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I am creating a new Wikipedia article titled "Environmental Racism in the United States." It will borrow from parts of the parent article "Environmental Racism", but will also include more detailed information on environmental policy that has contributed to or reduced environmental racism, the unequal impact of natural disasters, and the environmental justice movement.


Environmental racism is the concept that minority and low-income communities experience environmental harms at a disproportionately high rate. [1] These harms are pollution (by water, air, or land), natural disasters, and other environmental conditions, such as extreme heat.


Some scholars have coined environmental racism as the “New Jim Crow.” Like Jim Crow, environmental racism systematically disenfranchises black people. It causes devastating impacts on the physical and mental health of African-Americans, and creates disparities in many different spheres of life, such as transportation, housing, infrastructure, health, and economic opportunity.[2] Epidemiologists Joel Kaufman and Anjum Hajat argue that, “discriminatory policies and practices that constitute environmental racism have disproportionately burdened communities of color, specifically African-Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanic populations.” [3]


Communities of color are more likely to be located next to pollution sources, such as landfills, power plants, and incinerators. Communities with a high concentration of racial minorities are nine times more likely to be exposed to environmentally hazardous facilities than communities with a low concentration of minorities.[4] Non-White populations, especially Black Americans, are exposed to a higher concentration of harmful chemicals than White populations. Exposure to chemicals is linked to increased morbidity and mortality. High-emissions in majority-Black areas may be the explanation for higher prevalence of conditions such as cardiovascular disease mortality and asthma in Black populations.[5]


Natural disasters tend to have unequal impacts on communities of color. The extent of poverty within a region can often have a much stronger effect on the scale of a natural disaster’s impact than the severity of the disaster itself.[6] Affluent, white communities tend to be located on higher ground, so they are less vulnerable to floods than communities of color. Disaster prevention and recovery plans are also biased against minorities in low-income areas.[7]


History[edit]

The environmental justice movement’s true origins are unclear. Though there were isolated protests against unwanted land uses throughout the twentieth century, a few events are widely recognized as spurring the modern and widely-publicized environmental justice movement.[8] In 1982, North Carolina state officials decided to place a landfill with highly toxic PCB-contaminated soil in the small town of Afton in Warren County, NC. Afton was about 84% African American. This decision sparked the first national protest against the location of a hazardous waste facility. Organized by the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People, residents of Warren County, along with local civil rights and political leaders, gathered in opposition to the placement of the landfill site. Over 500 protesters were arrested.[9] In response, two major studies were published: the US General Accounting Office 1983, and the United Church of Christ 1987. Both studies found that there was a strong relationship between race and the location of hazardous waste facilities.[10]


The US General Accounting Office study conducted a survey of the locations of hazardous-waste facilities, and found that these facilities were more likely to be located in minority and low-income communities.[11] The United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice (CRJ) study found that three of the largest hazardous waste facilities were located in primarily Black areas, and accounted for 40% of the hazardous-waste landfill capacity in the United States.[12] The study also found that the strongest predictor of the placement of hazardous waste facilities was race, surpassing both household income and home values. An additional study conducted by the CJR found that three out of five African and Hispanic Americans lived in communities with hazardous waste sites.[13]


=== Pollution and Racism 

===


==== Hazardous Waste Facilities 

====


Recent studies show that hazardous waste facilities are still more likely to be placed in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. For example, a study in Massachusetts found racially-based biases in the placement of 17 industrial waste facilities.[14] Residential segregation is correlated with higher cancer risk; as segregation increases, cancer incidence is higher.[15] A 2018 study found that Black people are exposed to 54% more particulate matter than the average American.[16] In Los Angeles, minority children have the highest risk of being exposed to air pollution at school. Researchers found that “at schools ranked in the bottom fifth for air quality, the children were 92% minority.” Air pollution is also associated with decreased achievement in school.[17] The EPA and US Census Bureau found that, in the mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the US, minorities are exposed to 66% more particulate matter from vehicles than White Americans.[18]


==== Water Pollution 

====


Low-income, Black communities are more likely to have polluted water. In 2014, Flint, Michigan, a city with a 57% Black population, switched its drinking water to the Flint River, which led to complaints about the water’s taste and color.[19] Studies found that the water was contaminated with lead from aging pipes.[20]


The Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice reviewed data from 4,600 groundwater monitoring wells. 91 percent of coal plants that are required to monitor groundwater near their coal ash dumps show unsafe levels of coal ash components in nearby groundwater, according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice. The report also found that 52 percent of plants had unsafe levels of cancer-causing arsenic and 60 percent showed unsafe levels of lithium in nearby groundwater.[21]


==== Health Effects 

====


Environmental pollution has been found to cause physical and mental disabilities, cancer, and asthma. 1 Car and bus exhaust have been linked to increased rates of asthma. Exposure to industrial chemicals have correlated with increased cancer rates, learning disabilities, and neurobehavioral disorders.[22] Some industrial chemicals have been identified as endocrine disrupters, which means they interfere with the functioning of hormones. Endocrine disrupters have been linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disorders, metabolic disorders diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and infertility.[23] There is a strong link between childhood exposure to pesticides and solvents and cancer. Additionally, toxic exposures in childhood have been linked to brain, and central nervous system cancers.[24]


A row of industrial plants in Louisiana has now been dubbed “Cancer Alley” due to the high prevalence of cancer cases in the surrounding communities. This area is about 50% African-American, and has a 20.7% poverty rate.[25] One study found that rates of stomach cancer, diabetes, and heart disease were significantly higher in Cancer Alley, and in Louisiana, than the United States overall.[26]


Since the 1700s, power companies have dumped coal ash into pits and ponds, especially in the Southeast. Coal ash is mostly composed of lead, arsenic, selenium, and mercury. Each of these minerals individually are unsafe for the human body, but scientists are unsure of how harmful the components are combined. Mercury, for example, can damage reproductive health. Lead causes developmental disorders, arsenic can lead to rashes and lesions. Kristina Zierold, an environmental health scientist and epidemiologist, concluded that there are clusters of cancer around coal ash sites where workers are exposed. However, scientists have not been able to prove a direct link between coal ash and cancer. This is because measuring coal ash’s impact on a control group would be dangerous and unethical, so researchers have had to extrapolate based on their current knowledge of toxins. Researchers have observed that the placement of a coal ash dump near a community causes dramatic increases in cancer rates and neurological issues among children.[27]


Poverty[edit]

Low-income households and people of color are often unable to afford adequate healthcare to treat pollution-related health problems. One study found that 34% of adults live without health care coverage in a primarily African-American, low-income neighborhood in Chicago. [28] This results in the compounding of health issues within these communities, and exacerbates a cycle of poverty; sickness eats up money, often forcing families to sell assets to pay off medical debt and/or quit a job to take care of family members. This means less money to pass down to children or share with local organizations, such as schools.[29]


=== Natural Disasters 

===


Natural disasters have historically had a larger impact on poor African-Americans than wealthy Whites. For example, Black people were disproportionately affected by Hurricane Katrina.[30] Predominantly black communities were more likely to be located in low-lying areas that were more vulnerable to flooding.[31] Evacuation plans were insufficient for populations without access to a car. At the time, over a third of New Orleans’ African American residents did not have cars. The city also only had one-quarter the number of buses that would have been necessary to evacuate all car-less residents, and many buses were lost during the flooding.[32] The disorganized response to the storm and flooding also disproportionately affected Black victims. Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), was not aware of starving crowds at the New Orleans Convention Center until he heard about it on the news. Deliveries of supplies to the convention center did not arrive until four days after Katrina hit.[33]


Another example is the Florida Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928, the first Category 5 hurricane officially recorded in the Atlantic. The storm devastated much of the Southern coast of Florida, but hit low-lying, Black migrant worker communities particularly hard. In fact, over 75% of the 3000 recorded deaths were Black migrant workers. Most Black bodies were burned or buried in mass graves. The towns of Belle Glade, Pahokee, and South Bay were “virtually wiped off the map.”[34]


Natural disasters have also been used as an opportunity to oppress African-Americans. For example, During the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, Whites were evacuated, while African-Americans were placed into disaster relief “concentration camps” and forced to work while being held at gunpoint.[35]


See Also[edit]

Environmental Racism

Environmental Justice

Pollution in the United States

Racism in the United States

Poverty

Health equity

  1. ^ Massey, Rachel. “Environmental Justice: Income, Race, and Health.” Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute (2014).
  2. ^ McCall, Machara. “ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: THE U.S. EPA'S INEFFECTIVE ENFORCEMENT OF TITLE VI OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964.” Southern Journal of Policy and Justice, Vol. X7II, pg. 1-3 (Fall 2019).
  3. ^ Kaufman, J.D. and Hajat, A. “Confronting Environmental Racism.” Environmental Health Perspectives (2021). https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/pdf/10.1289/EHP9511
  4. ^ Sandler, R. and Pezzullo, P.C. Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice Challenge to the Environmental Movement.” Urban and Industrial Environments, MIT Press (2007). https://theavarnagroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Environmental-Justice-and-Environmentalism-The-Social-Justice-Challenge-to-the-Environmental-Movement-Ronald-Sandler-and-Phaedra-C.-Pezzullo.pdf
  5. ^ Mikati, I., A.F. Benson, T.J. Luben, J.D. Sacks, and J. Richmond-Bryant. “Disparities in distribution of particulate matter emission sources by race and poverty status.” American Journal of Public Health 108(4):480–485 (2018). https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304297.
  6. ^ Bullard, Robert D. “Differential Vulnerabilities: Environmental and Economic Inequality and Government Response to Unnatural Disasters.” Social Research 75, no. 3 (2008): 753–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40972088.
  7. ^ Pastor, M., Bullard, R., Boyce, J. K., Fothergill, A., Morello-Frosch, R., & Wright, B. Environment, Disaster, and Race After Katrina. Race, Poverty & the Environment, 13(1), 21–26 (2006). http://www.jstor.org/stable/41495680
  8. ^ Office of Legacy Management. “Environmental Justice History.” United States Federal Government. https://www.energy.gov/lm/services/environmental-justice/environmental-justice-history.
  9. ^ Colquette, Kelly Michele, and Elizabeth A. Henry Robertson. “ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: THE CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES, AND COMMENDATIONS.” Tulane Environmental Law Journal 5, no. 1 (1991): 153–207. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43291103.
  10. ^ Perez, Alejandro Colsa et al. “Evolution of the environmental justice movement: activism, formalization and differentiation.” Environ. Res. Lett. 10 (2015). https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/10/105002/pdf
  11. ^ U.S. General Accounting Office. “Siting of Hazardous Waste Landfills and Their Correlation with Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities Report.” GAO (1983).
  12. ^ Faber, D. R., & Krieg, E. J. “Unequal exposure to ecological hazards: environmental injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” Environmental health perspectives, 110 Suppl 2(Suppl 2), 277–288 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.02110s2277
  13. ^ Colquette, Kelly Michele, and Elizabeth A. Henry Robertson. “ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: THE CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES, AND COMMENDATIONS.” Tulane Environmental Law Journal 5, no. 1 (1991): 153–207. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43291103.
  14. ^ Faber, D. R., & Krieg, E. J. “Unequal exposure to ecological hazards: environmental injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” Environmental health perspectives, 110 Suppl 2(Suppl 2), 277–288 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.02110s2277
  15. ^ Morello-Frosch, R., & Jesdale, B. M. (2006). Separate and unequal: residential segregation and estimated cancer risks associated with ambient air toxics in U.S. metropolitan areas. Environmental health perspectives, 114(3), 386–393. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.8500
  16. ^ Mikati, I., A.F. Benson, T.J. Luben, J.D. Sacks, and J. Richmond-Bryant. “Disparities in distribution of particulate matter emission sources by race and poverty status.” American Journal of Public Health 108(4):480–485 (2018). https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304297.
  17. ^ Massey, Rachel. “Environmental Justice: Income, Race, and Health.” Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute (2014).
  18. ^ Holden, Emily. “People of Color Live with 66% More Air Pollution, US Study Finds.” The Guardian (2019).
  19. ^ Clearfield, C., Tilcsik, A. “Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It.” New York: Penguin Press, pp. 121-128 (2018).
  20. ^ Hanna-Attisha, M., LaChance, J., Sadler, R. C., & Champney Schnepp, A. Elevated Blood Lead Levels in Children Associated With the Flint Drinking Water Crisis: A Spatial Analysis of Risk and Public Health Response. American journal of public health, 106(2), 283–290 (2016). https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.303003
  21. ^ Volcovici, Valerie. “Coal ash contaminates groundwater near most U.S. coal plants: study.” Reuters (2019). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coalash/coal-ash-contaminates-groundwater-near-most-u-s-coal-plants-study-idUSKCN1QL0CH
  22. ^ Gouveia-Vigeant, T. and Tickner, J. “Toxic chemicals and childhood cancer: A review of the evidence.” Lowell Center for Sustainable Production (2003). https://www.headlice.org/news/2003/cancerrise-report.pdf
  23. ^ Campbell D. (2000). Generations at risk: reproductive health and the environment. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 320(7241), 1082.
  24. ^ Gouveia-Vigeant, T. and Tickner, J. “Toxic chemicals and childhood cancer: A review of the evidence.” Lowell Center for Sustainable Production (2003). https://www.headlice.org/news/2003/cancerrise-report.pdf
  25. ^ Blodgett, A.D. “An analysis of pollution and community advocacy in ‘Cancer Alley’: setting an example for the environmental justice movement in St James Parish, Louisiana.” Local Environment (2007). DOI: 10.1080/13549830600853700.
  26. ^ Tsai, S. P., Cardarelli, K. M., Wendt, J. K., & Fraser, A. E. “Mortality patterns among residents in Louisiana's industrial corridor, USA, 1970-99.” Occupational and environmental medicine, 61(4), 295–304 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1136/oem.2003.007831
  27. ^ Warasila, Will and Anne Branigin. “Quicker than Coal Ash.” Southern Cultures Vol. 27 No. 1 pp. 128-148 (Spring 2021). https://doi.org/10.1353/scu.2021.0017.
  28. ^ Paris, Lauren. “What It’s Like to Fight Environmental Racism in Chicago.” 14East (2019). http://fourteeneastmag.com/index.php/2019/07/05/what-its-like-to-fight-environmental-racism-in-chicago/
  29. ^ Warasila, Will and Anne Branigin. “Quicker than Coal Ash.” Southern Cultures Vol. 27 No. 1 pp. 128-148 (Spring 2021). https://doi.org/10.1353/scu.2021.0017.
  30. ^ Henkel, Kristin E, John F. Dovidio, and Samuel L. Gaertner. “Institutional Discrimination, Individual Racism, and Hurricane Katrina.” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 99—124 (2006).
  31. ^ Adeola, F.O, & J Steven Picou. “Hurricane Katrina-linked environmental injustice: race, class, and place differentials in attitudes” Disasters, 41(2):228-257 (2017). doi: 10.1111/disa.12204.
  32. ^ Bullard, Robert D. “Differential Vulnerabilities: Environmental and Economic Inequality and Government Response to Unnatural Disasters.” Social Research 75, no. 3 (2008): 753–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40972088.
  33. ^ CNN. “The big disconnect on New Orleans: The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version.” CNN (2005). http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.response/index.html.
  34. ^ Bullard, Robert D. “Differential Vulnerabilities: Environmental and Economic Inequality and Government Response to Unnatural Disasters.” Social Research 75, no. 3 (2008): 753–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40972088.
  35. ^ Bullard, Robert D. “Differential Vulnerabilities: Environmental and Economic Inequality and Government Response to Unnatural Disasters.” Social Research 75, no. 3 (2008): 753–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40972088.
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