Goals & Objectives:

This project focuses on a small neighborhood in St. Clair Township, Michigan and its fight for justice against local fossil fuel operations, specifically crude oil and natural gas distribution. This area is adjacent to a sprawling region known as a major center of international natural resource extraction and distribution since 1886. Formed about 8 years ago, Families Reclaiming Our Environment (FROE), headed by Venessa Davis, has sought to compile decades of permits, communications, violations, and any other evidence to build a case against the local operators that have continuously failed to comply with state and local regulations intended to protect residents from soil and air pollution. Ms. Davis and her neighbors live on a small residential street surrounded by a multi- facility hazardous site that includes an Enbridge meter station, an Energy Transfer (formerly Sunoco) tanker offloading station, tank farm, and multiple pipelines including Enbridge Line 5.

FROE has had the support of Freshwater Future for many years now, receiving a grant to advance its goal of environmental justice. Due to the ongoing impacts on her family’s health and security, Ms. Davis requires assistance to build a comprehensive timeline and record with her collection of documents in order to tell the story of this community’s injustice. She has exhausted all options available when it comes to reporting violations at the local and state level, contacting local public health and governmental authorities, and seeking to hold polluters accountable for their violations.

This project will not only assist an already overburdened community to advocate for themselves and draw attention to a long-untold story, but it will also contribute to a larger anti-pipeline and decarbonization coalition. Specifically, the Enbridge, Marathon, and Sunoco pipelines that are related to this transfer station are the focus of major environmental justice advocacy campaigns in Michigan and Canada - including Line 5, which threatens the Great Lakes every day and is an international issue of Indigenous rights.

Theoretical Justification, Social Benefit, or Significance:

The community-led efforts in St. Clair Township have resulted in a large trove of documentation that has yet to be organized and completed. As mentioned above, this research will be one of the first organized information gathering endeavors in a community dealing with multiple polluting industries that continues to be the source of spills and releases of toxic chemicals.

The health issues experienced by these residents are compounding and local public health officials and personal physicians have not had the capacity or authority to address the root causes of nosebleeds, headaches, chemical poisoning, and other preventable consequences of chronic ambient pollution. From methane in the drinking water to unreported chemical releases, FROE is fighting what many other environmental justice communities are facing.

By identifying the systemic breakdowns in regulatory accountability, this research can elucidate issues with permitting, violation enforcement, and environmental and health monitoring. Ideally, this work will identify policy solutions and reform that will strengthen regulation enforcement for the benefit of all environmental justice communities in the State of Michigan and beyond.

Specific Activities & Duration:

To address the research questions, activities will potentially include document digitization and organization, submission of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from local and state entities, and a literature review regarding cumulative health impacts, relevant case studies, and regulatory or policy solutions.

Anywhere from 3-5 students would be appropriate for this research team. While the deliverables listed below are more than enough to occupy this team, other final outputs of the project are open to be discussed and generated by the team in collaboration with Freshwater Future and FROE.

Integrative Approach:

Given the diversity of deliverables for this project, a number of specializations and disciplines are suitable to accomplish them. Specifically, an interdisciplinary approach that accounts for environmental law, policy, and regulation, public health, and Indigenous and human rights is required. See the differentiated but related roles of different SEAS specializations for more.