Environmental justice is having a moment. The term, which encompasses the many ways by which low-income people and communities of color suffer an unequal burden from pollution, contamination, and climate change, has seen a surge in use, largely due to the recent American political campaign.
Democratic primary candidates frequently mentioned environmental justice (or environmental racism) in their stump speeches, campaign pledges, and in debates — an indication that ideas that were not in the political discourse a decade ago, may shape some future climate policies. Environmental justice came up frequently enough in the primary that the first-ever Presidential Environmental Justice Forum was held in November 2019 and drew Senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren, as well as billionaire activist Tom Steyer. It’s been a big focus of President-elect Joe Biden’s climate platform and was discussed frequently as he unveiled his climate team in earlier this month. Beyond the race for the presidency, the racial unrest of the past summer, as well as the patterns of infections and death due to COVID-19, focused attention on a number of systemic issues in the U.S., including unfair environmental impacts felt by Black and brown Americans.
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Photo credit: Grist / MCarson Photography
Day: December 30, 2020
After a long year of environmental disasters across the globe and in the midst of a public health crisis that has killed well over a million people, six “environmental heroes” were announced on Monday as winners of the 2020 Goldman Environmental Prize, an annual honor that recognizes grassroots activists from each of the world’s inhabited continental regions.
“These six environmental champions reflect the powerful impact that one person can have on many,” John Goldman, president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, said in a statement. “In today’s world, we witness the effects of an imbalance with nature: a global pandemic, climate change, wildfires, environmental injustices affecting those most at risk, and constant threats to a sustainable existence.”
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Photo credit: Goldman Environmental Foundation
Cherise Harris noticed a change in her eldest daughter soon after the family moved a block away from a 132-year-old coal-fired power plant in Painesville, Ohio.
The teen’s asthma attacks occurred more frequently, Harris said, and she started carrying an inhaler with her at all times.
The family didn’t know it at the time, but Painesville’s municipal-owned plant emits nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide – two pollutants that the American Lung Association says inflames air passages, causing shortness of breath, chest tightness, pain and wheezing.
Photo credit: Getty Images
A new Duke University study has found that the concentrations of some potentially cancerous per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — or PFAS — are two to four times higher in the blood of Pittsboro residents than the U.S. population as a whole.
The study also found that some types of PFAS chemicals found in Pittsboro residents’ blood are “strikingly similar” to those found in the blood of Wilmington residents during an earlier study conducted by N.C. State and East Carolina universities.
Photo credit: Pxfuel, Creative Commons
North Dakota’s top oil and gas regulator had a problem. With winter bearing down, his department had yet to spend $16 million in federal coronavirus relief funds earmarked for cleaning up abandoned oil and gas well sites across the state, and the arrival of cold weather would halt the work.
If the money wasn’t spent by the end of the year, the state would lose it. So Lynn Helms, director of the state’s Department of Mineral Resources, proposed a different use for the funds: paying oil companies to hydraulically fracture new wells.
Photo credit: William Campbell/Corbis via Getty Images
By: Kayleigh Coughlin, Communications Intern
In an interview on Wednesday, August 12, 2020 for CHEJ’s Living Room Leadership Series, Hilton Kelley, Founder and Director of Community In-Power & Development Association (CIDA), shared his experience taking action against the neighboring chemical manufacturers, refineries and incinerator facilities in his hometown of Port Arthur, TX. CIDA is a non-profit organization that helps organize and educate local residents to fight back against corporate polluters and work together to promote healthy change. CIDA was founded in 2000 with the belief that “polluters should be held accountable for the chronic, systematic poisoning of low-income communities living along the ‘fence line’ of their operations.”
Mr. Kelley is a US Navy Veteran turned environmental activist. While Kelley claims to have always cared deeply about others, his road to activism was not planned. In his interview, Kelley described the moment his brief visit home to Port Arthur, TX turned permanent. “I was thrown aback by what I saw. Our downtown area was dilapidated … I went back to California but I kept thinking about my hometown. Someone needed to do something.” Within three months of his visit, Kelley had moved back home to Port Arthur and immediately got to work on his plan to help rebuild his hometown.
Kelley described the effects of ‘white flight’ in Port Arthur, which depleted the community of its school teachers, policemen, businesses, etc. This phenomenon helped lead to the “dilapidation” Kelley spoke about in his community by 2000. Without much-needed resources like banks, members of Kelley’s community had very little political power. Coupled with environmental health threats, given 30% of Jefferson County oil refineries are located in Port Arthur, local residents were under water. Corporations like Premcor, now Valero, claimed their oil refinery emissions were of “no harm” to residents, but Kelley found Premcor and, and a Saudi Arabian refinery, Motiva, had been out-of-compliance with the Clean Air Act for years. In 2006, CIDA filed a class action lawsuit against Motiva and other out-of-compliance refineries in the area, which resulted in these refineries eventually implementing the proper controls to reduce emissions. The lawsuit’s settlement resulted in the purchase of a mobile medical van to provide on-the-spot medical care and health vouchers to Port Arthur residents. Despite this win, there was some push-back from locals who feared taking on the power of these corporations.
“It’s a really tough job because you’re not only fighting against these out-of-compliance corporations …. You’re also fighting against some of the very people you’re fighting for because they look at you as the villain. They buy into the rhetoric that you’re going to drive these businesses away, and they rely on these jobs.”
Reaching these residents can be tough, but Kelley described the effectiveness of framing the issue around family. When you tell people that emissions are hurting not only them, but their children and their grandchildren, they begin to see the issue in a new light. The impacts borne by Port Arthur families cannot be ignored. One in five households in Port Arthur is affected by emission-related illnesses, like cancer. And many families in the area lack resources to receive proper medical treatment for their illnesses, said Kelley. “After a while, you just stop counting and start fighting.”
CIDA’s fight has resulted in numerous wins for Port Arthur, such as negotiating with Premcor for restitutions to community members in 2005, stopping 20,000 tons of PCBs from being shipped to Port Arthur for incineration in 2009, and much more. To learn more about CIDA’s fight in Port Arthur and neighboring communities, visit https://www.cidainc.org.
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Another toxic EPA cookbook
President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s environmental agenda — massive cuts to the EPA budget, short-circuited environmental reviews, reduced enforcement, weaker rules and scores of rollbacks of environmental protections — is shamelessly out of step with overwhelming public support for protecting the environment. The main strategy for selling this toxic stew has been to highlight its “benefits” and downplay its harms. Not content with that, the Trump administration is also working on new tricks to cook the books and hide the benefits of environmental protections.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
By: Shaina Smith, Community Organizing Intern
The reality of environmental inequality is that industry polluters target low-wealth and minority communities disproportionately. A 2018 study found that Black and Latino people are typically exposed to 56% and 63% more air pollution than is caused by their consumption, but that white people are exposed to 17% less than they cause.
This exposure weakens the immune system over time, and people with preexisting respiratory or cardiovascular diseases are more likely to have a severe case of coronavirus.
A recent Harvard study found that higher levels of pollution particles known as PM 2.5 are linked to higher coronavirus death rates. An increase of just one microgram per cubic meter results in a 10% increase in coronavirus cases, and 15% increases in death. A separate study of air quality found overlap between areas of high coronavirus mortality rate with high levels of air pollution. The EPA standard for PM 2.5 is 12 micrograms per cubic meter annual average, and the WHO standard is 10. However, some places in New York have annual PM levels above either standard, which may have contributed to the coronavirus hotspot earlier in the year.
A preliminary study in Italy detected Sars-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) on PM 10, which is the same thing as PM 2.5, but slightly larger. This means that air pollution is not only a direct pathway to transmission of coronavirus, but can even travel further in the air, increasing the risk for anyone living in areas of high contamination.
CDC data shows Black and Latino people are three times as likely to become infected with coronavirus than white people, and twice as likely to die.
These communities on the frontlines of pollution were already facing a health crisis, the coronavirus pandemic makes it more deadly.
To control a second wave the government needs to seriously consider the findings of these recent studies and impose harsher penalties and regulations on industrial polluters. In doing so this means taking on the root cause of why Black and Brown people suffer the most from this pandemic: systemic racism embedded in environmental, economic, and political aspects of life.
Photo by: Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images
Bayer, the current parent company and owner of Monsanto, has reached a $550 million settlement with 13 governmental entities in order to clean up contaminated Baltimore waterways. Bayer officials claim that Monsanto legally manufactured PCBs until 1977. PCBs were widely used in paints, lubricants, and electrical equipment until they were banned in the US in 1979. Waterways in the Baltimore area have been greatly polluted by past PCB contamination. The national class-action settlement aims to make Bayer pay for the pollution caused by Monsanto’s use of PCBs. Similar Monsanto-related settlements involving PCB pollution have been reached in New Mexico, Washington, and the District of Columbia. Read More
Photo by Mabel Amber from Pexels
Could migrant farmworkers be more susceptible to the coronavirus? In a time where social distancing is encouraged and washing one’s hands is important to staying safe from the coronavirus, there is cause for concern for farmworkers that are exposed to less than ideal living and working situations. Most workers live in crowded housing, are transported to farms on crowded buses, have unsanitary working conditions and cannot work from home. If a worker does contract the virus, most farmworkers do not have health insurance and do not have the finances to pay for medication and treatment out of pocket.
Some states, including North Carolina, have made alterations to protect farmworkers. Some accommodations include separate housing for individuals suspected of having the virus and access to hand sanitizer. Is this enough to keep farmworkers healthy and safe? Read More.