Environmental groups sue DOT over Mississippi road project - Danbury News Times

“The surrounding communities person agelong spoken retired against this costly, ineffective, and environmentally hazardous plan. It volition lone present much biology injustice to 1 of the astir historical Black communities successful Mississippi,” Ruth Story, the enforcement manager of the Education, Economics, Environmental, Climate and Health Organization, said successful a quality release. “The bequest of inequitable road decisions continues contempt the promises of this Administration.”

A DOT spokesperson declined to remark connected the lawsuit.

The different plaintiffs too Story's radical are the National Council of Negro Women, the Sierra Club and Healthy Gulf. They reason the DOT's Interconnecting Gulfport project, which would physique a roadworthy successful a wetland country adjacent to the U.S. 49 and I-10 interchange. City officials person encouraged commercialized improvement successful the area, and the roadworthy task aims to supply easier entree to buying centers. Proponents of the task besides accidental it would easiness congestion adjacent the highways.

Gulfport received a $20 cardinal DOT assistance to assistance wage for the project.

The roadworthy would tally done wetlands straight adjacent to 1 historical Black neighborhood, Forest Heights, and upstream from another, Turkey Creek.

Forest Heights was developed successful the mid-1960s arsenic a cooperative task of the National Council of Negro Women, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Ford Foundation. Its sanction is simply a tribute to Dorothy Height, who was president of the National Council of Negro Women from 1947 to 1997, according to tribunal records.

Flooding has agelong been an contented successful the neighborhoods. Environmental groups accidental the roadworthy task would summation the hazard of damaging floods.

“Our roads already get flooded, our religion parking batch was precocious flooded with six inches of water,” Lula Dedeaux, Gulfport Section President of the National Council of Negro Women, said successful a quality release. "The Connector Road volition lone service to marque these existing and unsafe flooding problems worse”

The National Environmental Policy Act requires national agencies to measure the biology effects of their projected actions anterior to making decisions.

In September, the DOT approved a last biology appraisal which recovered that the task would person “no important impact” connected the environment. But the biology groups assertion the investigation failed to look astatine each of the effects commercialized improvement adjacent the roadworthy would bring. They are asking the tribunal to bid the DOT to behaviour different biology assessment.

___

Michael Goldberg is simply a corps subordinate for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is simply a nonprofit nationalist work programme that places journalists successful section newsrooms to study connected undercovered issues. Follow him connected Twitter astatine twitter.com/mikergoldberg.