Mission

WE ACT for Environmental Justice (West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc.) is a non-profit, community-based, environmental justice organization dedicated to building community power to fight environmental racism and improve environmental health, protection and policy in communities of color. WE ACT accomplishes this mission through community organizing, education and training, advocacy and research, and public policy development.

As a result of our ongoing work to educate and mobilize our base – the more than 630,000 residents of Northern Manhattan – on environmental issues affecting their quality of life, WE ACT has become a leader in the nationwide movement for environmental justice, influencing the creation of federal, state and local policies affecting the environment.

History

One of the first environmental organizations in New York State to be run by people of color, and the first environmental justice organization in New York City, WE ACT was founded and incorporated in 1988 as the result of local community struggles around environmental threats and resulting health disparities created by institutionalized racism and the lack of social and political capital, all dynamics that led to the siting and poor management of the North River Sewage Treatment Plant, the siting and operation of 6 out of 7 New York City diesel bus depots in Northern Manhattan, the operation in our community of the only 24-hour Marine Transfer Station in Manhattan, the use of Northern Manhattan communities as New York City’s dumping ground, and the exclusion of communities of color from democratic decision-making.

In 1988 WE ACT sued the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for operating the North River Sewage Treatment Plant as a public and private nuisance. The lawsuit was settled in 1994 for $1.1 million, and WE ACT hired its first 3 staff members with a grant from the settlement funds. Today, WE ACT has 17 staff members. (To read more about WE ACT’s history, please click here.)