THE QUEST FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

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THE QUEST FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

• ELIMINATING ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH
• DISPARITIES IN VULNERABLE POPULATIONS
• September 14, 2007
• Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D.
• Environmental Justice Resource Center
• Clark Atlanta University
• Atlanta, Georgia

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Its Just One Book But Dont Tell Anybody

• Invisible Houston
• Dumping in Dixie
• In Search of the New South
• Growth and Decline of a Sunbelt Boomtown
• Confronting Environmental Racism
• Residential Apartheid

• Unequal Protection
• Just Transportation
• Sprawl City
• Just Sustainabilities
• Highway Robbery
• The Quest for Environmental Justice
• Growing Smarter
• The Black Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century

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WHY PLACE MATTERS

• The natural environment - the quality of our air,
  water, and soil exposure to lead, environmental
  tobacco smoke, and noise industrial waste
  disposal
• The built environment - parks, sidewalks,
  bikeways, transportation networks,
  urban/suburban/rural planning and development,
  zoning regulations, housing codes, disability
  accessibility
• The social environment - social processes and
  conditions related to economic and political
  power and decision making human connections at
  an ecological level, such as social capital,
  efficacy, and cohesion family relationships
  safe schools discrimination due to race,
  ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation,
  gender, age

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Defining the Environment

• Where We Live
• Where We Work
• Where We Play
• Where We Go to School
• Physical and Natural World

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Environmental Inequities

• Distribution of benefits vs. burdens
• Public investments and social equity
• Land use and facility siting decisions
• Residential segregation
• Disparate access to information
• Quality and quantity of services
• Access to planning and decision making

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Environmental Justice Principle

• Environmental justice embraces the principle that
  all people and communities are entitled to equal
  protection of our environmental, health,
  employment, education, housing, transportation,
  and civil rights laws

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Why Environment Matters

• The natural environment - the quality of our air,
  water, and soil exposure to lead, environmental
  tobacco smoke, and noise industrial waste
  disposal
• The built environment - parks, sidewalks,
  bikeways, transportation networks,
  urban/suburban/rural planning and development,
  zoning regulations, housing codes, disability
  accessibility
• The social environment - social processes and
  conditions related to economic and political
  power and decision making human connections at
  an ecological level, such as social capital,
  efficacy, and cohesion family relationships
  safe schools discrimination due to race,
  ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation,
  gender, age

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WHY HEALTH MATTERS
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Growing Smarter Healthier

• Smart Growth is defined as growth that is
  economically sound, environmentally friendly, and
  supportive of community livability - growth that
  enhances our quality of life
• Smart growth is development that serves the
  economy, the community and the environment

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WHY REGIONS MATTER

• In the real world, all communities are not
  created equal
• Some communities are more equal than others
• Where you live can impact your quality of life
  and access to opportunity
• Where you live can also heighten your
  vulnerability to disasters
• Government policies have aided and abetted the
  creation of separate and unequal places within
  metropolitan regions

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WARNING! WARNING!

• Your environment can be hazardous to your health

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Wrong Side of the Tracks
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Toxic Public Housing

• A 2000 Dallas Morning New study found that
  870,000 of the 1.9 million (46) housing units
  for the poor, mostly minority families, sit
  within one mile of TRI reporting factories
• When accidents, explosions, and spills occur at
  petrochemical plants, nearby residents are
  instructed to shelter in place, close their
  doors and windows, stay inside, and pray

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Toxic Homes

• Lead poisoning is the number one environmental
  health threat to children in the United States
• Lead poisoning is a preventable disease
• Low-income children are eight times more likely
  than those of affluence to live where lead paint
  causes a problem
• Black children are five times more likely than
  white children to suffer from lead poisoning

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HEALTH EFFECTS OF LEAD

• Nervous system
• Developmental
• Cognitive
• Behavioral
• Hearing
• Sight
• Renal (kidney)
• Immune system

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Protecting Children from Environmental Injustice

• Children are not little adults
• Children are more susceptible and exposed to
  environmental threats
• Children spend more time outside and at times
  when air pollution is at its highest
• Children are least able to protect themselves,
  making them the most vulnerable of the
  vulnerable
• Poor children and children of color are at
  disproportionate risk for exposure to
  environmental hazards

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Toxic Public Schools

• More than 600,000 students in MA, NY, NJ, MI, and
  CA attend nearly 1,200 public schools (attended
  by mostly students of color) that are located
  within a half mile of a federal Superfund or
  state identified contaminated site
• Nearly one in five schools in the U.S. has at
  least one room, or more than 73,000 schoolrooms
  in all, with radon levels above 4 pCi/L
  (picocuries per liter), the level that EPA
  recommends that action should be taken

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Threats to Children

• One of every four American child lives in areas
  that regularly exceeds the U.S. EPA ozone
  standards
• Children living or attending schools within 300
  meters of major roadways are significantly more
  likely to get asthma and other respiratory
  illnesses
• Asthma accounts for 10 million missed school
  days, 1.2 million emergency room visits, 15
  million outpatient visits, and over 500,000
  hospitalizations each year

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Uninsured Households

• The number of people without health insurance
  coverage rose from 44.8 million (15.3 percent) in
  2005 to 47 million (15.8 percent) in 2006
• The number of uninsured children increased from 8
  million (10.9 percent) in 2005 to 8.7 million
  (11.7 percent) in 2006
• One-third (34.1 percent) of Hispanics and
  one-fifth (20.3 percent) of blacks were uninsured
  in 2006, compared with one-tenth (10.8 percent)
  of whites

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STATE OF THE AIR - 2007

• Nearly half (46 percent) of the U.S. population
  lives in counties that have unhealthful levels of
  either ozone or particle pollution.
• Over 136 million Americans live in 251 counties
  where they are exposed to unhealthful levels of
  air pollution in the form of either ozone or
  short-term or year-round levels of particles.
• One-third of the U.S. population33.4
  percentlives in areas with unhealthful levels of
  ozone, a significant reduction since the last
  report when nearly half did.Roughly one in three
  people in the United States lives in an area with
  unhealthful short-term levels of particle
  pollution, a significant increase since 2006.
• Nearly one in five people in the United States
  lives in an area with unhealthful year-round
  levels of particle pollution.
• About 38.3 million Americansnearly one in eight
  peoplelive in 32 counties with unhealthful
  levels of all three ozone and short-term and
  year-round particle pollution.
• Source American Lung Association (2007)

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Transportation and Pollution

• Transportation sources account for 80 of carbon
  monoxide, 45 of nitrogen oxide, 35 of
  hydrocarbons, 32 of carbon dioxide, 19 of
  particulate matter, and 5 of sulfur dioxide

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Dumping Dirty Diesel

• Emissions from dirty diesel vehicles pose
  health threats to nearby residents
• Diesel particulate matter alone contributes to
  125,000 cancers in the U.S.
• In New York City, six out of eight of the MTAs
  diesel bus depots (housing 2000 buses) in
  Manhattan are located in Northern Manhattan, a
  low-income community of color

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Geography of Air Pollution

• Nationally, 57 of whites, 65 of blacks, and 80
  of Hispanics live in counties with substandard
  air
• Over 61.3 of Black children, 69.2 of Hispanic
  children and 67.7 of Asian-American children
  live in areas that exceed the 0.08 ppm ozone
  standard, while 50.8 of white children live in
  such areas
• Air pollution claims 70,000 lives a year, nearly
  twice the number killed in traffic accidents

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Living and Dying with Pollution

• African Americans are 79 percent more likely than
  whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial
  pollution is suspected of posing the greatest
  health danger
• African Americans in 19 states are more than
  twice as likely as whites to live in
  neighborhoods with high pollution and a similar
  pattern was discovered for Hispanics in 12 states
  and Asians in seven states
• Source Associated Press (2005)

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Paying with Our Health

• Air pollution claims 70,000 lives a year, nearly
  twice the number killed in traffic accidents
• Public health costs due to air pollution account
  for over three-quarters of the total
  pollution-related public health costs and could
  be as high as 182 billion annually
• An estimated 50,000 to 120,000 premature deaths
  are associated with exposure to air pollutants
• People with asthma experience more than 100
  million days of restrictive activity annually,
  costing 4 billion a year

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DIRTY POWER
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Dirty Power and Children

• Over 78 of African Americans live within 30
  miles of a power plantthe distance within which
  the maximum effects of the smokestack plumes are
  expected to occur, compared with 56 of white
  Americans
• Over 35 million American children live within 30
  miles of a power plant, of which an estimated two
  million are asthmatic

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Its Raining Mercury

• Coal-burning power plants are the major source of
  mercury pollution
• Much of the mercury stays airborne for two years
  and spreads around the globe
• One recent study found fetus-harming levels of
  mercury in about 8 of U.S. women of childbearing
  age
• Efforts to limit mercury from the 1,100
  coal-burning power plants that are the main
  source of mercury pollution are mired in politics

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Source of Sulfur Dioxide - 2002
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Dirty Power Plants Kill
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TOUGHER OZONE STANDARDS

• EPAs own Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee
  (CASAC), an independent body chartered under the
  Clean Air Act, concluded that the current ozone
  standard (.080 ppm) is not adequate to protect
  human health and unanimously recommended EPA set
  a new tougher standard in the range of .060 to
  .070 parts per million
• New epidemiological and clinical studies reveal
  that breathing ozone at concentrations at the
  current standard of 0.08 ppm, decreases lung
  function, increases respiratory symptoms,
  inflammation, and increases susceptibility to
  respiratory infection

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Ground Level Ozone and Health

• Over 27 million children under age 13 live in
  areas with ozone levels above the EPA standard
• Half the pediatric asthma population, two million
  children, live in these areas
• More than 61.3 percent of African American
  children, 69.2 percent of Hispanic children and
  67.7 percent of Asian-American children live in
  areas that exceed the 0.080 ppm ozone standard,
  while 50.8 percent of white children live in such
  areas.
• High ozone levels cause more than 50,000
  emergency room visits each year and result in
  15,000 hospitalizations for respiratory
  illnesses.
• Ozone pollution is responsible for 10 percent to
  20 percent, and nearly 50 percent on bad days, of
  all hospital admissions for respiratory
  conditions
• Ground level ozone sends an estimated 53,000
  persons to the hospital, 159,000 to the emergency
  room and triggers 6,200,000 asthma attacks each
  summer in the eastern half of the United States.

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OZONE IN SPRAWLANTA

• Nearly half (48.6 percent) of the Atlanta metro
  region's air pollution is from cars and
  heavy-duty vehicles, which each year spew over
  1.5 million tons of pollutants.
• Transportation-related air pollution sources
  exact a major financial toll on the Atlanta
  region, with public health costs estimated to be
  as high as 637 million.
• In 2007, metro Atlanta experienced forty-seven
  smog alerts 34 "orange" days and 13 "red" days
  for ozone, particulate matter, or both.

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VULNERABLE POPULATIONS
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THE RIGHT TO BREATHE

• Air pollution has been linked to rising asthma
  rates
• Asthma hits poor, inner city children the hardest
  
• African Americans and Latinos are two to six
  times more likely than whites to die from asthma
• Asthma hospitalization rate for African Americans
  and Latinos is 3 to 4 times the rate for whites

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An Asthma Epidemic

• Asthma affects 15 to 17 million people, including
  5 million children in the U.S.
• Six percent of U.S. children have asthma
• Asthma is now the nations number one childhood
  illness
• Asthma is the number one reason for childhood
  emergency room visits and school absenteeism

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Protecting Children from Environmental Threats

• Children are not just little adults
• Children are more susceptible and exposed to
  environmental threats
• Children spend more time outside and at times
  when air pollution is at its highest
• Children are least able to protect themselves,
  making them the most vulnerable of the
  vulnerable
• Poor children and children of color are at
  disproportionate risk for exposure to
  environmental hazards

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Threats to Children

• One of every four American child lives in areas
  that regularly exceeds the U.S. EPA ozone
  standards
• Children living or attending schools within 300
  meters of major roadways are significantly more
  likely to get asthma and other respiratory
  illnesses
• Asthma accounts for 10 million missed school
  days, 1.2 million emergency room visits, 15
  million outpatient visits, and over 500,000
  hospitalizations each year

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Barriers to Physical Activity

• Time
• Cost
• Access to Resources
• Child Care
• Sedentary Activities
• Beliefs
• Safety Security
• Environment
• Transportation

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Urban Green Space Linked to Walking, Cycling
Levels

• The top 10 cities for utilitarian walking and
  bicycling New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
  Minneapolis-St. Paul, Boston, San Francisco,
  Chicago, Portland, Cincinnati and Oakland
• The bottom 10 cities for utilitarian walking
  and bicycling Memphis, Columbus, Cleveland,
  Virginia Beach, Milwaukee, St. Louis/Atlanta
  (tied), San Jose, San Diego and Sacramento

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Top 10 Walking Cycling

• The top 10 cities for recreational walking and
  bicycling San Francisco, Milwaukee, Oakland, San
  Diego, San Jose, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Los
  Angeles/Tampa (tied) and Denver
• The bottom 10 cities for recreational walking and
  bicycling Atlanta, Cincinnati, New York,
  Chicago, Houston, Phoenix-Mesa, Cleveland, Miami,
  Las Vegas and Virginia Beach

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MEAN STREETS DONT WALK
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Dangerous Streets

• Walking is 36 times than driving and more than
  300 times more dangerous than flying

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Mean Streets for Walkers - 2004

• Over the ten-year period from 1994 to 2003, more
  than 50,000 pedestrians died on our streets
• The Top Ten most deadly cities for walkers
  include
• 1 - Orlando, FL 2 - Tampa-St Petersburg-Clearwat
  er, FL3 - West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, FL4 -
  Miami-Fort Lauderdale, FL5 - Memphis, TN-AR-MS6
  - Atlanta, GA7 - Greensboro--Winston-Salem--High
  Point, NC8 - Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, TX9 -
  Jacksonville, FL10 - Phoenix-Mesa, AZ

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Do Not Walk or Bike

• Today, fewer than one in eight students walk or
  bike to school compared to a majority of students
  a generation ago
• Wide streets with no sidewalks often leave
  pedestrians stranded and exposed to traffic

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Protecting the Most Vulnerable

• Children represent just 15 of the U.S.
  population, yet they account for 30 of the
  pedestrian fatalities
• More than one-fourth of the 5-9 year old children
  killed in traffic accidents are pedestrians
• Being hit by a car is the number one cause of
  death of kids 5-14 in New York City, with The
  Bronx leading the five boroughs with the highest
  percentage of children hit (over one third of the
  pedestrians hit in The Bronx are children 14 and
  under)

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WHY PARKS MATTER
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Top 10 Cities for Parkland

• The top 10 cities for parkland as a percentage of
  city acreage San Francisco, Washington, New
  York, San Diego, Boston, Minneapolis-St. Paul,
  Portland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and
  Phoenix-Mesa
• The bottom 10 cities for parkland as a percentage
  of city acreage San Jose, Atlanta, New Orleans,
  Tampa, Miami, Houston, Cleveland,
  Memphis/Sacramento (tie) and Columbus (OH)

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WE ALL NEED NOT BE MARATHON RUNNERS
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ALL PARKS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL
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Dangerous Playgrounds

• The most common wood preservative and pesticide
  used to treat outdoor wood is chromated copper
  arsenic (CCA)
• Current law allows less than 10 milligrams of
  arsenic per liter of drinking water
• The average 12-foot-long piece of CCA-treated
  wood contains 1 ounce of pure arsenicenough to
  kill 250 adults
• Children are estimated to ingest almost 630
  milligrams per visit to a playground and after
  five minutes contact with treated wood

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Polluted Parks

• Children play at a park across the street from
  the Shell Oil refinery in Norco, LA
• The chemical plant was built on the Old Diamond
  Plantation
• In July, 2002, after a decade of struggle, the
  Diamond community was finally relocated by Shell
• For her gallant effort to win justice for her
  Diamond community, Margie Richard was awarded the
  2004 Goldman Prize

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Park in Camden, NJ

• Residents in the Waterfront South district of
  Camden, New Jersey live in housing nestled among
  two Superfund sites, a sewage treatment plant, a
  trash-to-steam incinerator, an Ogden
  co-generation plant, the Camden Iron and Metal
  works, the Jen-Cyn sheet metal plant, the Comarco
  Pork Products, and the new St. Lawrence Cement
  plant

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Park in West Harlem, NY

• River Bank State Park sits atop the North River
  Sewer Treatment Plant in mostly African American
  and Latino West Harlem, NY
• West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT) sued
  the City and won a 1.1 million settlement
• For her effort to win justice for her West Harlem
  community, Peggy Shepard, Executive Director of
  WE ACT, was given the prestigious 2003 Heinz
  Award in the field of environment

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A Park in Baytown, TX Located Across from
ExxonMobil Refinery

• On late Sunday evening January 25, 2006, a
  storage tank at the Exxon Mobil Refinery in
  Baytown, Texas spilled a 150,000-barrel storage
  tank holding a heated substance called process
  gas oil, or PGO, releasing 1,400 barrels of oil
  droplets into a 48-unit public housing complex
• Monday afternoon Exxon Mobil clean-up crews
  showed up wearing jumpsuits and plastic gloves
• It was not until Tuesday that the company
  informed state officials of the cleanup and that
  the incident went off the plants grounds
  affecting the nearby community
• Harris Countys Pollution Control and
  Environmental Health Division officials learned
  of the off-site release from media accounts on
  Wednesday, more than two days after the incident
• Process gas oil contains benzene, a known
  carcinogen

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WHY PHYSICAL ACTIVITY MATTERS
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Physical Activity and Obesity

• Government data suggest that only 45 percent of
  Americans meet recommendations for physical
  activity and of the remaining 55 percent, about
  half are sedentary
• African American (24.1) children are
  significantly less likely to participate in
  organized physical activity compared to white
  children (46.6)
• In a Yankelovich survey, nearly one-third of
  Americans with incomes below 15,000 per year
  said they did not walk or jog in their
  neighborhood for fear of crime, double the
  proportion of those making 25,000

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Rising Childhood Obesity

• Over 60 of American adults are overweight or
  obese, as are nearly 13 of children 
• Low levels of physical activity and poor dietary
  habits are causes of childhood obesity, a
  condition associated with risk factors for adult
  chronic diseases
• Annual U.S. obesity-attributable medical
  expenditures are estimated at 75 billion in 2003
  dollars

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Causes of Childhood Obesity

• Modifiable causes
• Physical Activity - Lack of regular exercise
• Sedentary behavior - High frequency of television
  viewing, computer usage, and similar behavior
  that takes up time that can be used for physical
  activity
• Socioeconomic Status - Low family incomes and
  non-working parents
• Eating Habits - Over-consumption of high-calorie
  foods. Some eating patterns that have been
  associated with this behavior are eating when not
  hungry, eating while watching TV or doing
  homework
• Environment - Some factors are over-exposure to
  advertising of foods that promote high-calorie
  foods and lack of recreational facilities
• Non-changeable causes
• Genetics - Greater risk of obesity has been found
  in children of obese and overweight parents.

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YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT
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FAST FOOD GEOGRAPHY
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Healthiest Cities 2005 (Pre-Katrina)
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Fat City USA Pre-Katrina

• The American Obesity Association reports that New
  Orleans is among the U.S. cities with the highest
  obesity rates
• In 2000, it was ranked the city with the fifth
  highest obesity rate in the nation
• The following year it climbed to fourth place,
  and in 2002 fell back to twentieth place and
  moved back up to seventh place in 2005
• According to the New Orleans Health Department,
  the number one killer in the Orleans Parish is
  cardiovascular diseases
• This has been partially attributed to high
  obesity rates and poor dietary habits

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Marketing Bad Health

• According to Advertising Age, food industry ad
  spending runs about 10 billion per year
• McDonald's alone spends more than 1 billion and
  Coke more 800 million
• Healthy messages like the national 5-A-Day
  Fruit-and-Vegetable Campaign, funded annually at
  a paltry 2 million

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Supermarket Flight

• Wealthier neighborhoods have more than three
  times as many supermarkets as poor neighborhoods,
  limiting access for many people to the basic
  elements of a healthy diet
• When broken down by race, not just wealth, there
  are four times as many supermarkets in
  predominantly white neighborhoods as in black
  neighborhoods
• Low-income residents pay 10 to 40 percent more
  for food than higher income residents

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The 250 Billion Poverty Business
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Supermarket Redlining

• Food redlining operates when large-scale
  supermarkets abandon lower-income and people of
  color communities for their more affluent and
  white counterparts, leaving entire communities
  with little or no access to affordable, quality
  food
• Food redlining and relining by banks and
  insurance companies go hand in hand
• Food redlining forces low-income residents to
  spend more money and time, and travel farther and
  accept lower quality of food

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Crossing the Food Desert

• How do you know if you live in a food desert?
  Answer If you shop for food in the local
  corner drugstore or pharmacy
• Food deserts are vast areas with no or distant
  grocery stores
• Food deserts are not accidental but are created
  by conscious decisions made by multiple actors

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DUMPING ON THE POOR

• Many inner-city grocery stores sell leftovers or
  seconds from their sister stores in wealthier
  areas
• It is not uncommon to find wilted produce,
  expired milk, and spoiled meat in inner-city
  grocery stores

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UNHEALTHY BY DESIGN

• Fast food outlets proliferate in many inner city
  neighborhoods, crowding out access to healthier
  foods
• Children are the special targets of saturation
  marketing by the fast food and junk food industry
• Access to fast food outlets and concentration are
  associated with important health outcomes and
  diet-related diseasesincluding cardiovascular
  disease, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity

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SUPERSIZE ME
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YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

• In many people of color urban neighborhoods, it
  is far easier to get an artery-choking burger and
  fries (super-sized) than a bag fresh apples or
  bunch of grapes

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Toxic Wastes and Race - 2007

• Race continues to be a significant independent
  predictor of commercial hazardous waste facility
  locations when socioeconomic and other non-racial
  factors are taken into account
• People of color make up the majority (56) of
  those living in neighborhoods within 3 kilometers
  (1.8 miles) of the nations commercial hazardous
  waste facilities, nearly double the percentage in
  areas beyond 3 kilometers (30)
• People of color make up a much larger (over
  two-thirds) majority (69) in neighborhoods with
  clustered facilities
• People of color in 2007 are more concentrated in
  areas with commercial hazardous sites than in
  1987

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Report Findings Continued

• Over 5.1 million people of color, including 2.5
  million Hispanics or Latinos, 1.8 million African
  Americans, 616,000 Asians/Pacific Islanders, and
  62,000 Native Americans live in neighborhoods
  with one or more commercial hazardous waste
  facilities
• Percentages of people of color as a whole are 1.9
  times greater in host neighborhoods than in
  non-host areas.
• Percentages of African Americans,
  Hispanics/Latinos, and Asians/Pacific Islanders
  in host neighborhoods are 1.7, 2.3, and 1.8 times
  greater (20 vs. 12, 27 vs. 12, and 6.7 vs.
  3.6), respectively

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Disparities by EPA Region

• Racial disparities for people of color as a whole
  exist in 9 out of 10 EPA regions (all except
  Region 3)
• Disparities in people of color percentages
  between host neighborhoods and non-host areas are
  greatest in Region 1, the Northeast (36 vs.
  15) Region 4, the southeast (54 vs. 30)
  Region 5, the Midwest (53 vs. 19) Region 6,
  the South, (63 vs. 42) and Region 9, the
  southwest (80 vs. 49)

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Disparities in U.S. Metro Areas

• In Metro areas, people of color in hazardous
  waste host neighborhoods are significantly
  greater than in non-host areas (57 vs. 33)
• Six metro areas account for half of all people of
  color living in close proximity to all of the
  nations commercial hazardous waste
  facilitiesLos Angeles, New York, Detroit,
  Chicago, Oakland, and Orange County
• Los Angeles alone accounts for 21 of the people
  of color in host neighborhoods nationally
• Greater Los Angeles tops the nation with 1.2
  million people living less than two miles from 17
  waste facilities, and 91 percent of them, or 1.1
  million, are people of color

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Disparities in U.S. Metro Areas

• Detroit is home to 12 hazardous waste facilities
  where nearly 70 of the residents living with two
  miles are people versus 25.8 percent living in
  areas with waste facilities
• More than three-fourths (78.6) of the residents
  near wastes facilities in the Houston metro
  region are people of color
• Clearly, six of eight Texas metro areas have
  waste facility siting disparities
• In Georgia, people of color make up a majority
  (55.6) of residents near waste facilities
• And in Metro Atlanta, people of color (largely
  African Americans) comprise nearly two-thirds
  (64.6) of the residents in neighborhoods with
  wastes facilities compared to 39.6 percent
  without waste facilities

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REPORT CONCLUSIONS

• People of color are found to be more concentrated
  around hazardous waste facilities than previously
  shown
• Race matters -- Race maps closely with the
  geography of pollution
• Place matters -- Unequal protection places
  communities of color at special risk
• Polluting industries still follow the path of
  least resistance
• The current environmental protection apparatus is
  broken and needs to be fixed
• Slow government response to environmental
  contamination and toxic threats unnecessarily
  endangers the health of the most vulnerable
  populations in our society

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Policy Recommendations

• Codify Environmental Justice Executive Order
  12898
• Provide Legislative Fix for Title VI of the
  Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Reinstate the Superfund Tax
• Hold Congressional Hearings on EPA Response to
  Contamination in EJ Communities
• Convene Congressional Black Caucus and
  Congressional Hispanic Caucus Policy Briefings
• Enact Legislation Promoting Clean Production and
  Waste Reduction
• Require Comprehensive Safety Data for all
  Chemicals
• Implement the EPA Office of Inspector General
  Recommendations

• Fully Implement Environmental Justice Executive
  Order 12898
• Protect Community Right to Know
• End EPA Rollback of Environmental Justice
  Initiatives
• Require Cumulative Risk Assessment in Facility
  Permitting
• Require Safety Buffers in Facility Permitting and
  Fenceline Community Performance Bonds for
  Variances
• Require State-by-State Assessment (Report Card)
  on EJ
• Develop Brownfields Partnerships with Academic
  Institutions
• Establish Tax Increment Finance Funds
• Establish Community Land Trusts

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Policy Recommendations

• Development Community Benefits Plans
• Increased Private Foundations General Support
  Funding for EJ
• Funds to Support Training of New Generation of
  Leaders
• Target Dirty Dozen EJ Test Cases
• Step up Efforts to Diversify Mainstream
  Environmental Organizations
• Strengthen Racial, Ethnic and Cross-class
  Collaborations among EJ Organizations

• Adopt Clean Production Principles
• Phase Out Persistent, Bioaccumulative, or Highly
  Toxic Chemicals
• Adopt Extended Producer Responsibility
• Support Community and Worker Right-to-Know
• Adopt and Uphold Legally-Binding Good
  Neighborhood Agreements

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DEADLY MIX OF WATER, POLLUTION, AND RACE
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Poisoned Wells in Dickson County, Tennessee

• An automotive manufacturing plant dumped
  trichloroethylene or TCE in the Dickson County
  Landfill from 1968 to 1985
• Federal, state, and county officials knew as
  early as 1988 that TCE was in the wells of a
  black family who lived near the county landfill
• In 1993, white families in the area were notified
  within 48 hours of that determination that the
  toxic chemical was present in their wells and
  placed on the county system

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Nightmare on Eno Road

• Harry Holt Prostate cancer, bone cancer, Type 1
  diabetes, hypertension, kidney failure (died on
  January 9, 2007)
• Beatrice Holt Rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes,
  cervical polyps
• Sheila Holt-Orsted Breast cancer, diabetes,
  arthritis, gastrointestinal disorder
• Bonita Holt Arthritis, colon polyps,
  hypertension, gastrointestinal disorder
• Demetrius Holt Diabetes, gastrointestinal
  disorder
• Patrick Holt Immune disorder, arthritis

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Faulty Testing and Notification

• In 1990, government tests found 26 ppb (parts per
  billion) TCE in the Harry Holt wellfive times
  above the established Maximum Contaminant Level
  (MCL) of 5ppb set by the federal EPA
• TCE was also detected in the Mr. Holt well in
  1991 and he was sent a letter saying, Use of
  your well water should not result in any adverse
  health effects.
• No tests were reported on the Holt well between
  1992 and 1999
• In Oct. 9, 2001, Harry Holt well was tested and
  registered a whopping 120 ppb TCE, 24 times
  higher than the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL)
  of 5ppb set by the federal EPA
• On Oct. 20, 2001, the Holt family was placed on
  Dickson City watertwelve years after the first
  government tests found TCE in their well in 1988
  
• The family filed a lawsuit in 2003

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Pre-Katrina - Living and Dying in Louisianas
Cancer Alley

• Dozens of toxic time bombs along Louisianas
  Cancer Alley, the 85-mile stretch from Baton
  Rouge to New Orleans, made the industrial
  corridor a major environmental justice
  battleground in the 1990s
• Before Katrina, New Orleans was struggling with a
  wide range of environmental justice concerns,
  including an older housing stock with lots of
  lead paint

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LOUISIANAS CANCER ALLEY
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Living on a Toxic Dump

• Residents of New Orleans Press Park neighborhood
  were living on top of the Agricultural Street
  Landfill Superfund site
• The landfill was reopened in 1965 for the
  disposal of debris from Hurricane Betsy
• Moton Elementary School was also built on the
  landfill site
• Before Hurricane Katrina, residents of
  Agricultural Street had been fighting a legal
  battle for decades to get relocated from the
  contaminated site
• The lawsuit was finally settled in January 2006

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EPA Your Neighborhood is Safe

• EPA officials assured the Ag Street residents
  that their neighborhood was safe after a 2001
  Superfund clean-up
• Residents did not trust the EPAs clean-up and
  filed a lawsuit against the city

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A Bitter-Sweet Victory

• In January 2006, Seventh District Court Judge
  Nadine Ramsey ruled in favor of the residents,
  describing them as poor minority citizens who
  were promised the American dream of first-time
  homeownership, though the dream turned out to
  be a nightmare
• Today, a dozen or so FEMA trailers now house
  Katrina survivors in the contaminated
  neighborhoodwhere EPA announced in April 2006 it
  had found the carcinogen benzo(a)pyrene at levels
  almost 50 times the health screening level
• No decision has been made to cleanup the
  contamination found near the old Agriculture
  Street landfill

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Faulty Flood Protection

• Much of the flooding that drowned 80 percent of
  New Orleans was caused by levee breachesa
  man-made disaster
• The Army Corps of Engineers has spent 5.7
  billion for New Orleans levee repairs
• The 200-mile repaired and reinforced levee system
  is not guaranteed to hold when a Category 4 or 5
  hurricane strikes

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Washed Away by Katrina
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Avoiding a Second Disaster

• November 2005 Katrina and the Second Disaster
  A Twenty-Point Plan to Destroy Black New
  Orleans
• Race plays out in disaster survivors ability to
  rebuild, replace infrastructure, obtain loans,
  and locate temporary and permanent housing
• Communities of color face challenges in
  addressing environmental and health concerns
  before and after the disasters
• Generally, people of color disaster victims spend
  more time in temporary housingshelters,
  trailers, mobile homes, and hotelsand are more
  vulnerable to permanent displacement

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FEMAs Toxic Travel Trailers

• Since early 2006, the Federal Emergency
  Management Agency (FEMA) knew about the hazardous
  formaldehyde levels that exist in trailers it
  provided to victims of Hurricane Katrina
• Not only did the agency fail to act and conduct
  thorough testing of the air quality inside the
  trailers, it actively suppressed health and
  safety warnings from its own workers
• Formaldehyde levels in some trailers reached 75
  times the federal limit for worker exposure to
  the chemical
• Two years after the storm, there were 65,000
  trailers still in use in the Gulf Coast, of which
  45,000 were in Louisiana

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Will The Toxic Cleanup Be Fair?
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The Mother of All Toxic Cleanups in the U.S.

• Katrina floodwaters left miles of sediments laced
  with cancer-causing chemicals, toxic metals,
  industrial compounds, petroleum products, and
  banned insecticides, all at levels that pose
  potential cancer risk or other long-term hazards
• Government agencies have chosen not to clean up
  the contaminated topsoil where 80 of New Orleans
  flooded homes sit
• Since Katrina struck, more than 99 million cubic
  yards of debris have been removed in Alabama,
  Louisiana, and Mississippi

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DEBRIS FROM GUTTED HOMES
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Asthma in New Orleans

• New Orleans children have the highest asthma
  rates in Louisiana with over 16.4 suffering from
  the illness
• The asthma death rate in Orleans Parish is
  significantly higher than rates for the rest of
  Louisiana and the U.S.
• According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of
  America, childhood asthma costs in Orleans Parish
  are nearly 7 million per year tops in the
  state
• New Orleans humid climate and the large number
  of old homes, which often have dust mites and
  mold create a high concentration of major asthma
  triggers

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Indoor and Outside Mold Threats

• A number of asthma triggers are associated with
  excess moisture and mold
• Independent tests conducted by the Natural
  Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have also found
  dangerously high airborne mold levels inside and
  outside of homes, especially in the New Orleans
  neighborhoods that flooded
• Such high concentration of mold spores is likely
  to be a significant respiratory hazard
• Unfortunately, federal agencies, including the
  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department
  of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the
  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
  have not monitored mold levels in areas that
  flooded, and have done little to assist residents
  cope with the mold problem

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The Katrina Cough and Mold

• Health officials are now seeing a large number of
  evacuees afflicted with "Katrina cough," an
  illness believed to be linked to mold and dust
• Individuals are returning to their flooded homes
  without the necessary protective gear and getting
  sick
• Mold spores can trigger asthma attacks and set up
  life-threatening infections when normal immune
  systems are weakened

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New Orleans Gets Clean Bill of Health

• On August 17, 2006, nearly a year after Katrina
  struck, the federal EPA gave New Orleans and
  surrounding communities a clean bill of health,
  while pledging to monitor a handful of toxic hot
  spots
• EPA officials concluded that Katrina did not
  cause any appreciable contamination that was not
  already there
• Although EPA tests confirmed widespread lead in
  the soil, a pre-storm problem in 40 percent of
  New Orleans, EPA dismissed residents calls to
  address this problem as outside its mission

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Not Clean Enough for Horses . . .

• Although government officials insist the dirt in
  New Orleans residents yards is safe, Church Hill
  Downs, Inc., the owners of New Orleans Fair
  Grounds, felt it was not safe for its million
  dollar thoroughbred horses to race on
• The owners scooped up and hauled off soil tainted
  by Hurricane Katrinas floodwaters
• The Fair Grounds opened on Thanksgiving Day 2006
• The Fair Grounds is the nations third-oldest
  track, only Saratoga and Pimlico have been racing
  longer

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Before
Before
A SAFE WAY BACK HOME
After
After
After
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Its About Human Rights
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Need to Forge Broad Policies and Strategies

• Strengthen public health laws and regulation to
  protect children
• Provide funding to build capacity in community
  based organizations
• Build global environmental and economic justice
  movement to address root causes of poverty
  pollution

• Adoption of environmental justice and
  precautionary principle to protect the most
  vulnerable populations
• Improve communication between researchers, public
  health officials, policy makers, and the
  community
• Build community participation into research and
  policy development

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TAKE AWAY MESSAGE

• This is not rocket science
• Design communities (all communities) as if you
  lived next door
• Buy my books and dont wait for the movie or DVD

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For More Information Contact

• Environmental Justice Resource Center
• Clark Atlanta University
• Phone [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• E-Mail ejrc_at_cau.edu
• Web Page www.ejrc.cau.edu