ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA -- JANUARY 2009 ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PETITION

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA
JANUARY 2009 ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE PETITION

To: President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

We respectfully petition the President, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Civil Rights Commission and the U.S. Attorney General to investigate pursuant to Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act our City of St. Augustine, Florida and our State of Florida for their denying citizens request to remedy their pattern and practice of:
(a) Disproportionately locating and allowing polluting, noisome, noisy, oversized and unpleasant facilities in low-income and African communities, including illegal dumps, municipal garages, water treatment plant, garbage collection facilities and the only sewage treatment plant, two of which (illegal dumping and sewage treatment plant) have recently been found by the State of Florida to be violations of pollution laws, but with only a slap on the wrist for the City of St. Augustine in each case;
(b) Refusing to investigate the full extent and effects of pollution on public health, including infant and child mortality;
(c) Failing to provide either adequate process or remedy after seven citizens petitioned for administrative remedies in the case of the City of St.Augustine's dumping solid waste in our Old City Reservoir;
(d) Secret and illegal dumping by the City of St. Augustine of 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste in the Old City Reservoir in West Augustine, a low-income and African-American community, then:
(e) Collusive City-State approval by undemocratic means of an outlandish proposal to return the 40,000 cubic yards of contaminated solid waste to Lincolnville, one of the oldest African-American communities, founded in 1866 by freed slaves (halted after the January 10, 2008 meeting at St. Paul's A.M.E. Church of the "Stop the Dump" group;
(f) Blocking accountability, transparency, discovery, trial or remedies in the wake of the Old City Reservoir and Lincolnville environmental injustice and violations of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act;
(g) Refusing to hold meetings in affected communities since promises were made to do so at the January 10, 2008 "Stop the Dump" meeting at St. Paul's A.M.E. Church; and
(h) Taking only trivial regulatory actions -- with no criminal prosecutions or Grand Jury investigations -- for violations of environmental laws by the government of the City of St. Augustine in the African American communities, including Lincolnville and West Augustine.
Local residents have "exhausted our administrative remedies" in the Old City Reservoir case, meeting our procedural prerequisites under EPA civil rights regulations.
We therefore respectfully request: (a) a thorough investigation by Federal investigators with subpoena power, (b) an FBI and Federal Grand Jury investigation of environmental crimes, obstruction of justice and coverups: (c) a public hearing before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, presided over by a truly independent Administrative Law Judge, establishing city-wide and state-wide patterns of environmental injustice and discrimination and specific goals for remedying them, and (d) final remedial orders from the EPA Administrator empowering the EPA Office of Civil Rights to bring an end to all vestiges of environmental racism by our City of St. Augustine and State of Florida..