ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: Riberia Street is St. Augustine's worst street is flooded today, with cars trapped and unable to drive on it

Photo credit: Marie Hardage


Photo credit: Marie Hardage

To the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (and the EPA Administrator, EPA Deputy Administrator, EPA Director of the Office of Civil Rights and the General Counsel of EPA):

We look forward to your finding jurisdiction, after four months, on our Title VI complaint on Environmental Racism, filed January 15, 2009.

Your Environmental Justice (EJ) investigation will help make peoples' lives better here in St. Augustine. See the flooded streets (above), which African-American and low-income residents of St. Augustine have endured since anyone can remember. The traditionally African-American and low-income community of Lincolnville was founded by freed slaves in 1866 and is among the oldest-African-American communities in America. After local residents brought Dr. King here in 1964, Lincolnville and West Augustine were neglected out of retaliation. Riberia Street is part of that retaliation.

We know that people in other parts of St. Augustine (and America) would not put up for a minute with the unequal spending and rank discrimination that results in regular heavy-duty flooding here on Riberia Street, a main artery that is never repaired. Riberia Street is scheduled for repairs on a racially discriminatory basis (white areas first), with repairs stretched out for years.

Riberia Street is brought to you by the same City of St. Augustine city government that brought us police riots and the arrest of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. here on June 11, 1964 (which resulted in Congress enacting the 1964 Civil Rights Act).

Riberia Street is brought to you by the same City of St. Augustine city government that secretly dumped 40,000 cubic yards of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir and put semi-treated sewage effluent in our saltwater marsh, concealing their dumping for years. Our Congress and state governments have rightly told the City of St. Augustine that they will not receive any grants or earmarks -- why? Apparently because of documented environmental violations, wasteful spending and racial discrimination.

Will you please give the St. Augustine EJ complaint your most urgent personal attention? It is time and it is right.

With kindest regards, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Ed
Ed Slavin
www.staugustreen.com
www.cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-829-3877 (direct)
904-471-9918 (fax)