Grebien Administration and RIDEM slow to respond to environmental justice concerns

Residents opposed to paving a greenspace in an environmental justice community feel sidelined and stonewalled.

The day after a Pawtucket City Council meeting where residents complained about a lack of openness from the Administration of Mayor Donald Grebien regarding the planned paving of Morley Field - the only greenspace in the environmental justice community of Ward 5 - the City released some, but not all documents. Of the 184 public comments submitted about the project, the Administration released only three, with the name of one of the three commenters seemingly redacted.

“We have reviewed the 184 comments the City received during the public comment period,” wrote Pawtucket Business Development Corporation Consultant Michael Cassidy in a memorandum released to the public Thursday morning. “All of them expressed the opinion that Morley Field should remain as an athletic field. About 10% were a template with substituted names at the top of the comment. The City is not going to respond directly to any of the comments submitted.

“There were only three comments by persons who had read the National Parks Service submittal and had specific comments on portions of the submittal. We have reviewed these comments, which we have attached, and will be submitting some edits to the City’s submittal based on a few of their comments.”

The National Parks Service, which contributed money for the building of Morley Field, is the federal agency that must approve the site’s conversion to a parking lot.

Also related to the environmental justice issue of Morley Field are the dangerous conditions at the neighboring address of 1 Moshassuck. After taking down an old microfiber factory, the company that wants to pave over Morley Field, JK Equities, has left a poorly fenced-off wasteland of physical and potential environmental hazards at both locations, say residents.

Pawtucket resident Phil West addressed the City Council, after having sent them photos of the easy ways the fencing around both areas can be bypassed.

“I sent pictures of the easy ways for people to go through the fence or around the fence and of the terrible conditions inside - the mounds of broken concrete, the piles of rusting and jagged iron and scrap metal, the piles of uncovered soil that may have, who knows what kind of asbestos, ready to blow away piles of firewood,” said West. “That's just inviting someone to go in and torch it. You can see that people have been in there a lot because there is fresh graffiti on the walls on the far end. It's a terrible situation, and now it's getting worse as people are coming and dumping tires and garbage on the opposite side of Maho Street. I've sent pictures of that again and again, and what I'm asking tonight is the City Council take responsibility to provide oversight to make sure that this gets fixed.”

Others testified about their frustration with the Administration's slowness in releasing information about the “conversion” process the site must complete before the greenspace can be paved over.

“I'd... like to address the city's Land and Water Conservation Fund conversion application, which was submitted to [the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management] in January,” said Pawtucket resident Michael Pompili. “According to DEM, the city submitted a revised application on February 28th. This was reported in the Valley Breeze just this morning. However, there's no mention on the city's website of this revised application or what was revised, and there's no longer any trace of the original January application on the website. The revised application should be posted for public review with an opportunity for public comment on this new revised proposal.”

Pawtucket resident Anastasia Azure was concerned about the fact that public comments made and incorporated into the revised conversion application were not made public.

“I am very concerned about the public comments that were submitted about the Land and Water Conservation Fund conversion proposal for Morley Field,” said Azure. “These public comments have not been made public. This is ridiculous. Public comments have been collected. There has supposedly been a revised conversion proposal put together by the City of Pawtucket based on these public comments that have not been made public and the new proposal is not available to the public. There needs to be more transparency with this proposal.”

The idea that public comments can be redacted flies in the face of common sense. These comments are public, and therefore there is no expectation of privacy. Beyond that, the claim that “only three comments” were submitted by people who “had read the NPS submittal and had specific comments on portions of the submittal” has been contested by people who have messaged me - and even written for this site - and whose comments seem to be among the 181 the City decided to disregard. It is also impossible to verify the truth of the City’s position on these comments without the ability to review them.

As of this writing, the Grebien Administration has not responded to a request for comment.

At Wednesday evening's City Council meeting, committee members loyal to the Grebien Administration sat in bored silence as five people asked for more openness and an end to the plan to sell Morley Field to JK Equities.

Councilmember David Moran said the quiet part out loud when he passive-aggressively expressed his exasperation with Councilmember Clovis Gregor once again advocating for Morley Field. Councilmember Gregor represents Ward 5 and has been speaking of the intertwined issues of Morley Field and environmental justice for nearly two years.

Councilmember Moran: You are intimating that this is an intentional thing from the top…

Councilmember Gregor: It is absolutely an intentional thing that is being done there. Our community needs JK Equities to go there and clean things up - the plight that they've created, the pollution that they've created…

Councilmember Moran: My question is: You're saying it's being directed by the second floor, so if that's happening, are you trying to reach out to the Mayor's office directly to see what's the problem here? Like, maybe you wouldn't have to be doing this at every single meeting that we have if you can get through to the Mayor's office unless that's just not working. It just seems odd to me that you are the only city council member here this evening who can't get through to the Mayor's office. I just don't understand that.

Councilmember Gregor: I'm not going to debate that...

Councilmember Moran: I'm not debating!

Councilmember Gregor: Your argument is contrary to what's being discussed right now. What's being discussed right now is that we have a developer sitting, or two years now has taken our park. The field is closed and continues to pollute our area and very little is being done about it. This wouldn't be an issue anywhere else, just to be clear. If there was an issue like that anywhere else in the city, it would last a day. It would have been shut down and packed up. But because it's in District 5, in a vulnerable community, they're going to continue to do this because they're insisting on taking Morley Field.

Councilmember Gregor's comment about environmental justice is on point. Pawtucket resident Lisa Beade testified about the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management's so-far weak response that seems to be enabling the Grebien Administration's plans to sell and pave Morley Field.

“The Department of Environmental Management's Environmental Justice Policy... says, ‘serving our communities, protecting our environment, and connecting our people.’ It defines what environmental justice is all about,” said Beade.

“I will just quote the very first part of the ‘Our Environment’ portion. It says, 'All people who live and work in Rhode Island, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, or national origin, have a right to live in a clean and healthy environment. DEM strongly believes that no community should be burdened with adverse environmental and public health consequences as a result of Rhode Island's industrial history and heritage. Many communities in the state are disproportionately impacted by environmental and public health risks.'

“... Terrible things are happening [at 1 Moshassuck] and the neighborhood is being impacted tremendously. Their health is being impacted by all the detritus and environmental pollution that's happening as we speak. When it's dry, it blows, and when it's wet, it runs into the river and into the air for children to breathe.

“JK Equities needs to be held accountable for that. It's been going on much too long. DEM is not following their policy because they're not enforcing it. And so you've got JK Equities in violation - morally, scientifically, and ethically - damaging the health and welfare of not only the local population, which is the most vulnerable in the city but mine as well and yours because of the pollution that moves through the earth and the water.

“I want you to think about that. Think about what's happening with [JK Equities] an unresponsive company and the danger of what's happening. Please take care of 1 Moshassuck, please take care of your communities and take the fence around Morley Field away, put some money into it, and get it to the point where kids can play there.”

Michael Healey, Chief Public Affairs Officer at DEM, clarified the agencies DEM’s role.

“We’re responsible for administering the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) rules in Rhode Island,” wrote Healey in response to a request for comment. “Our job is to scrutinize whether the City of Pawtucket is meeting the requirements of the National Park Service conversion process. The city is the applicant and DEM’s role is to review the application. As with other somewhat analogous permitting processes, DEM must ensure that the city’s proposal complies with the LWCF conversion requirements and that our process in doing that is not driven by the popularity or unpopularity of whatever is being proposed.

“The LWCF conversion process does not have any specific provisions for public engagement, comments, or hearings (Code of Federal Regulations (35 CFR Part 59)). However, because of the level of public interest in Morley Field, Director Gray recommended that the city voluntarily post their proposal for public comment, to which the city agreed. Public comments were submitted to the city, not DEM, although some commenters copied DEM on their submissions. Following the comment period, the city submitted revised materials for their conversion proposal. DEM received the city’s revised conversion application on Feb. 28. We are in the process of reviewing the application materials. We have been directing inquiries on the comments to the city because, again, the city is the applicant.

“The future use of a property is not a consideration of the LWCF conversion rules,” said Healey. “Also, please note that along with a part of the Morley Field property, the city’s application requests conversions of a part of the McCoy Stadium property and a part of Dunnell Park.”

That said, there is and environmental justice policy aspect to this issue that DEM does not seem to be acknowledging.

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I've written extensively about Morley Field, and you can access most of these at the links below. I'll end here leaving the arguments for saving Morley Field to Pawtucket resident Benjamin Evans, the last member of the public to testify at Thursday's council meeting.

“There's no reason to replace Morley Field with a parking lot. JK Equities has promised that their scheme for a last-mile distribution center will provide jobs,” said Evans.

“Everybody in Pawtucket is skeptical of JK Equities, given the way that they have treated the property that they own at One Moshasuck. It is outrageous the way they've allowed that property to damage the environment and the neighborhood, jeopardizing the health of the folks who live there. They don't seem to care at all.

“I don't see any reason to believe any of their promises about jobs. Moreover, there's another distribution center, which is owned or operated by DHL on the other side of Interstate 9. That distribution center, according to their website, they're looking for drivers. They're trying to hire people.

“So number one, I don't believe JK Equities will provide jobs for the people of Pawtucket. Number two, we don't need their jobs. It seems like everybody who's looking to hire people can't find enough folks to take the jobs that already exist, specifically the DHL facility on the other side of nine five.

“The other issue is that it's outrageous that time and time again, people from Pawtucket come and speak to the city council and they say, don't pave over Morley Field, rehabilitate, Morley Field, and reopen it so that the children of District Five and the Woodlawn neighborhood have a place to play as was originally designed. It is shameful that the city has neglected that field.

“It seems like it's an intentional policy of neglect, including the closure of Morley Field as a way to make people just give up and abandon Morley Field. But people haven't given up. They continue to comment. I would echo my neighbor, Anastasia Azure when she says that you can't have a public comment, as a process where the comments are not public. The same goes for comments that are shared at the city council.

“Earlier, a Pawtucket resident said, ‘If you send in some comment by email, it just disappears. No one can ever see it. Those aren't available on the website.’

“It's an ineffective way of commenting. The same is true of the bizarre public comment process for Morley Field recently, which was a Google form where people couldn't see the other comments. It's a completely opaque, anti-democratic process. It's outrageous. Nobody wants this parking lot, this last-mile distribution center. As Phil West said earlier, we don't want giant trucks rumbling through the Woodlawn neighborhood. We want Morley Field, all of Morley Field.

“I urge the city council to abandon its scheme to work with JK Equities and save Morley Field.

“The other issue is this revised conversion plan, which violates every principle that the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management puts forth in their environmental justice policy. This revised plan is nowhere to be seen. No one can access it, no one can read it. It is another example of how the City council tries to block the people of Pawtucket from participating in government, or from even understanding what the government is doing because everything is top secret. It's outrageous, and I would urge this city council to save Morley Field.”

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