Environmental Justice Campaign
End of Session Update
On June 29, 2023 Governor Ned Lamont signed H.B. 6664 into effect which dissolves MIRA as of July 1. The bill calls for a new board to be commissioned to oversee the Southend trash-to-energy parcel into it’s next phase. The Hartford City Council will get to appoint 5 members to this new board, giving residents a say in their neighborhood.
MIRA Site Remediation
When the garbage truck comes to pick up your trash, where does your trash go? Where does that truck haul it? There is a good chance, if you live in one of more than 50 towns that had a contract with MIRA, The Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority, that your trash was hauled to the Southend of Hartford, to the MIRA Trash to Energy Plant. There, the trash was burned and then the ash was driven to a landfill in North Hartford.
In July, MIRA closed the trash to energy plant. What is left is polluted, unusable land. Buildings that need to be torn down. Incredibly important land, on the Connecticut River, in Hartford, has been contaminated, making it dangerous and useless for Hartford’s residents and for Hartford’s economy.
Who will assess the level of pollution? Who will clean up this land? Who will pay for remediation?
Currently MIRA has somewhere between $15-$30 million dollars sitting in the bank, that they are sinfully using to compensate executives through severance packages and to subsidize the towns still using MIRA to haul their trash.
This money belongs to the residents of Hartford who have borne the health effects and consequences of living near the region’s trash receptacle for decades.
GHIAA stands with Hartford residents and city council leaders, and with elected town leaders from our region’s suburbs, to say end MIRA now and use the remaining funds as a downpayment to rehabilitate Hartford’s waterfront property.