For 50 years, environmentalists have celebrated the illusion that the law is on their side.
This article by Markie Miller and Crystal Jankowski was published in Common Dreams on April 22nd, 2020.
Let’s abolish Earth Day. Here’s why:
The protection offered by the environmental regulatory system is an illusion.
In 2014, our Toledo, Ohio municipal water supply was poisoned by a massive algal bloom in Lake Erie. Tap water was made toxic to the touch. Even though 11 million people and untold ecological life forms depend on the lake’s waters for life, no government authority has stepped forward to stop the continued pollution of the lake at the source. Not the city. Not the state. And sure as hell not the U.S. EPA.
Frustrated with what appeared to be government inaction and not having an understanding of how the current system works, in 2017 Toledoans sued the U.S. EPA to force the Ohio EPA to “to do their job” and declare Lake Erie “impaired” under the Clean Water Act. The EPA prevailed, successfully arguing against its own responsibility to enforce protections. The system won and the people and the Lake lost. Seeing that no one was coming to save us or Lake Erie, residents of Toledo banded together, and chose to take power into their own hands to defend themselves and the lake.
We stepped outside EPA-proscribed forms of civic engagement and sat down to write our own law with the assistance of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). We petitioned for this new law, fought hard to get it on the ballot, and passed it with 61 percent of the vote. In February 2019, the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) was official law and added to Toledo’s city charter.
(To read the rest of this story at its original source please click HERE.)