GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Leaders with the NAACP and environmental groups say keeping an Ottawa County coal-fired plant operating is harmful to West Michigan, including the Black community.

“For decades, Black, brown and underserved communities have been the first and worst hit by environmental injustice,” said Cle Jackson, executive director of the Greater Grand Rapids NAACP.

The J.H. Campbell power plant, along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Ottawa County’s Port Sheldon Township, was set to close in late May but President Trump’s administration three times have used an emergency order to keep the plant online in 90-day segments.

The plant is slightly more than 30 miles from urban Grand Rapids.

“It is truly a civil rights issue,” Jackson said, referring to both pollution and the extra cos

See Full Page