A support group and a lab in the St. Louis area provide resources for people with the allergy to mammal products — and evidence that its effects can be reversed.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is investigating whether a five-state governmental association that works on issues related to the Upper Mississippi River violated the Civil Rights Act.
In July 2021, the agency’s External Civil Rights Compliance Office accepted a complaint against the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association (UMRBA,) which represents the governors of Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
The case is still active, with the EPA listing it as “Pending: In Informal Resolution Agreement Negotiation.”
The complaint, filed by American Rivers, alleges the basin association discriminates against communities of color by preventing them from participating in the development of programs, projects and policies related to flooding along the Mississippi River.
“As an association of these governors, they have a lot of power to affect policy changes at the state and federal level,” said Olivia Dorothy, river restoration director at American Rivers.
Kirsten Wallace, UMRBA’s executive director, said in a statement the organization denies the allegations and believes the complaint lacks merit.
The complaint alleges a pattern of discrimination, claiming that the association is “knowingly and deliberately excluding people of color living in the Mississippi River floodplain areas.” It focuses on UMRBA’s community outreach efforts in its 2020 Keys to the River Report, which was meant to evaluate the flood risk, sediment management, long-term drought and other concerns in communities along the Upper Mississippi.
The study, which began during massive flooding in 2019, also proposes immediate and long-term strategies to manage the Mississippi River more effectively. Those strategies were shaped and influenced by feedback from local sessions where the association invited community members to share their concerns about the river.
Dorothy said there were few people of color at the public meetings.
“We raised these concerns with UMRBA, going back to the spring of 2019 before they even announced and finalized their public engagement schedule,” Dorothy said. “We pointed out they needed to do outreach to some of these communities that haven’t been engaged before.”
Communities of color along the Mississippi River often face the brunt of flooding damage and recovery challenges that flood managers regularly overlook, she said.
“They need help with nuisance flooding, with home renovations to prevent flood damages in the future,” Dorothy said. “We have a tendency in the flood management community to ignore the flooding that continues to happen behind levees where we supposedly have this flood control infrastructure.”
This kind of situation affects residents in East St. Louis, and more acutely those in Cahokia Heights, said Norma Patterson, a pastor at Good Shepherd Faith United Church of Christ in East St. Louis. She has experienced numerous floods.
“There were so many floods in this city to the point where at least three times…FEMA has had to pay me because of the flooding,” she said.
East St. Louis experienced significant flooding, along with the whole St. Louis region, in July 2022 after record rainfall hit the area.
“I never heard of this organization and I work closely with the city,” Patterson said. “I’m wondering - who did they talk to? Anybody down here?”
Environmental organizers locally claimed the basin association avoided hosting sessions in majority-Black river communities, like St. Louis or Cairo, Illinois, said Maisah Khan, policy director at the Mississippi River Network, an advocacy organization.
Khan recognizes it’s not possible to host a meeting in every area along the river, but said the choices of Hannibal, Cape Girardeau and Godfrey, Illinois were striking.
“The cities that were chosen for the listening sessions are predominantly white,” Khan said. “If you intentionally chose places where there aren’t as many people of color, you’re also increasing the barriers to communities of color.”
She said she was the only non-white person at the Hannibal session.
“What is missed when we are not engaging intentionally with communities of color are the very real impacts of flooding, of climate change, of housing issues,” Khan said.
That includes the lasting effects from mold, which can come from repetitive flooding or basement backups, she said.
“Not a single person in the Hannibal public meeting raised any issue like that,” Khan said.
The main goal of the civil rights complaint is to both force changes to the Keys to the River Report, but also to strengthen the association’s future work by engaging with different communities and perspectives, Dorothy said.
A support group and a lab in the St. Louis area provide resources for people with the allergy to mammal products — and evidence that its effects can be reversed.
