Mission
The Partnership for Onondaga Creek is a diverse, community-based environmental justice organization, rooted in the Midland area of Syracuse, New York. We are committed to empowering local communities, through knowledge and tools for change, to make the water and environment in and along Onondaga Creek meet the highest standards.
History
In 2000, disturbed by the proposed residential site of the Midland Avenue RTF and its chlorine-based technology, concerned citizens started The Partnership for Onondaga Creek (POC), a grassroots environmental justice group. Over the past eight years, the POC has urged both city and county government "to do the right thing" and not force this African American community to accept yet another unwanted and environmentally burdensome project. Some highlights of the POC's struggle for equity include:
- creating a diverse voice for fairness and equity
- collaborating with the Onondaga Nation and local and state-wide environmental and social justice groups.
- creating fairer solutions to the city-wide CSO problem.
- pressuring the City of Syracuse not to sell land to Onondaga County for the Midland Sewage Plant.
- joining, as a critical stakeholder, the negotiations between the City of Syracuse and Onondaga County and ultimately getting an underground storage tank and a down-sized Midland RTF.
- Filing, along with Syracuse University's Public Interest Law Firm, a civil rights claim with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) against Onondaga County and the NYSDEC.
- submitting to the USEPA a book-length "Study in Environmental Racism" (available online).
- advocating for a greener and fairer solution to Phase III of the Midland RTF project, a mile-long CSO conveyance.