Margie Clark watched decades pass by here in Syracuse.

In the 1950s, she saw the construction of a steam plant in the McBride Street area tear through her neighborhood, forcing its residents to the city’s east side. In 1967, she witnessed the construction of I-81 push those same people back to their former communities.

After that, Clark and her neighbors thought they could stay put. But now, residents of the south side fear a county plan to build a sewage treatment facility in their neighborhood will force them to move again.

‘We shouldn’t have to move every time somebody wants to build something else,’ Clark said. ‘It ain’t right. It just ain’t right.’

To acquire the land slated for the project, the county needs to buy or condemn 26 properties, displacing some people from their homes and leaving the rest of the neighborhood with what some consider the stigma of a waste treatment plant.

Clark lives a block-and-a-half away from the projected site, on Midland Avenue between Blaine and Oxford streets, about five blocks away from Syracuse University.

The Midland plant is one of three slated for construction in the $380 million plan to clean up Onondaga Lake. The other plants will be on Clinton Street near Armory Square and at Harbor Brook, which empties into Onondaga Lake.

The county argues it choose these sites because of their location on the creek where multiple sewer overflows already exist. But critics of the Midland project, including the City of Syracuse and a number of SU student groups, argue that this method will destroy the integrity of the creek. These opponents promote a system of underground storage, which would store the wastes underground until they are transported to the main plant on Hiawatha Boulevard for treatment.

Organizations including the Partnership for Onondaga Creek and Syracuse United Neighbors brought the issue to the front of Syracuse’s political realm, fueling one of the largest protests ever in the city’s black community.

These critics say the proposal exhibits environmental racism, a trend of environmentally damaging projects overrunning poor, black neighborhoods. About 82 percent of the Midland neighborhood is black, compared to about 9 percent in the entire county, according to the 2000 census. Forty-eight percent of its residents live beneath the poverty line.

‘When you put sewage above ground, there’s a stigma,’ said Agnes Lane, a member of the partnership. ‘There’s this general feeling of you’re doing this to us.’

Finding a focus

As Clark experienced, Syracuse has seen a number of instances when urban development projects shifted black neighborhoods, mirroring a common nationwide trend that started in the 1950s, said Arthur Paris, a sociology professor at SU.

‘The development is done deliberately to get these people out of the city,’ Paris said. ‘There used be a saying. ‘Urban renewal means Negro removal.’ ‘

In one urban renewal analysis, researcher Martin Anderson explains that the purpose of such dislocation was to preserve white middle-class neighborhoods. He cites reports from the federal Urban Renewal Administration that indicate between 1957 and 1961, blacks and Puerto Ricans accounted for more than two-thirds of the number of people displaced by urban renewal projects in the United States.

Like the Midland plan, such projects incite neighborhoods to rally together against the government. But unlike other cities, Syracuse’s black population has historically lacked the leadership to oppose these projects, a setback that stems largely from the community’s elected officials.

‘There is a problem locally in that the black political officials seem to be further from the leverage of power than they really should be,’ Paris said.

While historically, black ministers would take the role of leading communities against civil rights injustices, some ministers feel they are being shut out of the movement against the Midland plant, said the Rev. Nebraski Carter, pastor at Living Water Church of God in Christ, which sits about a block away from the proposed site.

‘They could get the message out to black folks when no one else could,’ he said. ‘But now, people that are supposed to be following are trying to be leaders.’

And the movement’s many leaders bring with them varying approaches to dealing with the county. At times, these differences can create tension within the community and lessen the credibility of the movement, Lane said.

In SUN’s office on South Salina Street, street maps and newspaper clippings cover the walls where SU graduate Zac Moore organizes public demonstrations, including one last Friday during which SU students marched from the Quad to downtown, toting life-size puppets and signs condemning the project.

A stark contrast to this scene, Lane’s home, where the partnership often meets, is full of books and family photographs. Her quaint, two-story red house sits on Midland Avenue just across the street from Onondaga Creek.

These settings parallel the different protest styles between the two groups. Lane, who said she disagrees with SUN’s confrontational style, supports research and education, both part of the partnership’s strategy of more passive resistance.

‘Sometimes you lose supporters that way,’ she said, referring to SUN’s adversarial tactics.

While the activists may differ in their approaches to the issue, they all still work together to fight the county plan, whereas members of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, a group of about 30 pastors from various local churches, find themselves torn by ideology.

Some pastors, including Carter, said the community should negotiate with the county and try to obtain benefits from the project.

In November, the county withdrew its offer to spend $3 million to improve the neighborhood, arguing that the residents could not agree on how the money would be spent and redesigns of the project to meet community complaints cut into the budget. Pirro said the county would pay to relocate residents and for aesthetic improvements near the plant, but would not pay for community development.

Sherman Dunmore, head of the Ministerial Alliance, said while the group aims to achieve the best outcome for the community, it also realizes that the county probably will not change its plan.

‘They’ll play the game with you, but that’s it,’ he said. ‘In the end you see that the decision’s already been made.’

Despite some ministers support of negotiations, other clergy, including the Rev. Bill Coop, oppose the plant in their own way — from the pulpit.

‘One of the things I’ve tried to do over the years is be the voice for those whose voice is not taken seriously,’ he said. ”Let justice roll down in many waters.’ It’s in the book.’

Standing in the center of the congregation with his hands raised, Coop delivered the final words of his Sunday sermon at South Presbyterian Church on the south side.

‘When Jesus sees your faith, miracles can happen,’ he said. ‘When Jesus sees the faith of a community, miracles will happen.’

Their meeting room is small, but Coop said it gives the group more intimacy. Members of the congregation sit on mustard-colored office chairs, rather than the conventional pews found in most churches.

The traditional sacristy is still plagued by problems from when the roof collapsed several years ago. Coop just laughs when he talks about his church’s minor problems. After all, the neighborhood where his congregation lives is in far more dire need of repair.

‘We’ve got a spine here that needs better treatment,’ he said. ‘This is the center of the racial and ethnic neighborhoods in Syracuse.’

Just as the creek has significance in Syracuse’s black community, it holds both cultural and religious meaning for the Onondaga Nation.

Like SUN’s office, maps and newspaper clippings cover the walls where Joe Heath, an attorney for the nation, works. But many of those on Heath’s walls are faded with age. Instead of modern census districts, his maps depict Onondaga County hundreds of years ago — when the Onondaga Nation ruled the land.

‘They begin every meeting that they have with a thanksgiving prayer to the creek,’ said Heath. ‘Water is life to them and this is their main source of water.’

While the Onondaga Nation has a land claim on about three quarters of the creek, along with about a mile around Lake Onondaga, the tribe has never filed a suit because of the outcomes of past settlements with the Oneida and Cayuga tribes. But the nation’s council has not forgotten the prospect, which could delay, if not completely stop the project.

What lies ahead

In the midst of all this opposition sits the residents of the Midland neighborhood. For them, the struggle just continues. The end could come soon, or not at all.

With the pressure of federal deadlines to clean up the lake and threats of fines, the county plans to break ground for the project by October 1. The legislature already voted to acquire the homes and properties needed for the project.

But some don’t think the county will get very far.

Moore said members of SUN would chain themselves to houses to try and prevent the county from destroying homes in the area. And the City of Syracuse continues its efforts to halt the project. Carter, however, thinks construction is inevitable.

So for people in the Midland neighborhood, an answer will just have to wait.

But some have waited long enough. With or without a sewage plant, Clark’s already made up her mind.

‘I’m not moving any more,’ she said.

Published on April 27, 2003 at 12:00 pm