BARAGA (MI) – Tuesday’s Environmental Justice Small Grants program awarded $75,000 to the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.
This funding will help to identify environmental pollutants that are still present in the community, conduct an assessment of their environmental risks and develop materials to communicate the results.
Debra Shore, EPA Regional Administrator, stated that the Environmental Justice Small Grants Program helps tribal nations better understand potential health risks from environmental pollution. This funding helps these communities to take action to protect people from environmental hazards and health hazards.
Tribal nations like the KBIC can be more at risk from environmental pollution that damages water quality. They harvest large quantities of native fish species for their families and use them in ceremonies and other cultural practices. The KBIC LAnse Reservation is exposed to multiple stressors, including current industrial facilities such as a mixed fuel power plant and legacy pollutants. Legacy pollution from copper mining operations has left contaminated byproducts which include mercury, polycyclic aroma hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls. Phthalates, coal tars and nitrates.
Kim Klopstein, President of KBIC, stated that the EPA EJ funding opportunity will help KBIC complete a health risk assessment focusing primarily on environmental contaminants. This study will examine the effects of risk values that are set for the general public but not for tribal members or those who depend on the environment to hunt and fish.
The EJSG Project will help to increase community’s understanding of these impacts and educate them about potential exposures and risks from polluting. The community could benefit from the information generated by this project in the form of recommendations, research studies and program planning.
EJSG grants funding to community-based organizations or tribes to support projects that help residents of low-income communities understand and address local environmental health and public health issues. Underserved communities are those with environmental justice concerns and vulnerable populations. This includes people of color, rural, tribal, native, and homeless. The program’s long-term goal is to support communities in building capacity and creating community-based partnerships that can sustain themselves. This will help improve the local environment in the future.
Learn more about the EJSG Program.
A complete list of EJSG program recipients.
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