Para español, por favor inicie aquí.
Jackie Echols didn’t need another crisis to add to her dossier. As president of the South River Watershed Alliance (SRWA), she was already working hard to clean up a river — almost forgotten by locals — that flows through Fulton, DeKalb, Rockdale and Henry counties in Georgia. South River traverses a mostly low-income African American community and has long been polluted by sewage spills and hemmed in by landfills, truck yards and industrial sites.
But the mission to clean up the South River became even more challenging for SRWA when another issue arose, one that has gotten national and even international attention: a controversial police and fire training complex officially known as the Atlanta Training Facility but dubbed Cop City by its opponents.
In August 2023, SRWA filed suit in federal district court for an injunction to stop the project.
SWRA contends that the project, originally announced in 2017 and begun in spring of 2023, further compromises the already environmentally fragile Intrenchment Creek. Sediment from the construction site is filtering into the creek and flowing into the South River. In August 2023, SRWA filed suit in federal district court for an injunction to stop the project.
The lawsuit notes that, despite a 2017 city of Atlanta report recognizing the area that encompasses the South River watershed as a conservation corridor to be protected from new development, and identifying the city-owned, 300-plus-acre former Atlanta Prison Farm as the largest tract to be protected, the city council later voted to authorize Atlanta Police Foundation, Inc., to construct the Atlanta Training Facility on the Old Atlanta Prison Farm site.
They don’t care about the impact on the [Black] folks who live over there. It’s environmental justice on steroids.
Echols at first wondered why they would build such a thing in an ecologically sensitive area. But as soon as she asked the question, she knew the answer. “No one else in Atlanta would stand for this,” says Echols. “They don’t care about the impact on the [Black] folks who live over there. It’s environmental justice on steroids.”
With this lawsuit, Echols and her group joined a growing list of activists who have for the past two years been challenging the 85-acre, $90 million facility.
Echols has mostly stayed away from the demonstrations, however, believing a more constructive battle can be fought in the courts.
In addition to the lawsuit, in October 2023, SRWA has also filed a Title VI Civil Rights Act administrative complaint with the EPA, maintaining that constructing the training facility on this site is not only an environmental injustice but environmental racism.
Environmental racism is race-based discrimination in environmental policymaking, enforcement of regulations and laws, and targeting communities of color for the siting of toxic and polluting industries resulting in disproportionate harm.
Black and other people of color make up 76 percent of the population residing in south and southeast Atlanta and comprise most residents that live closest to the facility.
You are your environment. What’s happening with Cop City is happening in your environment, and you can’t survive over here without a healthy environment.
Acknowledging that “you just can’t separate them,” in reference to the confluence of environmental and social justice issues surrounding Cop City, Echols says, “I spend a lot of time bridging that gap among Black folk who live in this community.”
She tells residents who express apathy to environmental issues: “You are your environment. What’s happening with Cop City is happening in your environment, and you can’t survive over here without a healthy environment.”
Despite these challenges, Echols is continuing to do what she’s always done in her more than two decades as a water warrior — trying to get more people out on the river to raise awareness about the importance of maintaining healthy green spaces.
“Many of them have never kayaked and don’t swim,” says Echols, “but once they get on the river and see what it’s all about, they are converted. They love it.”
Update:
After this story was published in Medium, Echols reached out to tell us she is awaiting several appeal hearings related to the suit filed in federal district court accusing the City of Atlanta of violating the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act. As for the group’s administrative Title VI Civil Rights Act complaint, Echols said the 180-day review/investigation period expires May 9.
Meanwhile, construction on the Atlanta training facility has continued, with the City of Atlanta stating in a January news release that more than 75 percent of the project had been completed, “despite multiple acts of vandalism.”
This article was condensed from the full version that appears in Medium published by The Urban Resilience Project. Dorothy Terry is a journalist/writer with Anthropocene Alliance.
