Neighbors call for action on RI Recycled Metals and other Port polluters

"Is the health and safety of our community members, our school members, and the city worth the money that is generated here?"

Over two dozen people gathered in the Port of Providence, outside Rhode Island Recycled Metals on Monday, Earth Day, to protest the unlicensed business’s continued presence in their neighborhood. The business, which is routinely fined for polluting the air and water, recently had its second large fire in two years - sending plumes of black smoke into the air and across the South Side and Washington Park neighborhoods. City and state officials seem unable, or perhaps unwilling, to do anything about the company.

The neighborhoods around the Port are ranked in the 99th percentile in terms of asthma rates and environmental injustice. Across the country, there are places as bad as the neighborhoods around the Port of Providence, but there is nowhere worse.

Here’s the video:

Linda Perri, President of the Washington Park Neighborhood Association read a letter from State Senator Tiara Mack (Democrat, District 6, Providence), who was unable to attend.

“Last year a big polluter in the port of Providence called Univar, settled with the Environmental Protection Agency to pay $800 million in Providence, Pennsylvania, and Colorado for the handling of chemicals in its facilities that put the health and safety of the residents and the workers of the facility in Washington Park in South Providence at risk. Rhode Island Recycled Metals has over a decade-long involvement with the Rhode Island Attorney General and Department of Environmental Management to bring this site here that we're standing in front of, into compliance with all environmental laws. [which they're ignoring.] Last week this site had a major fire, its second and two years [which we experienced] while the city's case against the unlicensed facility is ongoing and it has not been settled accordingly.

“Unfortunately, this headline is just one in a long, troubled trend of environmental health and safety concerns of the residents of this community, which have been fighting for years. The targeted and intentional placement of these polluting industries in family's backyards is a perfect example of environmental racism.”

Linda Perri: Shut it down and create a healthier environment because people do live here. It's not just a dump. There's a neighborhood up the street. There's a neighborhood over there and what happens here, travels. So it doesn't stay here, it goes to East Providence, Washington Park, Elmwood, and everywhere. Whatever happens here needs to be clean and green in the future.

Topher Hamblett [Executive Director of Save the Bay]: The Rhode Island Recycled Metals site has been polluting the Providence River for 15 years and one of the reasons that have been allowed to happen is the lack of will to enforce laws that protect Narraganset Bay and the communities around it. This site should not be here. This site should be shut down once and for all. Every time it rains, the pollution on this property runs off into the Providence River.

I want to remind everyone that the communities around here, and everyone in the Upper Bay, have paid a lot of money to clean up raw sewage overflows and address other problems. To allow this kind of pollution to happen year after year after year is an affront. The people who live in the communities use the Providence River for fishing. They like to enjoy the river and they should be able to do so with peace of mind and not worry that this scrap metal company has been allowed to pollute and continues to let its polluted runoff go into the Providence River. It's time to shut this down and clean it up.

Angel Ramos [People’s Port Authority]: The fire that happened at Rhode Island Recycled Meadows is an environmental injustice that is just disgusting - with black smoke billowing up a mile high into our already compromised frontline community. How much longer should we have this here? Is the health and safety of our community members, our school members, and the city worth the money that is generated here?

Greg Gerritt [Member of the Providence Sustainability Commission]: I've been trying to figure out how we clean the planet for a long time. One of the things we keep doing is allowing things like this scrap yard to be our economic development. We say this is a Port business, but it's the worst thing you can do for your economy. At this point, anything that isn't making an ecosystem healthier, cleaning the bay, cleaning the air, or isn't stopping the climate crisis is going to harm the economy. Every new study points out how badly the climate is affecting the economy already and how much worse it's going to get in the future.

We need to start our economic development in places like this - with clean economic development. Every bit of it should be around climate and justice - and if we don't put that at the center of our economic development, we're not going to make it. We can't keep having things [like scrap metal yards] and climate justice as the sideline - you have to put climate justice at the center of our economic development if Rhode Island is going to be prosperous in the future.

Ellen Tuzullo [resident and parent]: I live about a mile from here. I was driving my child to school. We drive down Allens Avenue every day. On the way to school, we heard the sirens, and this was 12 hours after the fire started - there was still smoke. It smelled terrible. We were holding our breath and it was disgusting. Rhode Island Recycled Metals has been fined over and over again. They just pay the fines. No one bothers to do anything about them. They just pay $25,000 God only knows how many times. This place is a disgusting thing that does not need to be here.

How long do we have to wait? How many times do we have our kids holding their breath? I was up in Washington Park a little bit later, after I took my child to school, and there was a horrible stench and it lingered for hours. A friend who lives there had kids up in the middle of the night having asthma attacks because of all the smoke. It is ridiculous. Shut this scrap. There's no need for this to be here. Somebody needs to be held accountable for this. It hasn't happened. It's been years and years. When is it going to stop?

State Representative David Morales (Democrat, District 7, Providence): It is no coincidence that right here, on the South Side and the Washington Park neighborhood, we have some of the highest childhood asthma rates in the entire country. That is by design. That is the result of polluters and scrap yards like Rhode Island Recycled Metals not being held accountable, running rough-shod in our communities, and being allowed to continue operating for the sake of profit - despite it coming at the expense of the health of our children, seniors, and working families that live in these neighborhoods.

It's also important to reiterate that we wouldn't see a scrap yard or these types of polluting industries along Blackstone Boulevard on the East Side of Providence. Why is it that the south side of Providence has to suffer? No community across our 39 cities and towns, across all of our different neighborhoods, should have to suffer from the continuous attacks from environmental polluters - who are caught, pay a fine, and given a slap on the wrist.

I demand that the scrap yard be shut down, and we have thorough investigations by the Attorney General - if the city isn't willing to step up and do it themselves. At the same time, we need to discuss federal oversight because I'm tired of our taxpayer dollars being used to clean the result of what these polluters cause. I'm tired of seeing working people stand here every year when there's a scrap yard fire, there's been a leak into the neighborhood, there are new exposures and toxins that are coming out that we are finding out about, and having to demand that action be taken. The time for action is now. Whether that's through the means of legislation or the means of investigations, accountability must and will be held.