Keisha Allen, Author at Baltimore Beat Black-led, Black-controlled news Thu, 28 Jul 2022 20:33:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://baltimorebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/cropped-bb-favicon-32x32.png Keisha Allen, Author at Baltimore Beat 32 32 199459415 The Right To Breathe: Baltimore’s Clean Air Act struck down https://baltimorebeat.com/the-right-to-breathe-baltimores-clean-air-act-struck-down/ Thu, 02 Apr 2020 17:56:38 +0000 http://baltimorebeat.com/?p=5439

I was deeply disappointed to learn that on March 27, 2020, U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ruled against the Baltimore Clean Air Act that was signed into law on March 7, 2019. Judge Russell stated that, “allowing a local government to step over […]

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I was deeply disappointed to learn that on March 27, 2020, U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ruled against the Baltimore Clean Air Act that was signed into law on March 7, 2019. Judge Russell stated that, “allowing a local government to step over Federal and State decisions would ‘undermine’ the Federal Clean Air Act.”

This is simply not true.

The purpose of the Baltimore Clean Air Act is to require the city’s largest air polluters to adhere to national standards or be shut down. Over the past several decades, Baltimore City’s District 10 has been home to two waste incinerators, which are currently in operation, two landfills, and an over-saturation of industrial polluters which has created poor air quality and other unfavorable climate change. In fact, in 2013, our district would have been home to a new trash-burning incinerator if it wasn’t for the courageous efforts of the Free Your Voice group which almost single-handedly stopped the would-be polluters in their tracks. Community leaders, including myself, united with them in solidarity to make sure that a new incinerator would not be built in Curtis Bay.

Under my leadership, Harbor West Collaborative joined a coalition of more than 20 local community groups to support Baltimore City Council Ordinance 18-0306. That same year, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America reported Baltimore as the 33rd worst Asthma Capital in the nation and just last year, we moved to 19th place.

I, along with countless advocates and community organizations have worked tirelessly on protecting environmental injustices in our city. Since 2013, I worked to protect neighborhoods such as Morrell Park, Mount Winans, Westport and dozens of others against freight trains carrying potentially explosive DOT-111 crude oil by rail through our neighborhoods, working to stop crude oil terminals from being built in our city to protect residential neighborhoods like mine that are still intermixed with moderate to heavy industrial zoning and most recently, the Baltimore Clean Air Act.

If the 4th Circuit Court finds that we do not have the right as a City to protect our citizens, as your councilwoman, I will work with our legislators in Annapolis and State agencies to secure our right to do so. We are a City with unique challenges and the State should recognize the need for additional scrutiny of polluters at the local level.

I will be reaching out to Acting City Solicitor Dana Peterson Moore to urge her to take action by submitting an appeal on behalf of the City of Baltimore to the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

Had the Federal Clean Air Act of 1969 been as effective as it promised to be, some of our family members and friends in the once-thriving Fairfield, Hawkins Point, and Wagner’s Point neighborhoods may not have been displaced in the 1980s and 1990s or worse, died from respiratory-related diseases.

As the largest contributor of the state economy, Baltimore should be able to regulate waste and protect its citizens. I will continue to fight with you to ensure that District 10 will no longer serve as the City’s dumping ground for businesses not desired in other neighborhoods. I see a better future for us, and I know that together, we can build a better Baltimore.

Keisha Allen is a Westport resident and a Baltimore City Council Candidate for District 10.

Photo by Mike Mccaffrey / Courtesy Creative Commons

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Op-Ed: Crude oil terminals could be disastrous for Westport https://baltimorebeat.com/op-ed-crude-oil-terminals-disastrous-westport/ https://baltimorebeat.com/op-ed-crude-oil-terminals-disastrous-westport/#respond Sun, 18 Feb 2018 23:05:51 +0000 http://baltimorebeat.com/?p=2747

Two years ago this month, on another freezing cold day, I walked out of my front door to greet a visitor from Quebec. Marilaine Savard lived in the small town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec in July 2013 when a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded. It killed 47 people, orphaned 27 children, and destroyed […]

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Two years ago this month, on another freezing cold day, I walked out of my front door to greet a visitor from Quebec. Marilaine Savard lived in the small town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec in July 2013 when a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded. It killed 47 people, orphaned 27 children, and destroyed 44 buildings, leaving 160 people homeless. We walked less than two blocks from my front door to the train tracks, and she gasped: The train tracks curve around Westport just in the same way that they curved around Lac-Mégantic. Just like Lac-Mégantic, Westport is an isolated “town” surrounded by train tracks and water. We even have a tavern just a few yards from the train tracks, too—just like the one where Lac-Mégantic residents gathered for a birthday party were caught in a crude oil train explosion.

If new terminals are built for crude oil in Baltimore, residents of Westport would be sitting ducks just waiting for a disaster to occur. As the president of the Westport Neighborhood Association, I cannot let that happen. That’s why I will be testifying on Feb. 21 at City Hall in support of the Crude Oil Terminal Prohibition. Baltimore cannot afford the risk of becoming a hub for the oil industry. There are too many lives at stake.

When oil companies began fracking for crude oil in North Dakota in 2009, crude-by-rail traffic skyrocketed around the country. The crude oil that is transported on these trains is more explosive than conventional oil due to a higher concentration of flammable methane and toxic fracking chemicals mixed in with the crude. To make matters worse, most of the train cars carrying this oil have thin skins, no heat shields, and inadequate protections against punctures in a derailment. So when these train cars puncture, they often explode.

Crude oil trains have traveled through Maryland, right through the heart of Baltimore City, throughout the fracking boom. Between 2013-2014, over 100 million gallons of crude oil were shipped out of the old Fairfield neighborhood in South Baltimore. According to environmental group Stand.earth, 165,000 Baltimoreans live in the “blast zone” of a potential derailment and explosion—including every resident of Westport.

Baltimore’s infrastructure is old and vulnerable, and we have had too many close calls with freight trains in the city. In 2001, a train derailed in the Howard Street tunnel and caused the infamous fire and water main break that effectively shut down the city for a week. In 2013, a freight train exploded in Rosedale that broke windows, shook nearby buildings, and slowed traffic throughout the region. In 2014, the retaining wall on 26th Street collapsed, sending parked cars, streetlights, and large chunks of sidewalk onto the CSX tracks below. In 2016, a train carrying acetone derailed inside the Howard Street Tunnel.

Thankfully, none of these incidents have resulted in the devastation and tragedy that Lac-Mégantic faced. But crossing our fingers and hoping nothing bad ever happens is not a solution.

Now is the time to put restrictions on crude oil trains. As the price of oil has plummeted, there has been a dramatic decrease in crude-by-rail shipments in Baltimore and across the country. We need to ensure that, when the next oil boom kicks off, Westport or any other impacted Baltimore neighborhood doesn’t become the next Lac-Mégantic.

The Crude Oil Terminal Prohibition prevents the construction of any new crude oil terminals and limits the existing two in the city from expanding. This will not entirely eliminate the threat of

crude-by-rail traffic in Baltimore because federal regulations preempt local regulations on rail; nothing the City can pass would—but it will prevent an increase in traffic and send a strong message that Baltimore does not want to be a hub for dangerous and polluting activity.

My neighbors and I in the lower South Baltimore neighborhoods need the City Council to give us their word and protect us from crude oil terminals from moving into our neighborhoods. I and other community leaders contribute countless hours of our personal time in order to dismantle the poor and industrially dangerous living conditions and environmental stresses that we have to live with.

We will no longer serve as the environmental and industrial “wasteland” for Baltimore City. We are looking to City Hall for leadership by moving this bill forward and ask council members of the Land Use & Transportation Committee to do the same.

Keisha Allen is president of the Westport Neighborhood Association. Find them on Twitter: @westport21230.

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