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EMEAC History

East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC) is a non-profit, public interest group which was founded in 1970. EMEAC’s mission “is to protect and restore land, air, water and diversity of life through informed personal and public action.”


East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC) began as a response in the 1960’s to environmental concerns in southeast Michigan. Algae blooms were choking out life in Great Lakes and inland waters. Household and industrial wastes were piling up in landfills. Air pollutants were becoming a health issue in many urban neighborhoods and highways and buildings were covering up wetlands and open areas at the urban fringe.


Several groups joined together forming EMEAC to consider what they could do to resolve these problems and to influence southeast Michigan’s environmental policies. A cornerstone of EMEAC’s formation was the belief that informing the public about environmental issues would lead to solutions to environmental problems. Founding members and staff established an organization that would always predicate its public information and advocacy on careful research. With the help of our members’ continuing support and enthusiasm, EMEAC will continue to pursue its mission: “to protect and restore land, air, water, and diversity of life through informed personal and public action.”

For almost fifty years, EMEAC has been working in the legislature, in the courts, in township halls and in schools. We played a role in the enactment of most of Michigan’s environmental laws. We have used those laws in court to protect air and water quality, wetlands, natural areas, farmlands and wildlife. We have drafted regulations for local governments and have provided public information and environmental education opportunities throughout southeast Michigan.
Originally centered in the suburbs of Detroit, a conscious move was made back to the heart of Detroit, surrounded by the neighborhoods filled with some of the most at-risk frontline communities, facing environmental racism, in need of environmental justice.
In 2012, the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit transfered ownership of its campus at Cass and Forest to EMEAC to develop Cass Commons as a home and hub for justice movement work.


Some of EMEAC’s accomplishments in protecting land, air, and water include:

  • Stopping proposed road extensions into undeveloped areas.
  • Drafting and guiding enactment of amendments to the Michigan Pesticide Control Act to provide better protection, especially for children.
  • Organizing opposition in southeast Michigan to USDA’s proposed rule for determining which food products are allowed to carry the “organic” label.
  • Better pollution control technology on the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Authority.
  • Helping to formulate the mix of air pollution control strategies in southeast Michigan to meet or exceed Clean Air Act requirements.
  • Court ordered conversion of a Detroit Edison utility plant from coal to natural gas as a condition of start-up.
  • Campaigning for amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act to establish the right of consumers to be notified of contaminants in their water and to challenge any weakening of water quality standards.
  • Assisting local governments in drafting storm water management ordinances to prevent construction runoff from degrading the quality of wetlands, inland lakes, and streams.
  • Spearheading public support for enactment of the Michigan Wetlands Protection Act. The Act has reduced the destruction of Michigan wetlands, especially along the Great Lakes
    Working with planners, lawyers, and consultants to prepare a model wetlands ordinance designed to help communities protect important wetlands and meet the requirements of the new state law.
  • Joining with the Endangered Species Coalition to prevent anti-environmental interests in Congress from gutting the Endangered Species Act
  • Presenting environmental programs to over 27,000 elementary and middle school children in southeast Michigan.
    Presenting over 40 public forums, most recently on natural landscaping and environmental ethics.

 

Several of EMEAC’s accomplishments in preserving biological diversity include:

  • Spearheading public support for enactment of the Michigan Wetlands Protection Act. The Act has reduced the destruction of Michigan wetlands, especially along the Great Lakes.
  • Working with planners, lawyers, and consultants to prepare a model wetlands ordinance designed to help communities protect important wetlands and meet the requirements of the new state law.
  • Joining with the Endangered Species Coalition to prevent anti-environmental interests in Congress from gutting the Endangered Species Act.
  •  

EMEAC’s accomplishments in raising the level of public understanding about environmental issues include:

  • Presenting environmental programs to over 27,000 elementary and middle school children in southeast Michigan.
  • Presenting over 40 public forums, most recently on natural landscaping and environmental ethics.
Our Team
Our Movement

Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing

Meeting hosted by Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice (SNEEJ), Jemez, New Mexico, Dec. 1996 
Activists meet on Globalization On December 6-8, 1996, forty Black, Brown, and Indigenous people and European-American representatives met in Jemez, New Mexico, for the “Working Group Meeting on Globalization and Trade.” The Jemez meeting was hosted by the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice with the intention of hammering out common understandings between participants from different cultures, politics and organizations. The following “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing were adopted by the participants.

1.) Inclusivity

Be Inclusive If we hope to achieve just societies that include all people in decision-making and assure that all people have an equitable share of the wealth and the work of this world, then we must work to build that kind of inclusiveness into our own movement in order to develop alternative policies and institutions to the treaties policies under neoliberalism. 

This requires more than tokenism, it cannot be achieved without diversity at the planning table, in staffing, and in coordination. It may delay achievement of other important goals, it will require discussion, hard work, patience, and advance planning. It may involve conflict, but through this conflict, we can learn better ways of working together. It’s about building alternative institutions, movement building, and not compromising out in order to be accepted into the anti-globalization club. 

2.) Bottom-Up Power

To succeed, it is important to reach out into new constituencies, and to reach within all levels of leadership and membership base of the organizations that are already involved in our networks. We must be continually building and strengthening a base which provides our credibility, our strategies, mobilizations, leadership development, and the energy for the work we must do daily. 

3.) We Speak for Ourselves

We must be sure that relevant voices of people directly affected are heard. Ways must be provided for spokespersons to represent and be responsible to the affected constituencies. It is important for organizations to clarify their roles, and who they represent, and to assure accountability within our structures. 

4.) Mutuality & Solidarity

Groups working on similar issues with compatible visions should consciously act in solidarity, mutuality and support each other’s work. In the long run, a more significant step is to incorporate the goals and values of other groups with your own work, in order to build strong relationships. For instance, in the long run, it is more important that labor unions and community economic development projects include the issue of environmental sustainability in their own strategies, rather than just lending support to the environmental organizations. So communications, strategies and resource sharing is critical, to help us see our connections and build on these. 

5.) Just Relationships

We need to treat each other with justice and respect, both on an individual and an organizational level, in this country and across borders. Defining and developing “just relationships” will be a process that won’t happen overnight. It must include clarity about decision-making, sharing strategies, and resource distribution. There are clearly many skills necessary to succeed, and we need to determine the ways for those with different skills to coordinate and be accountable to one another. 

6.) Commitment to Self-Transformation

As we change societies, we must change from operating on the mode of individualism to community-centeredness. We must “walk our talk.” We must be the values that we say we’re struggling for and we must be justice, be peace, be community.

Our Ideas

East Michigan Environmental Action Council works to build a movement to produce environmental justice as a transformation of society.  We do not exercise state power and we do not have massive money wealth; we will not solve our problems with the stroke of a pen. Yet our communities have generated all of the wealth around us and the power of the state is only legitimate if it works in the interest of our collective wellbeing. So we work collectively to energize and enlighten society as a whole to act to produce justice in our environment. As such, we work to build a transformative environmental justice movement from within the broad base of neighborhoods and communities of Southeast Michigan. We analyze our community’s collective problems and work toward real solutions, those that address root causes and produce lasting change, working within our Six Pillars of Power:

 

 

    1. Science & Knowledge Production
    2. Eco-Socialism: Ecological & Economic Freedom
    3. Black Liberation: Internationalism & Solidarity
    4. People’s schools: Political Education & Organizing 
    5. Black Arts & Culture: Spiritual Grounding & Ancestral Veneration
    6. Radical Futurity: Youth Power & Intergenerational Study

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Office Hours
Mon – Sat
10.00am – 4.00pm

(except holidays)

phone: (313) 556-1702

4605 Cass Ave
Detroit, MI 48201

The History of East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC)

East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC) is a non-profit, public interest group which was founded in 1970. EMEAC’s mission “is to protect and restore land, air, water and diversity of life through informed personal and public action.”

East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC) began as a response in the 1960’s to environmental concerns in southeast Michigan. Algae blooms were choking out life in Great Lakes and inland waters. Household and industrial wastes were piling up in landfills. Air pollutants were becoming a health issue in many urban neighborhoods and highways and buildings were covering up wetlands and open areas at the urban fringe.


Several groups joined together forming EMEAC to consider what they could do to resolve these problems and to influence southeast Michigan’s environmental policies. A cornerstone of EMEAC’s formation was the belief that informing the public about environmental issues would lead to solutions to environmental problems. Founding members and staff established an organization that would always predicate its public information and advocacy on careful research. With the help of our members’ continuing support and enthusiasm, EMEAC will continue to pursue its mission: “to protect and restore land, air, water, and diversity of life through informed personal and public action.”

For almost fifty years, EMEAC has been working in the legislature, in the courts, in township halls and in schools. We played a role in the enactment of most of Michigan’s environmental laws. We have used those laws in court to protect air and water quality, wetlands, natural areas, farmlands and wildlife. We have drafted regulations for local governments and have provided public information and environmental education opportunities throughout southeast Michigan.

Originally centered in the suburbs of Detroit, a conscious move was made back to the heart of Detroit, surrounded by the neighborhoods filled with some of the most at-risk frontline communities, facing environmental racism, in need of environmental justice.

In 2012, the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit transfered ownership of its campus at Cass and Forest to EMEAC to develop Cass Commons as a home and hub for justice movement work.

Some of EMEAC’s accomplishments in protecting land, air, and water include:

      • Stopping proposed road extensions into undeveloped areas.
      • Drafting and guiding enactment of amendments to the Michigan Pesticide Control Act to provide better protection, especially for children.
      • Organizing opposition in southeast Michigan to USDA’s proposed rule for determining which food products are allowed to carry the “organic” label.
      • Better pollution control technology on the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Authority.
      • Helping to formulate the mix of air pollution control strategies in southeast Michigan to meet or exceed Clean Air Act requirements.
      • Court ordered conversion of a Detroit Edison utility plant from coal to natural gas as a condition of start-up.
      • Campaigning for amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act to establish the right of consumers to be notified of contaminants in their water and to challenge any weakening of water quality standards.
      • Assisting local governments in drafting storm water management ordinances to prevent construction runoff from degrading the quality of wetlands, inland lakes, and streams.
      • Spearheading public support for enactment of the Michigan Wetlands Protection Act. The Act has reduced the destruction of Michigan wetlands, especially along the Great Lakes
      • Working with planners, lawyers, and consultants to prepare a model wetlands ordinance designed to help communities protect important wetlands and meet the requirements of the new state law.
      • Joining with the Endangered Species Coalition to prevent anti-environmental interests in Congress from gutting the Endangered Species Act
      • Presenting environmental programs to over 27,000 elementary and middle school children in southeast Michigan.
      • Presenting over 40 public forums, most recently on natural landscaping and environmental ethics.

  • Several of EMEAC’s accomplishments in preserving biological diversity include:

        • Spearheading public support for enactment of the Michigan Wetlands Protection Act. The Act has reduced the destruction of Michigan wetlands, especially along the Great Lakes.
        • Working with planners, lawyers, and consultants to prepare a model wetlands ordinance designed to help communities protect important wetlands and meet the requirements of the new state law.
        • Joining with the Endangered Species Coalition to prevent anti-environmental interests in Congress from gutting the Endangered Species Act.

  • EMEAC’s accomplishments in raising the level of public understanding about environmental issues include:

        • Presenting environmental programs to over 27,000 elementary and middle school children in southeast Michigan.
        • Presenting over 40 public forums, most recently on natural landscaping and environmental ethics.