News Statement 10.28.2024
Impact Fund Makes Grants of $150,000
One grant funds a case seeking to establish that Big Ag is violating the Clean Water Act by polluting the Snake River.
Berkeley, CA 10.28.24 – The Impact Fund has granted $150,000 in its fall grantmaking cycle to fund seven impact lawsuits. These cases aim to prevent the unlawful detention of immigrants in Pennsylvania, address nitrate pollution in Central California, end forced labor in Colorado prisons, seek accountability for the destruction of a Black neighborhood in Oregon, prevent a highway expansion in Texas, and seek justice for water contamination caused by animal agriculture in Idaho.
“This quarter’s grantees demonstrate the determination, diligence, and vision needed to change our communities and society for the better. It is a privilege to be able to support their work and to hopefully soon applaud their successes,” said Impact Fund Executive Director Lindsay Nako.
In Pennsylvania, asylum-seekers who have won their immigration cases and have a legal right to remain in the U.S. are still being detained.
The Impact Fund made a grant to the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights to support a class action against the Pennsylvania field office of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) challenging the prolonged detention of people who have the legal right to remain in the United States. Many detained immigrants in Pennsylvania have already won their immigration cases because of a credible fear of persecution or torture in their home countries, but ICE is keeping them in detention indefinitely as it appeals the decisions and tries to deport them to other countries. This is a violation of ICE’s own policies, which require the release of non-citizens immediately following a grant of fear-based relief. The goal of the case is to force ICE to follow its own policies and to ensure the release of immigrants who are unlawfully detained.
Environmental Law Foundation received a grant to support a case brought by a coalition of Central California environmental groups and community members challenging a state agency order that threatens access to clean water. In September 2023, the State Water Resources Control Board struck down administrative rules that sought to limit nitrate levels in groundwater and streams. Nitrate pollution can cause significant health problems, and in Central California, the areas with the highest nitrate levels tend to be areas that are predominantly Latine and low-income. The case aims to establish that the State Board’s removal of the nitrate limits and its failure to conduct an environmental justice analysis are violations of California law.
Colorado prisons still practice widespread forced labor policies.
Civil rights firm Maxted Law LLC is bringing a class action alongside workers’ rights nonprofit and Impact Fund grantee Towards Justice against the Colorado Department of Corrections. Under the Colorado state constitution, slavery and involuntary servitude are unlawful in all circumstances, including as punishment for a crime—Colorado voters abolished this exception in 2018. However, state prisons still have widespread forced labor policies and practices. Many people incarcerated in Colorado are required to work, and if they attempt to refuse, they are threatened with solitary confinement, punitive disciplinary proceedings, and other coercive measures. The goal of the case is to put an end to the use of forced labor in Colorado’s prison system. If successful, the case would benefit the 15,000 people incarcerated in Colorado, their families, and all those seeking to put an end to this unjust practice.
The Impact Fund also provided a grant to Oregon Law Center for a multi-plaintiff civil rights case against the city of Portland and Portland’s Legacy Emanual Hospital. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a thriving Black neighborhood in Portland was destroyed by the city due to a planned hospital expansion. Community members were forcibly displaced and their homes and businesses were demolished, but the hospital expansion never happened and the land still remains unused. Over fifty years later, survivors and their descendants discovered that the real motive behind the neighborhood’s destruction was a racist desire to remove Black people from the economically valuable area. The case aims to obtain financial compensation for the people who lost their homes and community and also seeks to hold the city and hospital accountable for conspiring to destroy the neighborhood.
Highway construction has long been used to racially segregate communities. The proposed expansion of the I-35 highway in Austin, Texas, will exacerbate the environmental injustice that already exists.
A grant was made to Rethink35, a community group in Austin, Texas, to support an environmental justice case challenging the planned expansion of the I-35 highway, which runs along a historic racial segregation line that divides the city. Historically, redlining practices confined people of color to the eastern portion of the city, and much of this segregation persists to this day. Communities of color east of I-35 already suffer from higher rates of asthma and heart disease and have lower life expectancies. The planned highway expansion would heighten these disparities by increasing toxic air pollution, displacing people from their homes and businesses, and widening the barrier dividing East Austin from the rest of the city. The goal of the case is to prevent the expansion of the highway and require Austin to reconsider alternatives that would divert traffic from the city center.
Finally, Snake River Waterkeeper is bringing an environmental justice case against the J.R. Simplot Company for unlawfully releasing animal waste into local waterways through its concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in Grand View, Idaho. The massive amount of water pollution created by this practice has contaminated drinking water and threatened local fish populations. The Snake River is the primary water supply for nearby rural, low-income communities, who may not have access to in-home water filtration systems to ensure safe drinking water. In addition, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, who have treaty rights to fish in the Snake River, can no longer safely consume these fish. The case, which recently defeated a motion to dismiss, seeks to establish that Simplot is violating the Clean Water Act and must take measures to prevent water contamination by animal waste.
Dena Sharp, Chair of the Impact Fund’s Board of Directors, said, “It is as inspiring as ever to know that these grants will advance our goals of building a healthier planet, making the world a more safe and equitable place, and ensuring access to justice for all.”
ENDS
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About the Impact Fund
The Impact Fund was founded in December 1992 to help advance economic, environmental, racial, and social justice through the courts. Originally envisioned as a purely grantmaking organization, the Impact Fund has made 796 recoverable grants totaling $9,910,129. Click here for Grant Criteria and information about Grant Deadlines.
Since its inception, the Impact Fund has grown to include both advocacy and education in its range of services. Today, the Impact Fund litigates a small number of cases directly, authors amicus briefs, provides a substantial amount of consulting to civil rights practitioners free of charge, and presents an annual conference for plaintiff-side class action practitioners, a training institute for budding public interest class action practitioners, and numerous seminars and webinars. Click here for the 2023 Annual Report.
What Is Impact Litigation?
Impact litigation is a lawsuit, often a class action, where the outcome of the case may have effects that reach beyond the parties to the case and advance economic, environmental, racial, and/or social justice for a community or a larger group of people who may not have access to the courts on their own.