El Puente played a leading role in the struggle against the construction of the Brooklyn Navy Yard incinerator. It was one of the key players in a broad, militant coalition that fought the project and its powerful supporters. The successful anti-incinerator campaign was the first environmental issue that brought together all sectors of the Williamsburg neighborhood, significant gain for a poor, multi-ethnic community which would be directly affected as the proposed location of the project. This battle also gave new impetus to the citywide debate over solid waste management alternatives, bringing a focus on recycling and reduction strategies. Given that solid waste is a key issue in New York City, this became a high profile struggle. Strong community resistance was nonetheless critical for a chance to halt the project. This battle against incineration was not simply another case of community opposition to the location of an unpopular facility with critical health impacts on an already overburdened population--the NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) reaction. It was also a call for alternative solid waste management options in the city. The bill signed by Governor Pataki in May 1996, amending the state conservation law reflected this demand. By requiring the cease of operations at Fresh Kills Landfill by 2002 and banning the issuance of construction or operation permits for solid waste incinerators, this legislation imposed a change in direction for New York City's solid waste program.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard was chosen as the site for the proposed incinerator by the Koch administration in 1979. This would be the first of five major incinerators planned throughout the city (one in each borough) to deal with the perceived diminishing landfill capacity. The 'super incinerator program' developed during the Lindsay administration (1966-1973), has been the city government's primary solution to end the city's almost total reliance on one waste disposal facility, Fresh Kills on Staten Island, since the early 1970s. In 1985, Mayor Koch signed a contract to build the incinerator at the Navy Yard, an environmental impact statement was completed, and the project was approved by the Board of Estimate. Throughout the history of the project supporters included the Koch and Dinkins administrations, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, project developer Wheelabrator Environmental System, Wall Street investment firms that would benefit from the bond contracts necessary for the city to pay for the construction of the incinerator, business groups, and the influential New York Times with its pro-incinerator stance.

The incinerator issue was fought throughout the 1980s, but widespread opposition really galvanized in 1991, when Mayor Dinkins announced that the city was going forward with the project. The opposition to the incinerator centered on two issues: public health and environmental impacts and a challenge to incineration as the primary solid waste management alternative for the city.

El Puente is not an environmental group; it is a community-based organization committed to human rights in the context of community and youth development.

• How and why were environmental issues incorporated into its agenda?
• What has it meant for El Puente to actively participate in a high profile environmental struggle?
• To what extent and how has this mobilization influenced the city's solid waste policy and politics?

These are some of the questions addressed in this case study.

Environmental concerns were in El Puente's agenda before the anti-incinerator campaign. Environmental health was a theme in El Puente's initial plan. However, it was the work developed by the Toxic Avengers, a small group of young students participating in one of El Puente's projects, what initiated grassroots environmental education and organizing that eventually got the entire organization involved.

The Toxic Avengers, founded in 1988, came out of El Puente's program on community health, youth service and leadership. What began as a science class designed to foster interest in environmental issues turned into a laboratory for a group of teenagers to educate themselves, create awareness in the community and take action on actual environmental hazards. Their organizing around the Radiac Corporation--a storage and transfer facility for toxic, flammable, and low-level radioactive waste located in the neighborhood, and adjacent to homes, businesses and a public school--was a turning point. It created consciousness on environmental issues within El Puente community and was instrumental in getting the larger organization involved. The Toxic Avengers lasted only three years, but their environmental education and organizing activities brought widespread publicity to El Puente.

Informed by the perspective of the environmental justice movement, El Puente views environmental concerns as part of the larger task of protecting the community: protecting it against the environmental assaults in the context of the need to improving their living conditions. According to Luis Garden Acosta, founder and chief executive officer of El Puente, the leadership of such a task should come from poor and minority people, who are the most affected by environmental problems, and it should be people with a focus on community development. Thus, for a multi-issue organization interested in community development, like El Puente, the environmental issue has a place in its agenda of social justice.

El Puente built on the work of the Toxic Avengers to reach out to the larger community. A state hearing on Radiac's emergency procedures was the first effort to mobilize the entire Williamsburg community around this issue. The Toxic Avengers sought to mobilize a massive community turn out to the hearing, and they wanted the Hasidic community to participate. This prompted Luis Garden Acosta to invite Rabbi David Niederman, the Executive Director of the United Jewish Organizations (UJO) of Williamsburg--the umbrella agency representing different Hasidic social services agencies, congregations, schools and other groups-- to come to a planning meeting for this event. The significance of this act must be understood in the context of the serious ethnic rivalries that had divided Williamsburg over several issues, including schools, police protection, and especially public housing. This had created a tense environment between Latinos and Hasidim. Rabbi Niederman accepted the invitation to the meeting after receiving reassurances that he would be safe. In this historic meeting, held at El Puente's Academy for Peace and Justice in May 1991, Rabbi Niederman offered to help lead a march through the Latino area of Williamsburg to publicize the Radiac hearing, a proposal that was enthusiastically received. Led by the two community leaders, a march was held a few months later.

Most importantly, this meeting forged the way for UJO and El Puente to collaborate in the campaign against the incinerator. In fact, UJO has been involved in protests against the project since 1985. El Puente, while aware of the project, had focused its efforts on problems with existing facilities, such as the glue company, Van Man, and the Radiac Corporation.Clearly, at this juncture, the interests of the two leaders coincided. Both Niederman and Garden Acosta perceived the incinerator as a threat to the community as a whole, not simply to each organization's constituency. They recognized that, in spite of their differences, they shared the same threat in the incinerator--the entire community was vulnerable. Furthermore, they were aware that the groups needed each other to succeed in this battle. This brought the two groups together, an unlikely partnership to fight the incinerator.

The variety of strategies used by CAFE illustrates some of the benefits of coalition work. The strategies chosen also reflected the different decision arenas to which the project moved throughout the siting process and various points of intervention available to community and environmental activists. Anti-incinerator campaign strategies ranged from public meetings and massive demonstrations--especially the 1993 multicultural march across the Williamsburg bridge, which combined a strong message of racial unity with protesting the incinerator--to lobbying at the state legislature, and a lawsuit against the city, in which the Brooklyn Legal Service Corporation represented the coalition's interests.

Several factors contributed to the level of collaboration achieved among the diverse organizations in CAFE. In a conversation with a CUCREJ's research team, Garden Acosta mentioned: trust among the organizations, respect for everybody's culture, strong sense of unity, and that the constituencies were behind their leaders. Unity existed around the environment, however, the organizations were and remain at odds on other issues.

Indeed, not everything was smooth in the process of coalition building and the interaction between Latinos and Hasidim. The coalition was put to the test several times. Particularly, it was almost in jeopardy when old tensions around the housing issue re-emerged when Latino activists protested a Hasidim's application for federal funds for a feasibility study to turning two projects into tenant-owned co-ops. The disagreement occurred at a crucial time, when CAFE was discussing the march across the Brooklyn Bridge. As a result the march was delayed for a year, and it was eventually held to commemorate Martin Luther King day in January 1993. The timely intervention of the Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation (BLSC) saved the situation and brought the groups back together; it helped to re-build trust between Latinos and Hasidim. Given that BLSC had worked with both organizations on housing issues and had a good relationship with both of them, it was able to help them reconcile their differences. This intervention emphasizes the important role of external organizations in community-based struggles, providing political guidance, technical support and assistance. Both the NYPIRG and BLSC helped Latinos and Hasidim work together despite their differences.

The community leaders played a critical role in keeping the coalition together. They brought to the anti-incinerator struggle valuable resources in their backgrounds, worldviews and leadership styles. Garden Acosta, a Puerto Rican trained in health administration, was influenced by his experiences as a former member of the Young Lords, as a young Christian involved in the liberation theology movement, and as a community organizer in the war on peace Rabbi Niederman brought his long experience in Jewish refugee work in Europe, with an emphasis on ethnic cooperation.

From the perspective of El Puente, its active participation in this struggle not only produced valuable gains for the Williamsburg community, it also was highly beneficial for the organization. Four main points should be highlighted:

1. The coalition experience has facilitated building bridges. In a conversation with a CUCREJ's research team, Garden Acosta explained that the focus of El Puente was to unite the Puerto Rican and Dominican people, which seemed an achievable goal. "But we did the impossible first; the opportunity came and we reached out to the Hasidic community." This is a first, significant step in reaching a new, constructive understanding between these two groups in learning to live as good neighbors and in community.
2. The collaborative effort has sharpened El Puente's consciousness about its organizational identity and mission and has placed these elements in perspective in the larger community. For the leaders of El Puente this experience reaffirmed internally, and made clear to the Williamsburg community as well, who they are as an organization and what is their role in the community. They see El Puente as a movement for oppressed people, an organization for peace and justice.
3. The leadership of El Puente is committed to building a multi-ethnic infrastructure for environmental justice in which all the diverse sectors of Williamsburg are represented. A clear intention exists to maintain the bridge built with the Hasidic community. While differences remain, Latinos and Hasidim can talk to each other, a significant achievement given their historical adversarial relationship.
4. The environmental issue is a lasting commitment in El Puente's agenda. Rather than a departure from El Puente's initial mission, the environmental issue has expanded its agenda. Garden Acosta views the environmental issue as a wake up call, as an opportunity for collaboration among people, a common ground. As he put it: "God gave us the environment as a common ground." The organization's plan for future work around environmental concerns includes the continuation of ongoing conservation work, sanitation transfer stations, and community health issues.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard incinerator project was halted. The May 1996 amendments to the state conservation law prohibits the issuance of permits for construction or operation of solid waste incinerators. In addition to this victory for the community, this struggle is important for other reasons. It demonstrated that, despite the difficulties, multi-ethnic, multi-racial organizing is possible. The coalition initiated a dialogue and produced a sense of unity and strength among diverse groups in an area where racial and ethnic divisions had been the norm. This is a remarkable lesson well beyond the Williamsburg community. Although attempts of El Puente and UJO to expand collaborative work to their historically divisive issues have just begun and it is clearly a more difficult undertaking, this constitutes another reason for hope. The benefits for El Puente were many. Particularly, its leading role in a high profile environmental dispute has enhanced its visibility and offered an opportunity to broaden its leadership in the community.

Together, the successful battle waged by Staten Island residents to close the Fresh Kills and opposition to building the Navy Yard incinerator in Williamsburg have forced the New York City government to look for alternative strategies to deal with solid wastes. These cumulative local efforts have pushed waste reduction and recycling as higher priorities. The environmental legislation recently enacted reaffirmed this new path for the city's solid waste management efforts. The community-based battles in Williamsburg and Staten Island contributed to developing the political support necessary to pass this law.

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