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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Friday an investigation into the City of Albuquerque and the City Council in response to a complaint that alleges possible civil rights violations.
The Mountain View Coalition and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center filed the complaint May 2024, alleging that the council violated the federal Civil Rights Act by discriminating against Mountain View, one of the city’s “low-income communities of color.”
The coalition petitioned the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board to adopt a rule requiring “the local Environmental Health Department to consider these overburdened communities, and the disproportionate health impacts they bear, when reviewing an application for an air pollution permit.”
According to the complaint, Mayor Tim Keller’s administration and the council “intentionally interfered” with the rulemaking efforts, and its “intent to halt the rulemaking preceding” violated Mountain View’s efforts to be involved in the rulemaking process and discriminated “on the basis of race, color and national origin.”
Staci Drangmeister, a Keller spokesperson, told City Desk ABQ in a statement the mayor’s office previously expressed concerns about the council’s actions.
“We share the concern that our frontline communities are overburdened by pollution and warned that council’s interference would bring legal challenges,” Drangmeister said.
Council President Brook Bassan did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
Genevieve Chavez Mitchell, the president of the Mountain View Neighborhood Association said in a statement that the association is “very pleased that this issue is being addressed.”
“The Mountain View Community has two superfund sites, numerous brownfields, seven petroleum tank farms and miles of salvage yards,” Mitchell said. “We do not have a restaurant, grocery store, a public park, or green space. We worry about air quality, drinking water and soil pollution from years of industrial discharges. We would like a plan for industrial pollution clean up, a plan for mixed-use development and no more dirty industry. We want a healthy, thriving, beautiful community.”
According to the law center, the complaint specifically asked the EPA to do the following:
- Conduct an investigation into the city and the council’s alleged discriminatory conduct and interference in a rulemaking process
- Allow public comment on the matter
- If warranted, remove the city’s federal funding; and
- Take all other necessary actions, including a review to ensure the city and the council comply with the federal Civil Rights Act and EPA’s implementing regulations.
