Northeast Office

Partnering with impacted communities to oppose polluting facilities

• Protecting Communities from Last-Mile Warehouse Pollution. “Last-mile” refers to the final stage of delivery from a hub to the consumer — and last-mile facilities generate three to four times as much truck traffic and pollution as a traditional warehouse. Millions of square feet of e-commerce warehouses have been planned or developed in New York City, clustered within Brooklyn, The Bronx, Staten Island, and Queens with no comprehensive planning and no regulations or public review process in place. As part of the Last-Mile Coalition, Earthjustice is working to address this threat. Alongside The New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, The Point CDC, UPROSE, El Puente, Red Hook Initiative, and Newtown Creek Alliance we are advocating for rules to ensure these facilities are no longer clustered in overburdened communities. We are also working with a statewide coalition of transportation, labor, and environmental advocates to develop statewide rules to mitigate emissions from mega-warehouses across New York State. The Clean Deliveries Act would create the first statewide “indirect source rule” to address air and climate pollution from the unregulated mega-warehousing sector.
• Shutting Down the Seneca Meadows Landfill. This privately owned and operated 400+ acre landfill is New York’s largest and accepts waste from around New York and surrounding states. Its permit expires in 2025, but its operators want to expand the landfill and extend its life for another 15 years. The landfill is a major source of greenhouse gases and produces more than 70 million gallons of wastewater each year that is contaminated with per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals.” The PFAS-contaminated wastewater is then trucked to wastewater treatment plants across the New York metropolitan area where the PFAS-tainted wastewater is discharged, untreated, to enters waterways, many of which are upstream of drinking water sources. Alongside our partners Seneca Lake Guardian, Sierra Club, Committee to Preserve the Finger Lakes, and Fossil Free Tompkins County, Earthjustice is fighting the landfill’s plan to expand and operate through 2040.

Addressing the Environmental and Energy Impacts of Cryptocurrency Mining

Cryptocurrency mining uses an immense amount of energy and produces staggering emissions when powered by fossil fuels. As a result of years of work in Albany by Earthjustice and our partners — including Seneca Lake Guardian, Clean Air Coalition of Western NY, and Food and Water Watch — and despite significant industry opposition and spending, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed first-in-the-nation legislation establishing a two-year moratorium on fossil fueled cryptocurrency mining and directing an environmental review of the practice. Alongside our partners, we are working to ensure the state’s environmental review process is comprehensive and follows the science, and that the state adopts policies to make sure cryptocurrency mining doesn’t hamper its ability to meet our climate law mandates. We are also engaged in litigation and administrative advocacy to stop New York from allowing cryptocurrency companies to buy personal fossil fuel plants without assessing the climate and environmental justice impacts.

Fighting for Clean and Safe Water

The Northeast Regional Office advocates for access to clean, affordable drinking water.

Highlights:

• Lead in Drinking Water. Earthjustice has been advocating at the federal, state, and local levels for stronger laws to protect people from exposure to lead in drinking water for several years. At the federal level, we challenged the first Trump administration Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Lead and Copper rule (LCR) and coordinated with frontline partners around the country to advocate for stronger regulation. As a result of these parallel efforts, EPA has now adopted amendments to the LCR that would take important steps forward in removing and replacing lead pipes, the main source of lead in drinking water. With this new rule, Earthjustice is now advocating for New York State to provide the funding and policy solutions necessary to ensure the equitable replacement of all lead service lines at zero-cost to residents. And in New York City, Earthjustice and its partners have been advocating for NYC Department of Environmental Protection to replace all lead service lines in NYC at no cost to individual property owners. See our report: No Excuses, NYC: Replace Lead Drinking Water Pipes Now.
• Fighting to Protect Owasco Lake from Contamination and Prevent a Drinking Water Crisis. The New York State Department of Health (DOH) has the authority and obligation to enact legally enforceable “Watershed Rules and Regulations” (WRRs) to protect drinking water sources. WRRs are powerful because they can be used to prevent contamination at the water source, rather than treating it at the tap. WRRs also provide a mechanism for communities to work with DOH to preserve their drinking water sources even if those sources lie outside of the community’s municipal boundaries. In Cayuga County residents and officials worked with DOH for years to update WRRs for Owasco Lake, a drinking water source for 40,000 that has increasingly been contaminated by agricultural runoff and harmful algal blooms. But at the 11th hour, DOH abandoned the WRR update claiming it had no authority to regulate agricultural runoff. Earthjustice represents the Town of Auburn and the City of Owasco in their efforts to achieve WRRs that adequately protect their communities’ drinking water resource.
• Protecting the Town of Thurston from sewage sludge polluting well water with PFAS. Tests of private wells in the Town of Thurston showed high levels of PFAS in wells near agricultural land. Research demonstrates that sewage sludge, a residual by-product of wastewater treatment often used as fertilizer, frequently contains PFAS. It also often contains heavy metals, pathogenic bacteria, and viruses, making it hazardous to human health. With Earthjustice support, Thurston enacted a local law restricting the spreading of sewage sludge on agricultural lands in the town. Earthjustice now represents the town in an administrative proceeding challenging the law as an unreasonable restriction on the “right to farm.” Earthjustice has also been working with a Pennsylvania town in a similar ordinance and challenge.

Working with Tribal Partners to Protect Natural and Cultural Resources

Highlights:

• Earthjustice has joined forces with the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, or Ta:nöwö:de′ Onödowá′ga: Yoindzade′, in trying to prevent a “manufacturing mega-site” adjacent to Nation land, which will take a heavy toll on the Nation, its reservation, and the surrounding environment. Earthjustice has challenged several permits for the project including U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s approval of a sewage and industrial wastewater pipeline through the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. Our lawsuit detailed the impacts on the Refuge and the Nation and shortly after filing, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service withdrew the permit.
• Earthjustice represented the Penobscot Indian Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, and the Natural Resources Council of Maine in opposition to a zoning change in Maine’s North Woods, the largest intact, undeveloped forest in the eastern United States. The rezoning would have allowed Wolfden Resources to mine 400 acres of undeveloped forest land abutting pristine native brook trout waters and critical habitat for endangered Atlantic Salmon in the Penobscot watershed where the Penobscot Indian Nation has sustenance salmon fishing rights, and near other land the Tribes use for hunting, fishing, and gathering. As a result of our successful advocacy, and in partnership with our clients, we persuaded the Maine Land Use Planning Commission to deny the zoning change and instead protect the Nations’ natural and cultural resources from extractive industry.