In 2024, as part of our Local Program, the LWVE approved an Environmental Justice working group to join with other organizations confronting the environmental injustice of the Waste Transfer Station located in the historically Black community at 1711 Church St. in Evanston. After more than 40 years since the waste station’s initiation in 1983,  the issue lacks a satisfactory resolution. Community concerns revolve around health risks from the station, including formaldehyde and nitric oxide in the air, strong garbage odor, vermin, noise level, shaking of homes, and damage to the foundations of roads and homes.

In 2019 the City of Evanston posted a report summarizing data collected from a six-month air quality study for the area surrounding the Church Street Waste Transfer Station evaluating 12 parameters of concern. See: 
Members of the LWVE Environmental Justice Committee have joined with several other organizations in their ongoing effort to engage with Waste Transfer Station issues. In 2023 the Evanston/North Shore Branch NAACP Environmental Justice committee took up the issue of the Waste Transfer Station. Interest in this project garnered additional support from several groups, including the LWVE, and the Environmental Justice coalition was formed. 

In the fall of 2024 Climate Action Evanston submitted a proposal to the EPA for Inflation Reduction Act funding, and the NAACP submitted a complementary proposal to be funded as a sub-grant to the initial proposal. The goal of these proposals is to shed light on air quality disparities, particularly related to the Church Street Waste Transfer Station. If the grant is approved, it would provide $200,000 to fund a collaborative project to provide the needed instruments for air quality monitoring around the Waste Transfer Station. This approach was recommended by consultant RHP Risk Management in 2019. The NAACP would lead the project beginning in the spring of 2025 in partnership with the Stead Center at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.

The plan would recruit religious organizations and communities in Evanston (as well as any other interested organizations) to install 35 permanent air monitors at houses of worship throughout Evanston and at strategic locations directly around the Church Street Waste Transfer Station. This would allow every resident of Evanston to access continuous, real-time air quality data (on particulates, nitrogen dioxide, and black carbon) for every neighborhood in the entire city.  With funding acquired from another source, the NAACP is currently interviewing residents and former residents who lived in the affected areas. The NAACP has also purchased a small number of air monitors that are being used in homes. The ultimate goal is the removal of the station and reduction and/or removal of toxins. Unfortunately, federal funding is uncertain at present, and the groups are investigating alternative funding sources.