While there are various federal, state, and local environmental policy and regulations at play with the construction and operation of affecting facilities such as the MIRA plant, there are few laws regarding the remediation of land and the distribution of funds like MIRA’s. The decisions on what to do with the land currently occupied by the closed facility and the money in the MIRA Reserve Fund will be left entirely at the hands of local and state government decisions.
Hartford community members believe that it is the duty of the local government to ensure the land is repurposed into something beneficial to the Hartford community and the money stays within the city and isn’t distributed into the suburbs or private corporate pockets. As Pedro Bermudez advocates, “Why can’t we address that funding gap to actually make the situation right by way of this remediation effort? That money should stay in Hartford.”
A general distrust in systems of environmental policy, regulations, and the local government permeated throughout the interviews and was mentioned 21 times. As Diana Heymann noted, “It has been easy for the city council of Hartford to forget about all the different neighborhoods and all the different people.” Residents feel that our systems of government are rooted in racism, and that we cannot escape our cycles of race-and class-based environmental injustice without rebuilding the systems and policies that currently ignore and oppress communities of color. One interviewee imagined environmental justice as “… the application of laws that make things right, make things evenly balanced”, going on to say, “I think we have to move forward with that ideal in mind. How do we make things right?”
Environmental and remediation policies and regulations clearly play a role in delivering justice to the Hartford community, and residents are calling upon their government to represent the American ideal, “Government by the people, for the people”, the golden standard Sister Pat says our politicians have quickly forgotten.
