan here. Lisa Lin, Director of the Harris County Office of Sustainability, led this effort in close coordination with the Coalition for Environment, Equity, and Resilience (CEER). Together, these individuals and groups created a historic interactive process which has centered climate-impacted community members’ voices, experiences, and recommendations. Clean Water Action is proud and grateful to be a member of the CEER coalition.
Thank you for standing with us as we honor this important day in history!
