Alternatives for Communities and Environment

Carlos Moreno, an ACE youth, leads concerned citizens on a Toxic Tour of the Dudley Square neighborhood in Boston.

In environmental justice, our environment is seen broadly, as where we live, work and play. ACE is anchoring a movement of people who have been excluded from decision-making to confront power directly and demand fundamental changes in the rules of the game, so together we can achieve our right to a healthy environment.

ACE programs include:

• Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project – builds youth of color environmental justice leadership
• T Riders Union – organizes transit riders for first class service
• Services Program – provides legal and technical assistance to residents with a network of 200 pro bono environmental professionals

ACE’s approach serves as a model for communities throughout the nation and for the broadening environmental movement. As a membership organization based in Roxbury, ACE organizes residents and builds coalitions to win significant victories in Greater Boston and Massachusetts.

Youth marching into City Hall

ACE and its partners pushed Massachusetts to enact its first Environmental Justice Policy in October 2002. This policy reorients all of the state's environmental agencies to increase outreach, involvement, and resources to environmental justice communities and provides for heightened scrutiny in environmental impact reviews.

ACE helped members of the Chelsea community successfully oppose a diesel power plant in their community.

ACE and its partners won 100 clean fuel buses in regional transportation plan. In March 2002, ACE and its more than 50 coalition partners in On the Move coalition publicly launched a Transportation Justice and Livable Communities agenda and forced the regional transportation planning body to add a $40 million project for 100 additional clean fuel buses in its 25-year plan.

ACE youth forced cleanup of "mountain" of asbestos and lead-laden dirt in Roxbury.

ACE and its community partners successfully organized for new regulations for solid-waste related facilities.

ACE and its partners successfully persuaded the MA Department of Environmental Protection to install a comprehensive air monitoring station in the Dudley Square area.

ACE's youth interns are helping to build 24-hour access to the data from this monitoring site through a telephone hotline and website.

Working with the Coalition Against the Asphalt Plant, a coalition of residents from Roxbury, Dorchester, South Boston, and South End, ACE helped defeat a proposed asphalt plant, which would have contributed more pollution to an area already afflicted with poor public health.