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  • Writer's pictureCassandra Colmenares

Navigating Environmental Legislation: An Interview with Celeste Flores From Clean Power Lake County

Around a year ago, the Academy High junior class attended a Clean Energy Jobs Act lobby day hosted by Illinois-based environmental organization, Faith in Place. Since then, several Academy High students, including myself, have continued to collaborate with them in additional lobby days, or by participating in their Eco-Ambassador youth program. Throughout these experiences, we’ve learned more about civic engagement and environmentalism, and have been given the opportunity to meet several people in the environmental justice scene, including Celeste Flores.


Celeste Flores serves as Faith in Place’s Lake County Outreach Director, and has been involved in the Clean Energy Jobs Act, Coal Ash Prevention Act, and is also the lead organizer for Clean Power Lake County, which is a Waukegan-based coalition that aims to transition Lake County into 100% renewable energy.


 

Colmenares: You’re one of the lead organizers of Clean Power Lake Country, and you’re currently involved in the Coal Ash Prevention Act. How did you first get interested in environmental sustainability?


Flores: It was kind of an accident! I’m a daughter of immigrant parents, someone who was raised Catholic, so I always had a lot of social justice values. I always thought I was going to be a youth minister at a local church, so at Bellarmine University in Kentucky, I did my undergrad in history and theology. I also did alternative spring breaks, so I ended up going to Eastern Appalachia as a freshman for service work. It was there that I learned about mountaintop removal and the devastation that happens with that. I directly saw the impact it has on my fellow Americans. And that’s what made me question what I was doing as a person of faith. I knew I had to stand up and call out these injustices.


But really, I thought this would just be something I volunteered in. I was a college student, I did this as part of clubs, but the mentality was that I would go home and do youth ministry. And that’s what I did, I came back to Lake County and started working at my local church. Some time in, I realized that the church didn’t recycle. I suggested that we start, and they told me that it’s too expensive and that they weren’t going to do that, but connected me with a Sister that does social justice work. And I said “Hey, I’m new, how can I help?” She asked me how I felt about retiring from a coal plant.


I was born and raised in Waukegan, and had no idea that there was a coal plant in the area, had no idea that there was a nuclear plant in Zion. I realized that the extraction that’s happening in other parts of the country is coming here to burn the coal. And it’s affecting our health and livelihoods. So yeah, it was really accidental. And because I feel like my faith calls me to talk about social justice, I started volunteering with a local group, Clean Power Lake County. I did not know that you could get paid to organize, didn’t know that was a thing. And that’s how I got involved, through volunteering and realizing that there was this injustice in my area.


 

Colmenares: There are a lot of people who might have different ideas on how to combat issues like these. How is it to collaborate on such a large project like the Coal Ash Pollution Prevention act?


Flores: It’s critical. When we looked across the state, we found a lot of coal ash ponds and a lot of communities affected by coal ash and we identified what we had in common. I think as human beings, we have a lot more similarities than differences. It’s important to focus on the audacity of having a vision for the future, even if you don’t live near a coal ash pond. According to the EPA, living near a coal ash pond is more dangerous than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. And it’s ridiculous! So our vision is centered on creating change at a state level. Many of us tried to do this locally, and it hasn't gotten anywhere. We’ve seen coal ash plants retire, but the ponds would stay.


We understand that we’re a whole people. We recognize that we need each other, to create connections based on radical ideas. We also need to understand how this current system is being played, how to navigate within it, but also to be committed to transformational change as well. When creating those networks of people from Waukegan to Carbondale, we’re on completely different sides of the state, but we all showed up to the Illinois EPA meeting with our legislators. We said “This is important, you represent us, we need you to act on this, to write up legislation that protects us and our health.”


 

Colmenares: What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when fighting for this legislature?


Flores: For us, our biggest challenge was learning how to navigate how legislation gets passed at the state level. Many of us had been involved with the creation of other legislation, but not in anything as involved as this one. We had to keep track of the dates and different committees. We needed to be available during the day to testify, which was difficult because laws are made in Springfield, while most of us don’t live near there. Many of us worked in environmentalism for our day jobs, but none of us were what you’d consider to be a lobbyist. Our colleagues closest to Springfield had to be on deck to make the two hour drive to Springfield to be at the committee to testify.


NRG, Exxon, and all these other people that own coal plants have people paid to be there during the general assembly. They live there, so they could join a committee meeting at any time’s notice. If a committee meeting changes, that was a bigger deal for us. We needed an environmental lobbyist to step up and speak for us, because that wasn’t something we were set up with.


Even the process of navigating the timing and reviewing information is a challenge, there’s a lot of organization that we need to do that the public’s not aware of. This was the first time I had to sign a witness slip. You can go online and say you support this bill for the committee to see how much support it gets. We had to educate our community, tell them how to sign up, how to register, we had to send links. These were things that I was not expecting to have to do.


 

Colmenares: Where do you see yourself in the future when interacting with legislative systems?


Flores: We recognize as a group that these systems are currently failing to represent the interests of the community. There are a lot of “donations” from corporations, a lot of money. Our current focus is just getting a transition for Waukegan with the coal plant and to hold polluters accountable for the pollution that they create. If these systems continue to exist, we would want people to run for office who don’t take corporate money or pack money so that they can truly represent the people.


We want leaders to understand this- and that other environmental issues exist in the area. We learned in 2018 that in Waukegan, ethylene oxide is emitted into our air, a class 1 carcinogen. We’ve been educating people about the coal plants since 2013. So if these systems aren’t working for us, we need to focus on that vision that also fights to get rid of other injustices. We need to have conversations about why Black Lives Matter. In a perfect world, we would make sure that regulations are observed so that we don’t have to fight for legislation to protect our right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, have safe land to exist in.


 

Colmenares: For people who are considering going into environmental justice or campaigning for racial/wealth equality, what advice would you give?


Flores: I think it’s important to know your core values. Doing this type of work isn’t easy, there are a lot of systems in place designed to keep the status quo. What I’ve found here in Waukegan is that when we try talking about environmental justice, people bring up the idea of economic development, and say “well, we need jobs and industry”. But that’s because we’re looking at the economy in an extractive way. We’re looking at exploitation and consumerism, and people interested in this work need to be willing to have bold visions of a future that is possible but not here yet. We’re talking about regenerative economy, cooperation and a deep sense of what democracy is. We need to consider well-being: physical, ecological, social. If you know what your core values are, bring them to the table, and are unapologetic about them, you will find people to stand with you in that work.


Especially if you’re an individual that’s POC, people will encourage you to get involved in many areas, but you need to decide what’s worth putting time and effort into. Sometimes it’s worth trying to get an organization or board to move on things, but it’s also important to consider whether or not they’re willing to have bold visions, because if they’re not, the status quo won’t change. There are organizations that have been around for 20, 80 years. What have they done that would target the root issues, the systemic issues you’re fighting against? There’s a difference between giving immediate service, which is definitely needed, and organizations that are focusing on the root issues. I’ve decided to look at the root problems rather than giving direct service, though that is also needed.


 

Thank you Celeste Flores for collaborating with the Axolotl Insider. We truly appreciate your insight!

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