CCHCC believes that one aspect of health care justice is a healthy environment. People deserve to live in safe and healthy neighborhoods with unpolluted water and soil and clean, fresh air. Issues of environmental protection often intersect with environmental racism and issues of poverty. Working on environmental health and justice issues frequently requires working in coalition or collaboration with other community-based organizations.
In the past, CCHCC has participated in the community organizing campaign that resulted in the closing of a medical waste incinerator that was emitting toxic pollution into a low-income neighborhood in Champaign-Urbana.
CCHCC’s current work on environmental health and justice is focused on organizing the 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign. This Campaign is a collaboration between CCHCC and residents of the 5th & Hill neighborhood. The 5th & Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign is working to address the issue of the toxic site at 5th and Hill Streets in northern Champaign. The site is the location of a former Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP).
CCHCC is also working to protect the Mahomet Aquifer from toxic waste being dumped at the Clinton Landfill. The landfill, which is owned by PDC/AREA Disposal, sits directly above the Mahomet Aquifer, and has created a new kind of dump in order to receive highly toxic, carcinogenic chemical wastes, including Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) wastes.
Over 750,000 people in 14 counties rely on the Mahomet Aquifer’s water for their drinking, cleaning, agricultural, and industrial needs. There is no greater environmental or public health threat facing Central Illinois than the possible toxic contamination of the Mahomet Aquifer.
Please explore our website to find out more about this campaign and how you can get involved!