Environmental activist Majora Carter delivered the keynote at the State of the Bay Conference at Loyola Marymount University to environmental activists, scientists and government leaders this week.
A new report on the Santa Monica Bay’s water quality was released during the conference. The report found some cleaner habitats but continued concerns about waste runoff and contaminated seafood in the five years since the last report came out.
Carter talked about her introduction to environmental activism. The South Bronx, where Carter was born and raised, is one of the worst neighborhoods in New York City; the poster child for urban blight. Carter attended Bronx High School of Science and went to Wesleyan University in Connecticut. When she returned she saw her community with new eyes, noticing that the South Bronx shouldered more of the burden for disposing of New York City’s environmental waste, and there were plans for a new waste treatment plant in the neighborhood.
Carter and others in the community successfully prevented the proposed plant. That effort spurred her to a career and she has become one of this country’s most respected environmental justice activists.
For Carter, Santa Monica Bay is a reminder that there are “South Bronxes” all over the country and those neighborhoods need people working for their environmental health and survival. “The same things that protect our water, protect our people,” she said.
“The reason I am here,” she told the audience, “is because I came back to my community.” Carter started the Sustainable South Bronx organization that has successfully replaced an illegal dumpsite with the new Hunt’s Point Riverside Park, which made it possible for the community to enjoy a river that few residents knew existed.
The SSBx organization is now working on a federally funded greenway project to bring trees and cleaner air to the community. The group educates community members to see that by improving the environmental conditions in their community means better health, education and jobs for its citizens.