While residents have just recently learned of the chemicals, 3M has known about the hazards they pose and their presence in local soil and water for decades. Read more.
Photo by Johnathon Kelso for The Intercept
Day: August 27, 2020
LAKE CHARLES – A chemical leak has apparently been reported in Lake Charles, according to reporters in the city covering the aftermath of Laura. Read more.
Photo from WBRZ News
Polluting industries, such as coal power plants, mining, and oil and gas corporations are receiving financial and regulatory relief across the globe, but specifically in the US, as governments aim to provide relief during the pandemic. These moves threaten progress that has made to combat polluters over the years and puts the globe at risk for rapid deterioration caused by climate change. Read More
Photo by Mike Marrah on Unsplash
Sacrifice zones are communities that are unequally overburdened by pollution from industry at the expense of other communities using the industrial end product. Sacrifice zones are typically characterized by having a majority low-income and/or minority population and currently have the highest death rates from COVID-19. Recent studies conducted by Harvard University and the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic have researched the correlation between areas with higher concentrations of particulate matter (PM2.5) and/or toxic air pollutants, and higher death rates from COVID-19. Given the evidence that sacrifice zones are some of the most severely impacted communities from the pandemic, we ask the question why isn’t more being done to protect these vulnerable populations? Read More.
Earlier this month, Harvard University released a preliminary study that examined a link between long term air pollution exposure and the severity of COVID-19 symptoms. Some of the most polluted areas in the United States are concentrated in regions with low-income and minority populations. As the virus has continued to spread, an alarming trend has been found between the ratio of death rates from the virus in predominately black neighborhoods with higher pollution and toxicity levels compared to predominantly white or less polluted neighborhoods. Read More.
This is essentially a nationwide waiver of environmental rules. Communities around these chemical plants and refineries now have one more threat to their health and well-being. If no one is watching and there is no financial or legal consequences for dumping toxic chemicals into the air, water and land this country has another crisis lurking in the near future.
Houston, Texas has at least six major chemical fires since last March, incidents that killed three workers, injured dozens, exposed thousands to pollutants and, in the case of the Watson Grinding blast, may cost dozens of residents their homes. That was when the industries were monitored and had to abide by the laws. Read more.
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Fundraising Workshop Training Materials
Check out our resource material on how to fundraise effectively for your organization. The following information was compiled and used at a fundraising workshop with the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.
Fundraising Workshop Training Packet
Fundraising Workshop Audio Recording
Blog by Sharon Franklin
Credit: Kate DeCiccio y Rose Jaffe (artists), Department of Public Works Murals DC Project
On January 20, 2020, El’gin Avila, MPH, CPH, a PhD student studying Industrial Hygiene at the University of Minnesota and the founder of Equitable Health Solutions published an article in Environmental Health News “Beyond coffee and condos: Black and brown families displaced and erased” https://www.ehn.org/gentrification-in-us-cities-2644882255.html.
He reported that in cities across the United States, displacement of long-time residents and their culture, and their exclusion from community decision-making is creating a public health crisis. He gave an example of when he lived in the DC Metro area, he witnessed the gentrification, subtle ethnic cleansing, and displacement of neighborhoods of color from one of the historically blackest cities in America. Avila, sited a neighborhood in DC that he frequented near the Navy Yard and remembered a mural of a Black family on a wall in a playground. Credit: Kate DeCiccio y Rose Jaffe (artists), Department of Public Works Murals DC Project
This was a neighborhood landmark for him, and then in the summer of 2019, it was gone. Now, in its place was a new development.
Like so many other communities (i.e. New York City, Detroit and San Francisco) that are also undergoing a similar transition as the Navy Yard, where Black and Brown families are being displaced and replaced by an influx of usually white, affluent, college-educated migrants under the guise of urban revitalization. Those displaced communities are often thrown into a cycle of instability and forced to combat disruptions in health care access, loss of community support networks, and additional financial and mental distress.
Waverly Place in Chinatown, San Francisco. (Credit: Russell Mondy/flickr)
However, there are communities who have survived this gentrification and displacement, such as Chinatown in San Francisco. Why..?? Because, of the Chinatown Rezoning Plan https://www.urbandisplacement.org/sites/default/files/images/urbandisplacementproject_policycasestudy_chinatown_april2016.pdf , which was implemented to protect the community from being re-designed by property developers. The result has been a community that currently retains its culture and its people.
Unfortunately, the current federal administration plans are focused on property and economic development, not on the community and its residents. As displayed by Trump’s Executive Order 13878, “Establishing a White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing,” dated June 25, 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-establishing-white-house-council-eliminating-regulatory-barriers-affordable-housing/ which will worsen this problem. This plan seeks to reverse many of the policies which protected communities like Chinatown in San Francisco.
Avila concludes by stating that he and other environmental health leaders, have a critical role to play in righting this wrong, and need to advocate for rapid change as these issues persist and grow. He also says, we have to be stewards of the public and demand greater accountability from those in office and in positions of power who can implement policies, laws, regulations and programs at the state and federal levels. Additionally, what is needed is to provide grassroots services to organizations who have the ability to listen, educate and mobilize communities that are at risk of displacement. This will help them stay in and improve their communities from the ground up and collectively echo their demand for tangible action and change.
On Thursday, January 23rd, the Trump Administration finalized the removal of the “Waters of the United States” regulations set in place during the Obama Administration. The removal of the 2015 rules was highly backed by the coal and farm sectors, that can now dump pollutants such as pesticides and fertilizers directly into waterways. Trump’s new water rule, the “Navigable Water Protection Rule,” will still protect larger bodies of water, including the Chesapeake Bay and the Mississippi River, but will reduce the protection of smaller water systems that could still sweep pollutants into those larger systems. Read More.