Activism Inspiring Action: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in the Ironbound Neighborhood, Newark, New Jersey

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Abstract

The pollution produced by modern industry infiltrates all areas of human life—the air people breathe, the water people drink, and the soil people live on. Yet one area, the Ironbound neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, has disproportionately suffered the health stressors of pollution compared to its surroundings. Redlined during the twentieth century, the Ironbound has become a primarily immigrant community. For decades, heavy industry chose to build in the mixed zoning within Ironbound and the industrial zoning surrounding Ironbound’s perimeter. With child asthma rates over three times the national value and over one hundred possibly contaminated “brownfields” in the neighborhood, Ironbound residents recognize that their polluted environment threatens their health. In terms of three interpretations of environmental justice, this article analyzes the strategies that Ironbound activists, specifically the Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC), have taken to advocate for environmental justice in their community. Further, this article evaluates activists’ effectiveness at preventing industrial pollution in their communities and their ability to gain support from state and local governments. Focussing on three cases—the ICC’s failed resistance to the Covanta Incinerator, the signing of the 2020 New Jersey Environmental Justice Law, and the successful prevention of a biochar facility—this paper identifies two activism strategies in Ironbound. First, the ICC attempts to resist industry and pollution through the Federal and State judicial systems, suing polluting facilities and government organizations. Yet, with suites limited to existing law, the judicial approach fails to change the systems which have let industry proliferate in the Ironbound for decades. The second strategy, governmental influence, is more successful at changing laws and precedents and has been more successful since the signing of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Law in 2020. While ICC action has seen greater success in recent years, this research illustrates that its strategies have prioritized distributive justice (equal distribution of pollution across state residents) and procedural justice (affected people receiving equal representation with the government when choosing environmental justice solutions), neglecting the third type of environmental justice, environmental justice as corrective justice (restoring an environment to its unpolluted state). This lack of corrective justice activism corresponds to a lack of corrective justice in law, meaning that the Ironbound will continue to suffer the health stressors of its existing, concentrated industry. After analyzing laws, court records, and local journalism, this article argues that while the ICC has shown greater influence on granting Title V industrial permits in Ironbound over the past five years, the Ironbound community still lacks the agency to significantly remove pollution from the neighborhood. Besides analyzing how Ironbound’s activism has protected the neighborhood, this report presents Ironbound as a case in and of itself. The fight for environmental justice in the Ironbound shows that environmental justice action must focus on restoration to ensure residents’ health. Further, the ICC has shown that local activism can profoundly affect environmental justice precedent in both state and local governments.

Author

• Garrett Heffern, New Jersey Scholars Program