Environmental Justice

What is environmental justice? I guess we've been working on this project without truly exploring the concept. The media is saturated with advice on being environmentally conscious and active. Sure, we can talk about the clever ways to cut our carbon foot print and support local agriculture. We can go for hikes, appreciate the environment, remove invasive species of plants and learn how to garden. These are all important things. But how do these ideas relate to social concerns of racism, classism, and equity?

To begin, a few definitions:

Environmental Justice Environmental Justice - The right to a safe, healthy, productive, and sustainable environment for all, where "environment" is considered in its totality to include the ecological (biological), physical (natural and built), social, political, aesthetic, and economic environments. Environmental justice refers to the conditions in which such a right can be freely exercised, whereby individual and group identities, needs, and dignities are preserved, fulfilled, and respected in a way that provides for self-actualization and personal and community empowerment. This term acknowledges environmental "injustice" as the past and present state of affairs and expresses the socio-political objectives needed to address them.

Environmental Equity- An ideal of equal treatment and protection for various racial, ethnic, and income groups under environmental statutes, regulations, and practices applied in a manner that yields no substantial differential impacts relative to the dominant group. Although environmental equity implies elements of "fairness" and "rights", it does not necessarily address past inequities or view the environment broadly, nor does it incorporate an understanding of the underlying causes and processes.

The EPA releases reports about environmental equity, here . As of 1992, it was stated, "there are clear differences between racial groups in terms of disease and death rates; racial minority and low-income populations experience higher than average exposures to selected air pollutants, hazardous waste facilities, contaminated fish and agricultural pesticides in the workplace; and great opportunities exist for EPA and other government agencies to improve communication about environmental problems with members of low-income and racial minority groups."

Environmental Racism - Racial discrimination in environmental policy-making, enforcement of regulations and laws, and targeting of communities of color for toxic waste disposal and siting of polluting industries," according to Reverend Benjamin E. Chavis, Jr., Ex-Chairman of the NAACP. Racial discrimination can be intentional or unintentional and is often a manifestation of "institutional racism." This term acknowledges the political reality that created and continues to perpetuate environmental inequity and injustice.




Environmental Classism - The results of and the process by which implementation of environmental policy creates intended or unintended consequences which have disproportionate impacts (adverse or beneficial) on lower income persons, populations, or communities. These disparate effects occur through various decision-making processes, program administration (e.g. Superfund clean-up schedules), and the issuance regulatory actions such as compliance inspections and other enforcement measures such as fines and penalties, and administrative and judicial orders. Flawed policies
formation processes coupled with agency norms, priorities, traditions, and professional biases often make implementation
subject to these disproportionate consequences.

According to the United States EPA, the six most prominent examples of environmental hazards include:[60]
Lead - There is a particularly high concentration of lead problems in low-income and culturally diverse populations, who live in the inner city where the public housing units were built before 1970.

Waste Sites - Low income, and quite often culturally diverse populations, are more likely than other groups to live near landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste treatment facilities.

Air Pollution - 57 percent of all European Americans, 65 percent of African Americans, and 80 percent of Hispanic Americans live in communities that have failed to meet at least one of EPA's ambient air quality standards.

Pesticides - Approximately 90 percent of the 2 million hired farm workers in the United States are people of color, including Chicano, Puerto Ricans, Caribbean blacks and African Americans. Through direct exposure to pesticides, farm workers and their families may face serious health risks. It has been estimated that as many as 313,000 farm workers in the U.S. may suffer from pesticide-related illnesses each year.

Wastewater (City Sewers) - Many inner cities still have sewer systems that are not designed to handle storm overflow. As a result, raw sewage may be carried into local rivers and streams during storms, creating a health hazard.

Wastewater - (Agricultural Runoff) - It is suspected that the increased use of commercial fertilizers and concentrations of animal wastes contribute to the degradation of receiving streams and rivers in rural areas, with communities that are often low income and culturally diverse.




SCORECARD.ORG allows you to look up pollutants and contaminants by zip code.