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
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A $350 million gas project in Virginia has been delayed due to rising concerns that environmental justice groups have presented from the surrounding communities. Virginia’s State Corporation Commission recently deferred action on Southern Co.’s Virginia Natural Gas project due to the lack of details regarding environmental justice issues and financing. Read More.
Photo: NOVI Energy
For over 50 years during the 20th century, Monsanto produced and sold products that contained polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which have been known to cause severe health problems in humans such as cancer and liver damage and kill wildlife. After many decades of polluting into local waterways and communities, Monsanto will be held accountable by paying the city of D.C. $52 million in order to help clean up chemical contamination that they caused. The majority of the money will go towards cleaning up polluted waterways with high PCB concentrations, specifically in the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. Read More
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Recent studies have linked air pollution from the burning of excess natural gas to increased birth rate of premature babies. Many mothers that live near natural gas flaring sites are from low-income and minority communities, signally the environmental injustices linked deeply to these issues. In addition, there are few health-protective regulations that help control the high level of flaring that takes place across the country. Read More
Photo Credit: Trudy E. Bell
Coke is a type of fuel that is converted from coal and made to produce steel. Environmental non-profits, including PennFuture filed a lawsuit against the EPA, claiming that they were not doing enough to regulate coke ovens under the Clean Air Act. Recently, the EPA admitted that they failed to properly regulate parts of the coke production process through the use of coke ovens. Read More.
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60+ environmental justice leaders and organizations are calling for action and equity for their ‘Sacrifice Zone’ communities. They released an open letter calling for “an immediate and sustained response to inequities causing Covid-19 to infect and kill a disproportionate number of people subjected to systemic racism and the denial of self-determination throughout the United States.” COVID-19 has exacerbated the equities throughout society, including unequal accessibility to health care and the industry and pollution that impacts mostly low-income and minority communities. Read More
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Atlantic Coast Pipeline Canceled
WE DID IT. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is CANCELED.
It was the grassroots effort from North Carolina to West Virginia that brought the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to a screeching halt.
CHEJ worked with the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) and a network of environmental activists and longtime African American residents who joined forces to stop the pipeline and the compressor station in several historically Black communities. One historically Black community of Union Hill, VA can trace their lineage to slave ancestors and freedmen who settled there after the Civil War. In this community CHEJ and others held a United Nations Human Rights Tribunal to provide the evidence to stop the destruction of the area.
In North Carolina, it was sweet potato farmers who stood together and said no to the pipeline and the compressor stations. Community leaders along a 367 mile stretch from North Carolina to West Virginia joined together using the same facts, narratives, information and networks, which was key to creating the pressure to stop the pipeline.
BREDL led the charge, organizing the tour of towns along the way. They educated, organized and connected small rural communities with one another to create a bond and powerful bridge to stop the pipeline proposals where ever they were suggested. Read More
A new report released by Earthjustice, the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, and faculty at the University of Chicago’s Abrams Environmental Law Clinic and Columbia University’s Health Justice Advocacy Clinic estimated that 77,000 people living in federally assisted housing in the US are at risk of being poisoned by toxic contamination. The report, Poisonous Homes: The Fight for Environmental Justice in Federally Assisted Housing comes as the Trump administration continues rolling back many environmental regulations involving the environmental impact analysis of large-scale industrial projects. Read More
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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
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Two leaders from the long-time environmental justice community known as “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana were arrested on June 25th for peacefully protesting against the Taiwanese petrochemical company, Formosa Plastics. The company plans to build a plastics manufacturing facility in the backyard of a predominately Black Louisiana community that has already experienced large health detriments from polluting industries in their community. Read More
Photo by: Ron Moyi/Louisiana Bucket Brigade