By Briana Villaverde, Community Organizing Intern
According to the EPA, people of color are disproportionately affected by air pollutants and are exposed at a higher rate. I have lived this statistic, fought it firsthand, and have been propelled by it into the world of environmental advocacy. My hometown, Paramount, California, is in the nation’s most Latino congressional district (CA-40). For a small city of only 4.8 square miles, it contains an overwhelming amount of metal and heavy industrial activity. This is my story of becoming an “accidental environmentalist.”
In 2016, Paramount residents rallied to stop a medical waste facility from being built in the city. This culminated in a demonstration at the city’s annual Apples with Santa Clause distribution where adults and children held signs that read, “Dear Santa, We Want Clean Air.” At the time, I was the president of my high school’s Green Club, where we focused on more basic environmentalism such as recycling and planting trees. This instance was a huge turning point for me and my understanding of organizing/environmental advocacy and that it went beyond mainstream conservationist rhetoric.
Image credit: Paramount Community Coalition Against Toxics
In 2017, I officially joined the organizing efforts with other Paramount residents to hold metal forging companies accountable for their willful polluting. Due to the volume of metal forging companies in the city and their process for treating metal at a commercial scale, many residents were experiencing irritation in their nose, throats, and lungs, as well as smelling strong metallic odors throughout the day. Children near these sites also reported shortness of breath and irritability from the odor. Community leaders filed a class action lawsuit against 8 of the prominent polluting industries in our city, but they were met with great pushbacks from electeds, other community members, and governmental agencies. We had short-lived wins when the South Coast Quality Air Management District forced companies to temporarily shut down operations that emitted hexavalent chromium, but they quickly started back up again with more “monitoring.” What this really meant was that they would increase operations at night when particulate matter was low. Additionally, our council members’ revolving door with the city’s members of the chamber of commerce left community members and myself in a constant state of disbelief with how money flowed between the city officials and these polluting companies.
Image credit: Paramount Community Coalition Against Toxics
After graduating from high school, I pursued this passion academically, majoring in Environmental Science and Policy with a minor in Chicano Latino studies at the University of California Irvine. I have interned and volunteered with natural resource management agencies and climate justice advocacy groups with my story as a grounding experience. Initially, I had set out with the intention of fighting for my community’s right to clean air and a safe environment, because that’s what I thought being an environmentalist essentially entailed. However, this path from lived experience to becoming a full-fledged and dedicated organizer is a common one that people, like me, will continue to walk. With the emergence of powerful climate justice organizations like the Sunrise Movement, Uplift, and SustainUS, I meet more and more young people of color with similar stories like mine. Their communities are also suffering from adverse health effects brought on by environmental racism and lack of corporate accountability – which leaves us with one strong choice, to become strong environmentalists. After a lot of struggles I realized that there was a shift in what I considered the role of an environmentalist – it was the love I have for my community and our right to a livable future that made me an “accidental environmentalist.”
Cover photo credit: Long Beach Press Telegram
Day: November 10, 2021
In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Healthy Gulf documented the damage in Cancer Alley, Port Fourchon and Lafourche, Terrebonne, Plaquemines and Jefferson Parishes in Louisiana. On two flights provided by SouthWings, Healthy Gulf documented the catastrophic damage to the communities and industries that bore the brunt of Hurricane Ida’s wrath.
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Photo Credit: Healthy Gulf, flight provided by SouthWings.org
Congress is preparing to infuse a historic amount of money into the nation’s drinking water systems — but whether that money will meet President Biden’s environmental justice goals will largely fall into the hands of states unlikely to consider race or how accessible those funds are to struggling communities, according to a new report.
The groundbreaking analysis released today reveals that, over the past decade, states have been less likely to spend money from EPA’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program on smaller and more diverse communities. Opting to release the majority of funds as loans, states are also providing fewer grants than federal law allows, possibly boxing impoverished communities out of federal funding for water infrastructure improvements.
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Photo Credit: FrankHoermann/SVEN SIMON/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
By Jessica Klees, Communications Intern
Jose Franco Garcia is an activist working with the Environmental Health Coalition, a binational organization that does work in San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico. His work focuses on environmental justice that crosses borders and brings communities together.
“Much like the Environmental Health Coalition, I grew up on both sides of the border,” Garcia explains. Like Garcia himself, many of the community members that EHC serves have family in the United States and in Tijuana. The border has a large impact on the day-to-day lives of people in these areas. Garcia says that in addition to environmental justice, issues such as immigration reform, housing, and worker’s rights are all affected by the US-Mexico border.
During the pandemic, members of the Tijuana and San Diego organizations were able to meet together much more frequently because of the conveniences of remote work. This has allowed group members to communicate, work together, and build a strong sense of community.
Garcia notes that “some of the environmental justice impacts are very similar” between the two communities in San Diego and Tijuana, although they are in different countries. Both are affected by the environmental impacts of factories and other industrial polluters. For example, textile plants known as maquiladoras are common near the border, and pollution caused by these plants affect those living nearby. Garcia adds that the nearby port also causes poor air quality for people on both sides of the border.
Garcia started his career as a labor organizer with United Healthcare Workers, where he worked with people in the same neighborhoods as he does with the Environmental Health Coalition. These communities are largely made up of people of color; they are often young people and the elderly. There are many frontline workers in these communities as well. Garcia says that “the same neighborhoods impacted by environmental justice are dealing with economic justice.” He describes this as a “cumulative impact” of these factors that affect people’s lives. And these experiences are quite similar between neighborhoods in Tijuana and San Diego; community members are often dealing with the same issues.
“I don’t think there’s a social justice organization in this region that isn’t impacted by the border,” Garcia explains. Issues like transportation, healthcare, and housing affect the lives of people who regularly cross the border and families on either side of it. Garcia emphasizes that all of these issues are interconnected. He adds that when policy decisions are made, leaders need to take into account how communities on both sides of the border will be affected.
The Environmental Health Coalition’s recent work includes establishing a new air pollution control district in San Diego. Another issue that the group is focusing on is transportation justice: improving mass transit to make it more accessible and better for the environment. Language justice is also a very important issue to Garcia, as he grew up interpreting for his mother, who only spoke Spanish. Because of these experiences, access to interpretation services is extremely personal for him. The Environmental Health Coalition always holds meetings in English and Spanish, and there is sometimes interpretation in more languages as well.
Using Zoom to connect during the pandemic has been difficult, but Garcia finds that it can still be a useful tool for getting people involved. “Folks that I never would have imagined being on Zoom a year ago are now jumping on and are telling others how to use the interpretation function on Zoom.” One way that community members have been able to connect online, Garcia found, is by leaving online meetings open so that people can talk and catch up with each other afterwards. “This was Spanish conversations, English conversations…Being able to have that connection, I’ve seen a lot of people have thrived in that, a lot of community members enjoyed that.”
Photo Credit: Jose Franco Garcia
By almost every measure, the drought in the Western U.S. is already one for the record books.
Almost half the country’s population is facing dry conditions. Soils are parched. Mountain snowpacks produce less water. Wildfire risk is already extreme. The nation’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead, is headed to its lowest level since it was first filled in the 1930s.
The past year has been the driest or second driest in most Southwestern states since record keeping began in 1895. Farms and cities have begun imposing water restrictions, but Western states are facing a threat that goes deeper than a single bad year. The hotter climate is shrinking water supplies, no matter what the weather brings.
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Photo Credit: Noah Berger/AP Photo[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
The complaint urges federal officials to withhold lucrative grants until the city overhauls its land-use policies. Zoning and planning ordinances protect industries in certain parts of Chicago without considering the health and well-being of people who live nearby, many of whom are Black and Latino.
“Racist policies are killing our neighborhood by making it a dumping ground for the dirtiest and most dangerous polluters,” said Peggy Salazar, director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force, one of three nonprofit groups that petitioned for federal intervention.
Photo Credit: Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune
By: Leia Ku Cheng Yee, Communications and Development Intern
As we enter the month of March, we mark one year of wrestling with the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In regards to the impacts of the pandemic, it comes to no surprise, that the minority, impoverished groups are the most negatively affected. One good thing that came out from the pandemic is that it has spotlighted the societal issue of the disproportionate amount of low-income population that live in contaminated areas. It has made these communities more visible than before. These low-income, racial-minority communities are more vulnerable to COVID-19 and have higher risk of death due to the decades of unjust and inequity in the system. The people still need to be more educated on this issue and raise awareness to the public. One year has gone by, and not much has changed.
In 2020, the inequity in the country has been amplified through the Black Lives Matter Movement, but we still lack environmental regulations in the country to target environmental justice issues. I am sure that we are all aware that the virus does not discriminate, so why are certain communities struggling more than others? This is mainly caused by the lack of strong political voices in these communities, in comparison to a white, high-income community that has more economic power. Moreover, coal plants, landfills, injection wells, and other toxic waste sites have existed in communities of colors for decades, and have been emitting toxic pollutants to the air and water of these communities for years.
A new Harvard study found a significant overlap between COVID-19 fatalities and other conditions related to long-term air pollution exposure, showing that those who have lived in places with significant air pollution (cities) are 15% more likely to die from COVID-19 than those with the same health profile who live in less polluted areas. Through inhaling toxic chemicals in the air, these communities are more prone to cardiovascular and pulmonary disease, chronic health issues that increase their risk of contracting COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its first breakdown of COVID-19 case data by race, showing that 30% of patients whose race was known were black. Communities of color have long fought for environmental justice issues through addressing the unjust in the system, but they lack political and economic power to prevent incoming toxic exposure, or eradicate existing pollution.
To address the disparities in COVID-19, we have to first address our structural inequalities in this country. The high-income communities have easier access to professional health care, priority access for testing kits as well as vaccines, and have the luxury to enjoy staying at home. On the other hand, low-income communities struggle to put food on their table, and are risking their lives everyday just living in the contaminated neighborhoods, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our country needs to invest more in public health preparedness, so that these vulnerable communities are prepared when encountering disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo Credit: Bebeto Matthews
A growing number of states are adopting laws that promote environmental justice (EJ), which is the equitable treatment and involvement of all people, regardless of demographic, in the development and application of environmental laws and policies.
These laws are giving regulators and communities new tools to mitigate negative environmental impacts that have historically and disproportionately affected minority and low-income communities.
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Photo Credit: Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Government
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Dariel Yazzie, Environmental Assistant Director for the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) takes a deep breath when asked about why the cleanup of uranium mines on the Navajo Nation is important to him.
“It’s personal,” he said.
Yazzie shares that it has impacted his health and many of his family members’ health.
Yazzie grew up in Cane Valley, southeast of Monument Valley, and said his maternal grandfather Luke Yazzie Sr. found uranium mill tailings less than a mile from their homestead. Their home was demolished in 2009 because of the contamination.
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Photo Credit: Kathy Helms/Gallup Independent via AP
When three 775-foot-tall smoke stacks at the Navajo Generating Station came tumbling down in December, sending plumes of dust into the sky and thundering reverberations off the mesas of the Arizona high desert, it marked the end of an era.
The federal government was instrumental in engineering the rise of the 2,250-megawatt coal plant 45 years ago, one of the country’s largest prior to its closure in 2019.
Now, President Biden faces questions about how to replace it, marking an early test of his promises to weave environmental and social justice into his climate agenda.
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Photo Credit: Jamie & Judy Wild/DanitaDelimont.com “Danita Delimont Photography”/Newscom