“The Baltimore City Council has stood up for people once again!” stated Mike Ewall of Energy Justice Network (EJN), which has been a leader in the effort to shut down the BRESCO garbage incinerator in downtown Baltimore as well as a hazardous waste incinerator in Curtis Bay. A series of demonstrations by community activists resulted in the city’s earlier appeal of a court decision, and now have influenced the Baltimore City Council to try and halt the city from negotiating a compromise that would allow the incinerator to continue operating past 2021.
The city council unanimously passed the resolution calling on Mayor Young to stop negotiating with the city’s largest air polluter, the Wheelabrator/BRESCO trash incinerator. “The city must zealously defend the Baltimore Clean Air Act, to support clean air, health and environmental justice, and Zero Waste. The right of all local governments in Maryland to have their own clean air laws is at stake,” read a statement from EJN.
The resolution is the latest of several unanimous city council actions to move the city from incineration to Zero Waste. Ewall notes, “However we’re still at risk from Mayor Young, who calls the shots, and resolutions are easily ignored.” Community-based organizing continues in anticipation of a new administration that will take office in 2021.
Read the resolution text here, and learn more about the Baltimore Clean Air Act here.
Watch the 6 minute video of the council’s action on the resolution here:
Photo via United Workers.
