West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT) was founded in March 1988 by Vernice Miller, Peggy Shepard and Chuck Sutton to address ongoing West Harlem community struggles around the poor management of the North River Sewage Treatment Plant and the construction of the sixth bus depot across from an intermediate school and a large housing development -- a densely populated and heavily trafficked area. WE ACT evolved into an environmental justice organization committed to empowering the community to become a vocal, informed and proactive force that determines and implements its vision of what its environment can and should be.

The North River plant's problem proved to be a rallying point with residents who complained about the foul odors emanating from it and about suffering from respiratory problems since it began operating in April 1986. Using strong community mobilization tactics and a key civil disobedience strategy, "The Sewage Seven" -- then West Harlem District Leaders Shepard and Sutton, State Senator David Paterson, former Councilmember Hilton Clark and three others -- were arrested for holding up traffic at 7 a.m. on the West Side Highway in front of the North River plant on Martin Luther King Day, January 15, 1988. Gas masked, placard carrying community residents held up traffic across from the plant on Riverside Drive to dramatize the unbearable situation.

Three Key Objectives

Three months later, WE ACT formed with three key objectives: to force the City of New York to fix the North River Plant, to participate in determining future siting and planning decisions in West Harlem, and to affect the public policy agenda by positioning environmental justice as a major political issue. The organization has had success in meeting these objectives.

First, the campaign around the North River plant picked up momentum when a key elected official began to respond to community concerns about the plant's operation. WE ACT encouraged then Manhattan Borough President David N. Dinkins to hire noted environmentalist Barry Commoner to research and submit a study of the operation of the North River plant. The resulting document armed residents with facts and figures critical to fight this complex problem and gain greater media credibility.

WE ACT met with numerous City and State officials through the years in an effort to exact a plan of action for correcting the plant's operational flaws. However, it took a lawsuit to make the City respond. On December 30, 1993, WE ACT reached a settlement of its lawsuit against the City for operating the North River plant as a public and private nuisance. The settlement, negotiated by WE ACT's pro bono legal counsel Mark Silberman and Alan Birnbaum of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind and Wharton, as well as Eric Goldstein, of the Natural Resources Defense Council which was a co-plaintiff, called for a $1.1 million fund which has been established to address community concerns related to health, environment and service delivery.

WE ACT, in consultation with other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, controls the fund and is using it to further institutionalize a West Harlem planning and advocacy organization. Most importantly, the settlement gives plaintiffs leverage to ensure that the City completes its $55 million fix-up of the North River plant. If the City fails to comply, WE ACT can bring suit to enforce compliance with the City-State consent order and other agreements aimed at fixing and maintaining North River.

WE ACT TODAY: A FORCE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

WE ACT, a vigorous advocate for and a significant monitor of the Northern Manhattan environment, is a non-profit, incorporated, community-based organization that was staffed in October 1994. WE ACT's mission is to inform, educate, train and mobilize the predominately African-American and Latino residents of Northern Manhattan on issues that impact their quality of life -- air, water and indoor pollution, toxins, land use and open space, waterfront development and usage, sanitation, transportation, historic preservation, regulatory enforcement, and citizen participation in public policy making.

 WE ACT seeks to build a more sustainable community through:

• strong advocacy and planning
• community and voter education
• multi-ethnic, multiracial coalition building
• community organizing training and leadership development
• youth leadership development
• monitoring and reporting on environmental enforcement and municipal services' delivery
• constituency building and development of citizen task forces
• organizing informed public participation in policy making
• collaborating on environmental education and public health research with community-based institutions
• multi-media communications
• developing a lead "safe house"
• creating a green business
• creating a Community Environmental Center and training institute in a landmark brownstone to be restored and converted to be energy efficient.

Committed to the Principles of Environmental Justice, WE ACT is an active participant in the national Environmental Justice Movement, and has provided effective leadership in the development of the New York City and the northeast region environmental justice alliances to network, collaborate and impact environmental policymaking.