A Circle of Poison and Poverty

Imagine for a moment that you live in a community that is poor. You work every day in the service industry but just can’t make enough money to move to a better neighborhood. Now imagine that you have a young child who is gifted with high level of intelligence. You want to send your child to a school that can challenge her to help reach her potential. But, you can’t because of your limited income.

This is how one mother described her situation to me recently in Detroit, Michigan. She went on to say that the area around her home and school had lead levels, left over from former lead smelter activities, which were three times the legal standard. Her child and her neighbor’s children began their lives with so much potential. Today, the children are lead poisoned and are having difficulty passing the state school standardize tests. In fact, so many children are failing the standardized tests that their school is about to be closed, their teachers fired and their community further impacted by another empty building and no neighborhood school.

When people hear about the struggles in environmental justice communities they often only think about the immediate pollution and health impacts in a low wealth community. But to understand it one level deeper you need to understand that families living in these communities are really trapped. If you were only to look at their children’s ability to get out of poverty and reach the birth potential, it speaks volumes about the real world situation.

Their children cannot reach their potential because they are impacted by the chemicals like lead in their environments. Often young people, because they are frustrated in trying to achieve in school while faced with asthma, learning disabilities, and the inability to maintain attention students end up dropping out of school. Students weren’t born with the inability to achieve; it was due to their exposures to lead and other toxic environmental chemicals that they developed problems. Once students drop out of school they have little ability to improve their economic status and thus continue the family’s legacy of poverty.

Those who have the power to change this cycle of poison and poverty choose not to. Instead they cover their intentional neglect by blaming the victims, the parents, teachers, and community leaders. Not only do those in power blame the innocent, they exasperate the problem by ignoring the existing pollution while placing more polluting faculties in the area. I think it was Mayor Bloomberg who said, “Do you really want me to put that smokestack in downtown Manhattan?” when community leaders near NYC navy yard objected to an incinerator being added to their burdens.

I’m not sure how to change this situation. It is a larger societal crisis that will take the majority of people to demand change. Today it is only the voices of the desperate parents, frustrated teachers that sound the alarm and cry for justice. This must change.

Products Contain Toxic Chemicals Of Concern To Kids’ Health

Over 5000 kids products reported to contain chemicals linked to cancer, hormone disruption, and other chemicals that are a concern for kids’ health. Read the new report from Washington Toxics Coalition and Safer States. http://bit.ly/chemreveal

Teachers and Students That Inspire

I was invited by a science teacher Kendall Jensen to visit with her students at Roosevelt High School during my travel to assist the Portland, Oregon community group Neighbors for Clean Air. I have visited classrooms often throughout my work at CHEJ. However, this school, its teachers and the students truly inspired me in a way that I left more energized than when I came.

To understand why, you need to understand the environment. The school built in 1921 houses over 680 students. The students come from a low wealth area with 84% of the students receiving free or reduced lunch program, making it Oregon’s poorest high school. A few of the students live in the shelters and are homeless.

Moreover, the school is the most diverse in the state with the student population consisting of 31% Latino, 30% white, 23% African American, 9% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 4% Native American. In a school population where there are so many negative impacts working against students’ ability to succeed, I walked into a room full of students gathered together to take steps to improve themselves and their environment.

Ms. Kendall Jensen a science teacher at the high school has inspired and motivated the students to explore the environmental problems in the community. As I walked into the classroom where we were having lunch and conversation with students about Love Canal and the work that the neighborhood group, Neighbors for Clean Air, was working on the room was full of energy from eager students. No one was getting extra credit; no one was getting any benefit other than the opportunity to learn more about their neighborhood’s air problems.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also share that this was one of the first beautiful spring days in Portland with the temperature in the 70’s, sunny and clear. Yet students motivated by Kendall and their own curiosity came to learn instead of joining their friends for lunch on this beautiful day. Students listened and learned not just about the local toxic air pollution problems but about taking leadership becoming their own advocates and standing up for what they think is right. This High School is in the direct line of toxic air pollution. It is one of Portland’s schools that rank in the top 5% of all US schools with the most dangerous outdoor air quality in the country.

As a mother of four and someone who has spent time with extraordinary teachers like Kendall, it is clear that when students fail it is not because of a failed teacher. Sometime, especially in schools like Roosevelt High School where students face challenges everyday to survive, it the added toxic environment that directly affects their ability to learn and to pass standardized tests. We know with a level of scientific confidence that toxic chemicals in the environment are directly connected to children’s’ ability to concentrate and learn. Children facing daily toxic lifestyles as it is being referred to now – meaning single family households, poverty, drug influences, poor diet and so on – is exasperated by exposures to real toxic chemicals. Clearly the students in that classroom want to learn, want to succeed and want to take control of their futures. They and the school’s teachers need help; they need a healthy environment, with clean air for their students to succeed. Clean air is something that teachers do not have the ability to change on their own. It is the responsibility of the government to give students a chance by both providing the tools and the healthy environment to make success possible. If the students at this school fail it is more likely the fault of the lack of a healthy environment and not the teachers.

Health Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Mining

Earlier this week, CHEJ released a report on the Health Impacts of Mountaintop Removal (MTR) Mining. This report reviewed the most significant studies on the human health impacts of MTR mining. The health studies described in this report provide strong evidence that MTR mining has impacted the residents in the surrounding communities and that further research is needed to better understand the relationship between adverse health effects and MTR mining.

The studies reviewed in this report show that MTR areas have higher rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease-related mortality, overall mortality, and birth defects, and that the residents of these areas report lower health-related quality of life than residents of any other part of Appalachia.

As part of this report, we commissioned a group of medical and scientific experts called the National Commission on Health Impacts of Mountaintop Removal Mining and asked them to review this report. Commission members included Dr. Jerome Paulson, Professor of Pediatrics & Public Health, George Washington University; Dr. Steven B. Wing, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill; and Dr. Daniel Wartenberg, Professor of Environmental Epidemiology and Statistics, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, New Jersey.

The Commission strongly supported the findings in the report and developed recommendations to improve our understanding of the interactions between MTR mining and human health. The main recommendation called for “an immediate moratorium on MTR mining until such time as health studies have been conducted that provide a clearer understanding of the associations between adverse health impacts, notably adverse reproductive outcomes, and MTR mining.  In addition, during the moratorium period, appropriate safeguards including remediation and engineering controls should be implemented to mitigate air and water pollution related to MTR mining activities.”

The actions called for by the Commission are in line with recent government initiatives to protect the health of Appalachian communities. In February 2013, Congressional Representatives re-introduced the Appalachian Community Health Emergency Act (ACHE Act, HR 526. If passed this bill would require the Department of Health and Human Services to lead a federal investigation of the reported links between MTR mining and human health impacts. Until such an investigation is conducted, the ACHE Act would require a moratorium on all new MTR permits, as well as on any expansion of existing permits. The ACHE Act would address the primary recommendation of the Commission which is to place an immediate moratorium on MTR mining until such time as health studies have been conducted that provide a clearer understanding of the associations between adverse health impacts and MTR mining

To read the report including the commission’s statement and recommendations, click here.

Even if Prepared – If No One Sounds The Alarm Someone Gets Hurt

They called 911 but never alerted the residents – They evacuated 22 families as the oil spilled out but won’t tell us the risks – the train derailment is being cleaned up but people are still sick — the seven inch well stack exploded into the air like a missile – Where are the Protections?

In Montrose Borough, PA a woman was concerned and curious about a loud noise coming from a fracking site not too far from her home. Vera Scroggins decided to take a ride and find out what was happening. She described this journey in her letter to the editor.

“I was in a friend’s living room on March 19th in Montrose Borough, Pa., Susquehanna County, at about 5 p.m., and heard a loud noise going on for eventually over an hour and it sounded almost like a gas flare but later found out it was an ESD release, an emergency shutdown, of pipelines as part of safety measures and routine maintenance.

I followed the sound to Sterling Rd., South Montrose, about 2 miles away or more and it was loudest there. People, like myself, were driving around trying to find out what this was. This was a new experience for me. I have found out that gases were released for over an hour and we, the community are being exposed to this by Williams Gas.”

It is amazing how this story is the same as the story from families living around chemical plants, pipelines, incinerators, dumpsites and so many more dangerous places. Government and corporate profiteers get away with releasing chemicals accidentally or on purpose and don’t have to notify people at risk.

As a result there is no way for innocent families to prepare themselves for the danger. Families often think about fire and have a fire alarm or explain to children in the event of a fire in the homes here is what you do. Schools across the country have fire drills so that students and staff are prepared in the event of a fire.

Yet in communities like Vera’s or most recently March 29th in Arkansas a pipeline rupture where tar sands sludge spilled 12,000 barrels of oil throughout the community causing the evacuation of at least 22 families. March 30th a fracking explosion shot a huge, long pipe into the air landing in the cab of a construction truck. Earlier in March in Paulsboro, NJ a train derailed and a toxic cloud covered the area people were confused about what to do but worse they were told the risk was low. Yet a 77 year old woman died after breathing those toxic chemicals from the train derailment.

Vera is right when she said in her letter, when she talked about the lack of notification and preparedness for such accidents. “No one in the community was notified except 911 about this. We need to know who to call when this happens and be told what it is to allay our fears and anxiety. And we need to know what the health impacts from gases being released from pipelines in this instance and any more that will happen in the future.”

In all of these situations we often talk about the issues in a bigger broader context but the past month has really demonstrated how local the issues are and that our focus needs to include large policies or regulatory change but also change that can address the many needs for safety notification and enforcement at the local frontline communities.

Vera and other just like her across the country want answers and help. It’s time to focus on these needs.

Families Evacuate as Exxon-Mobil Tar Sands Pipeline Ruptures

An Exxon-Mobil oil pipeline ruptured Friday afternoon in the town of Mayflower, Arkansas, forcing the evacuation of 20 homes and shutting down sections of interstate highway. Read more.

Spring Often A Sad Time For Families

Spring is here which is generally a very nice time of year where people look forward to opening their windows and planting gardens. Unfortunately in many of the communities that CHEJ works in people dread spring and summer. Why, because their air is contaminated and they have been told not to plant a garden. Consequently, they look out their kitchen windows with a sad heart knowing that the barren ground that once was rich with vegetables is now too toxic for human consumption. Families also understand that the ground is likely a toxic risk for their children to play out of doors, but what choice do they have<p>.

Although it’s warm or even hot in some places parents are fearful about opening their windows to let the breeze in because they know that along with the breeze is chemicals and nasty particulates. So a lovely spring day in neighborhoods impacted by chemicals, becomes a reminder of what they’ve lost by no cause or act of their own.

Corporations have the right to pollute. There are laws and regulations that outline how much they can pollute the air and how much harm they can do (based on a cancer risk analysis) but no one in the regulatory agencies puts together what the real risks are to people when you live in an industrial zone. Each facility is allowed to release a certain amount of chemicals but when you look at those releases collectively the levels at time is staggering.

Families living in areas with a number of industries never choose or even thought one day they would be poisoned. For example just outside of Baltimore, Maryland in Wagner’s Point families lived there for generations. This area is actually a peninsula that juts out into the bay. People had small summer homes and it served as a nice place for retirees. Men and women once went to the shore a block from their home to fish, go crabbing or to have a picnic. Spring was a welcome time of year for them.

However, over time the center of the peninsula became more and more industrialized. Oil storage tanks and chemical plants began popping up. Eventually the center of the peninsula was all industry. The air was foul, truck traffic a serious problem and the crabs were no longer safe to eat. Families were told that if there was an accident at any of the facilities that they would be trapped at the end of the peninsula and could only escape if they were to jump into the water. They were assured that a boat would make its way to them to pluck them out.

The families were there first. The regulatory agency permitted each of these plants like they were located on an island with no other industries around. Wagner’s Point and a northern community also on the peninsula became unsafe for children, adults and pets. CHEH worked with families there to help them obtain relocation. They won and were able to leave but where is the fairness in that. Families were there first, they lived in a beautiful water front community until the industries took over.

Today those same families, especially the seniors are remembering when they looked forward to spring. Remembering when the stood at water’s edge and fished or picnicked. Gone are the boat rides, looking for crabs or swimming in the water. For them spring is healthier where they live now but a piece of their heart, love and family tradition is gone.

Some say spring is beautiful for the privileged. Spring is for those who can live far from industries, those who can afford the time, resources and money to fight back to protect their community. I believe spring a beautiful spring is for everyone. We all need to just keep on pushing back and we need to help those who are in need of our assistance. A happy spring should be had by all.

Paulsboro Derailment Blamed in Death of Woman, 77

Wessie Hardy, who had an underlying cardiovascular condition, died three days after the derailment.”Ms. Hardy’s death is a tragic result of a company failing to properly maintain equipment and inadequately transporting dangerous chemicals,” said Joe Messa of the Philadelphia law firm Messa & Associates. Read more. . .

Counting Heads Is Not Enough To Address Environmental Justice

Alonzo Spencer CHEJ's BOD Chair

Today in the Washington Post was a front page news story that talks about how the large environmental organizations are not diverse enough.

This is the same story written many times beginning in the late 1980’s. It sparked a national conversation and action that lead to the first Environmental Justice Summit in 1991 and in 1994 Bill Clinton signed an executive order Environmental Justice Act. The story talked about counting heads (non-white) on staff, in decision making positions and members of the Board. That story is not new and I believe is way too narrow of a focus.

The large environmental organizations have brought more diversity to their staff and their board, then was the case in 1990, but they are still a far cry from being diverse. However, I think just counting people of color within an organization is not the only or even the best measurement of their efforts to address the multitude of issues within the context of environmental justice.

One point that the Washington Post article raised, I think is at the heart of the issues. “Today, minority communities — black, Latino and Native American — along with low-income white neighborhoods still bear a disproportionate burden of the nation’s toxic pollution. They are in the shadows of petrochemical plants and coal-fired power plants, the nation’s greatest source of stationary pollution, according to the Congressional Research Service.” A diverse group of staff and board members will not change anything unless the large green organizations decide to makes a radical shift in their missions, goals and resource allocation.

It is a fact, detailed in a NCRP report that, environmental funders mainly support large, professionalized environmental organizations instead of the grassroots community-based groups that are most heavily impacted by environmental harms. Organizations with annual budgets greater than $5 million make up only 2% of all environmental groups, yet receive more than 50% of all environmental grants and donations. This makes it even more imperative that large organizations need to not only change the ethnic makeup of staff and board but also move significant resources to reflect their commitment to the field. The report makes the simple but profound argument that the current environmental funding strategy is not working and that, without targeting philanthropy at communities most impacted by environmental harms, the movement will continue to fail.

In movements throughout history, the core of leadership came from a nucleus of directly impacted or oppressed communities while also engaging a much broader range of justice-seeking supporters. In other words, successful movements for social change — anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, labor rights, and civil rights — have always been inspired, energized, and led by those most directly affected. Yet these are the very groups within the environmental movement that are starved for funds.

Robert Garcia said in the Washington Post article, “The values of the mainstream environmental movement don’t focus on the needs of people. They focus on clean air, water and climate.” I agree with Robert Garcia, who founded and provides counsel for the City Project in Los Angeles and would add why are they not investing in communities on the front lines?

Alonzo Spencer, CHEJ’s Board Chairman, lives with a hazardous waste incinerator that has been out of compliance more often than in compliance. His community was designated an Environmental Justice Community by the US EPA in the 1990’s. Other than CHEJ, his neighborhood has no skilled national group helping them. Where are the lobbyists that are needed to change the laws, not at the national level but at the state level?

In Ohio if you are out of compliance (not obeying the law) but you have a plan or schedule to come into compliance, you are considered in compliance. I know this because that is what the appeals court ruled when CHEJ took the case as far up as we could. So, in reality the facility never really needs to be in compliance they just need to keep putting together plans that say they will someday comply with the law. Yes, it is a fence line problem but it is also a climate issue given they release more than permitted of chemicals that impact climate and discharges contaminate the Ohio River and other sources of water.

Alonzo’s community has the highest rate of cancer in the state. Their elementary school was closed, which was a necessary action because the top of the stack of the incinerator was almost level to the school windows due to it being built below the bluff where the school stood. The local taxpayers had to pay to move the children to another school. A low-wealth county, spending money they don’t have to keep their children safe.

Or where are the resources to assist communities in Corpus Christi, TX? Along refinery row, all the industries say they are in compliance, and maybe they are, but when you have miles of refineries collectively the air is not breathable. Who lives there? Suzie Canales, another member of CHEJ’s board who tells the story about how the city charter designated section of the city specifically for African Americans and Latino’s to live. If you were Latino or African American family you could not purchase property outside of the cities designated area for your ethnic group. Therefore, homes were purchased near the refineries because they were not permitted to buy other properties. Now the properties are not only unsalable but a health risk to families who live there.

The conversation about environmental organizations and environmental justice really needs to be about resources and assistance to the front line communities rather than head counting. Someday, maybe all of the Green Groups would be diverse, but that alone will not translate into playing an active role in bringing real aide and justice to front line communities. There needs to be diversity, resources and a core commitment to solutions and necessary actions that come from the people who are impacted.

A Coalition of Groups Asking Federal Government to Suspending Ohio’s Authority

A coalition of environmental and community groups is asking the federal government to consider suspending Ohio’s authority to oversee deep injection of chemically-laced wastewater from oil and gas drilling.

The Center for Health, Environment & Justice and other groups planned to ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday to investigate and audit Ohio’s regulatory program of deep injection wells, operated by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

The call follows February indictments of a northeast Ohio businessman and his employee charging they illegally dumped oil and gas wastes. The two pleaded not guilty Friday.

A series of earthquakes around Youngstown had prompted an effective moratorium on new injection wells in early 2012. The state resumed issuing injection permits in November after imposing new testing, reporting and tracking requirements.

Read more.