Much of D.C.’s industrial activity is packed into just a few neighborhoods in Ward 5 — everything from rail yards and bus lots, to trash transfer stations and asphalt plants. New legislation introduced in the D.C. Council this week aims to ease the burden of pollution from those industries on residents who live nearby.

“The District has concentrated many sources of pollution in communities where residents are already struggling to make ends meet,” said Ward 5 Council member Zachary Parker during a press conference. “That is by no happenchance — these are the predominant areas of the city that are the Blackest and the poorest, and it is intentional that we are facing these challenges.”

Parker announced the legislation, the Environmental Justice Amendment Act of 2023, on street corner in Ivy City, one of the D.C. neighborhoods most overburdened by pollution. Council members Christina Henderson (at-large) and Kenyan McDuffie (at-large) co-introduced the legislation.

Several residents spoke out about the pollution problems in their neighborhoods.

“We suffer from an urban heat island effect, emissions from New York Avenue traffic, industrial land use, idling from D.C. government workers in D.C. government vehicles, illegal dumping,” said Sebrena Rhodes, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ivy City.

Recently residents launched a campaign to shut down one major polluter in the neighborhood, National Engineering Products. The company manufactures sealants for the U.S. Navy using toxic chemicals, in a small building on a residential street. It has no air pollution permits, and has been in operation for some 90 years — since well before modern environmental laws.

The new legislation would require District regulators to consider the cumulative impact of pollution in a neighborhood when granting permits. In other words, if a particular neighborhood is already disproportionately burdened by pollution, the permit would be denied. There would be a similar process for assessing the cumulative impact of plans or policies proposed by District agencies.

The bill would also create a new environmental justice division within the District Department of Energy and Environment, charged with reducing environmental harms in overburdened neighborhoods.

Under the legislation, DOEE would use the environmental justice index, created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to judge which parts of the city are already overburdened. This index takes into account not just pollution levels in a neighborhood, but also factors in the human and built environment, like pre-existing health conditions, and access to quality healthcare. A map of the CDC’s environmental justice index shows that the eastern parts of the city are most impacted, particularly wards 4, 5, 7 and 8.

Rhodes said the legislation will hold polluters accountable. “Our communities will be seen and heard, and the burden won’t be left solely to the residents to make reports and complaints,” she said.

Councilmember Charles Allen, who chairs the environment committee, has pledged to hold a hearing on the bill, according to Parker.