Saturday, August 11, 2012

"Environomental Justice" = No 45/94 Improvements!

Other than Goofy Gaylor (see below) this has to be the wacky-of-the-week story.  (Caution:  this is a JSOnline link)

Milwaukee community organizations are suing to block reconstruction of the Zoo Interchange, accusing state and federal transportation officials of discriminating against urban minorities by not including public transit improvements in the $1.7 billion freeway project.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Madison, argues the project will "have the likely effect of exacerbating regional racial segregation, and it will have adverse environmental effects on air quality and water resources. . . . If the project proceeds, it will have major and significant impacts on the most racially segregated region in the United States."

Yup.  It's the Usual Suspects.

Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin and Midwest Environmental Advocates filed suit earlier this week against the state and federal transportation departments on behalf of Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope and the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin....

Here's the "claim":

 The lawsuit claims that pattern violated the terms of the 2000 settlement of a federal civil rights complaint that alleged state officials discriminated by favoring highway projects that benefited white suburbanites while opposing a light-rail system that could have benefited urban minorities. In that agreement, state officials agreed to help improve area transit, including cooperation with what later became the Milwaukee streetcar plan.

And there's more!!

Another concern is that the Zoo Interchange is being built with the capacity to expand if six-lane freeways are later widened to eight lanes, the lawsuit says.

That would bring more traffic and boost air pollution, at a time when "persons of color in the region, especially African-Americans, have higher rates of air-quality-related respiratory disease, such as asthma, than white persons."

Boosting the amount of pavement also would increase concerns about storm water runoff, the suit says...

"Environmental Justice", of course, is un-definable.  That's why it's in the settlement which Diamond Jim Doyle authorized. 

Lawyers like Jimbo Doyle need work, ya' know.

1 comment:

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

Last time the upgrading of 94 E-W was discussed, some idiot on the common council or county board (can't recall who, but it was a woman) stated, "If you build it, they will leave". The freeway runs two ways. If Milwaukee wasn't a dying cesspool of leftist political agenda and in line to become the next Detroit, people would flock back in.