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Tag: Environmental Justice

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Backyard Talk

The Rachel Carson Amendment

Our colleague and friend Lou Zeller at the Blue Ridge Environmental League (BREDL) shared an article he wrote a few years back about the great pioneer Rachel Carson who wrote in her epic 1962 classic Silent Spring that “If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed either by private individuals or by public officials, it is surely only because our forefathers despite their considerable wisdom and foresight, could conceive of no such problem.”
Lou continued. “The public outcry created by Silent Spring led to a ban on DDT from agricultural use in 1972. However, today the industrial use of poisonous substances continues almost unabated, based on regulatory risk assessments and legally acceptable death rates. For example, retail shops are still permitted to dry-clean cloths with perchloroethylene, a carcinogenic solvent, even though non-toxic alternatives are available. Household hand cleaners laced with toxic Triclosan contaminate wastewater and sewage sludge deposited on farm fields as fertilizer. Nuclear power plants routinely spew radioactive Tritium into the air and water. And chemical giant Monsanto sells the weed-killer Roundup to farmers and homeowners—components of which are carcinogenic and known to damage the liver, kidney, brain and lungs. The list goes on.
“How can it be that after the passage of two generations we have let this continue?  Worse, a new natural gas extraction industry—cracking underground rock with high-pressure chemicals and water—exempts itself from the few environmental, public health and safety laws still on the books. It is indeed a strange blight creeping over the land.
“The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution states, ‘No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.’  The Fourteenth Amendment adds that the States may not, ‘deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’ Rachel Carson’s Fable for Tomorrow painted a grim picture, but it was meant to prompt action.  In part, she succeeded.  But it remains to us to ensure that the next forty years complete the changes necessary so our legacy to future generations is not a silent spring.  Either the fundamental principles established under the Constitution mean what they say, or Rachel Carson’s admonition should become the 28th Amendment to the Constitution.”
I think Lou is onto something. What do you think?

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Cuomo Pushes to Weaken Ban on Toxic Foam Burning

A bill to stop the burning of toxic foam has become a flashpoint between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and its sponsors, as the governor’s office pushes to retain the authority to greenlight the practice in the future.
Residents of Cohoes, a small city in Albany County, learned in February that a hazardous waste incinerator owned by Norlite LLC, an industrial materials manufacturer, had been burning shipments of toxic firefighting foam. In response to public concern about the health risks and national press attention, a bill banning the incineration of the foam in Cohoes passed the Senate and Assembly unanimously in June.
Lawmakers and advocates familiar with the negotiations said Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed “chapter amendments” – a short bill amending an already-passed bill – turning the permanent ban on burning toxic firefighting foam into a moratorium, which could be lifted at the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s discretion.
Read More
Photo Credit: Marc A. Hermann/MTA New York City Transit

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People of color more likely to live without piped water in richest US cities

People of color in some of America’s wealthiest cities are significantly more likely to live in houses without indoor plumbing essential for running water, new research reveals.

Clean, safe, affordable water is essential for human health and economic survival. Yet access to running water is not universal in the United States, ostensibly the richest country in the world.

Nationwide, almost half a million homes do not have piped water, with the majority – 73% – located in urban areas. In fact, almost half the houses without plumbing are located in the country’s top 50 cities.

Read more…

Photo credit: Christin Lola/Getty Images/iStockphoto

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Backyard Talk

Incarcerated Workers Among Hardest Hit By Wildfires

By: Shaina Smith, Community Organizing Intern
Massive wildfires fuelled by climate change have damaged millions of acres across California, Oregon, and Washington over the past few weeks. Some parts of California have an AQI of over 700. Air Quality Index (AQI) measures air pollution on a scale of 0-500. Any level above 200 is “unhealthy” to “hazardous”.
As residents evacuate areas threatened by the fires, let’s consider those who stayed behind. You might be surprised to learn that California uses prison labor, disproportionately people of color, to battle their wildfires. In fact, incarcerated workers make up to 80% of California fire personnel, including juveniles. The state pays incarcerated workers only 1 dollar an hour (or less if they owe restitution) to fight wildfires. 
With this perspective, prison doesn’t appear to be about justice or rehabilitation, instead about exploiting labor for profit. As exemplified by a question asked by a former corrections officer at one California inmate fire camp: “How do you justify releasing all these inmates in prime fire season?” 
Historically, once released from prison, California abandons their former inmate firefighters, preventing them from being hired as professionals. However, now that covid shutdowns have left no other option, California has passed a bill making it easier for formerly incarcerated people to become firefighters. 
Inmate firefighters work up to 48 hour shifts with 50 pound backpacks. The state does not provide goggles or respirators. It’s no wonder then that incarcerated workers are more than 4 times as likely to sustain an injury than a professional firefighter working on the same fire.
The smoke from these wildfires contains air pollution particles called PM 2.5. PM 2.5 exposure leads to worse coronavirus outcomes. These particles are so small that they enter the bloodstream through the lungs, and cannot be broken down by the immune system.
People residing in low income and minority communities are already disproportionately exposed to PM 2.5 from industry polluters, and are therefore more likely to have an underlying health condition. Underlying conditions exacerbate the dangerous health risks of smoke, specifically heart attacks. 
Immediate symptoms of wildfire smoke exposure include shortness of breath, coughing, sore throat, and eye irritation. Years following wildfire smoke exposure, lung capacity among residents decreased.
Wildfire smoke is linked to an increased rate of emergency doctors visits for respiratory and cardiovascular issues such as heart attack or stroke– specifically for adults over 65. Black people who live in areas where the poverty rate is above 15% were particularly affected. 
As this latest challenge demonstrates, climate change imposes the heaviest burdens on people of color. The evil of capitalism and racism in the United States is intrinsically linked even to crises in nature, such as wildfires and coronavirus.
Photo credit: Newsweek

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Backyard Talk

Please Stop Screaming – Let’s Listen To One Another

Recently, I’ve been discussing presidential politics, as all of us have. Even if you try to avoid the conversations and the different opinions, they are everywhere on the news, in the paper, among your colleagues and friends. Such conversations are important, and often even helpful, to educate people on issues.  Hands down educated voters are best.
Lately, I’ve really been listening to what is being said about various candidates.  Listening to how the message, words are conveyed. Clearly, our country is more polarized than I’ve ever seen in my decades of voting. Unfortunately, most of these conversations have become rude, insulting, and/or dismissive. We are screaming at each other, criticizing or dismissing entire segments of society, and not hearing one another’s views.
I was in a meeting and someone said out loud, with no hesitation, that the Christian Coalition is a huge problem and working against us. A visibly angry young mother from Texas explained that she belonged to the Christian Coalition and doesn’t believe the Coalition supports poisoning school children with toxic chemicals. “People like you are the problem, not people like me.”
In another meeting, someone accused the workers of being the barrier to moving an issue forward, saying therefore, we needed to organize around the workers instead including them in our fight.
I’ve heard people use the words stupid, ignorant or other nasty descriptions of a candidate or a person who supports a different candidate. This is not limited to a single political party and it’s turning off people on all sides.
It’s time to stop the fever pitched screams and begin talking and listening to each other. When we listen and we share, it is amazing what can happen. Let me share a story.
CHEJ was invited to help an organization stop an incinerator in New York. The group we were working with expressed disappointment about how apathetic people in their community are. One member of the core leadership told me, “In this community people are self-focused, lazy and not too bright. I can not understand why they want to allow all this pollution.” I suggested that everyone may not care about health and inquired if she had asked people what they care about? She answered, “No, because this is the most important and frightening thing that’s happen now.”
Yikes, another scream, and narrow focus to the problems of winning real, deep seeded justice. What if you stopped yelling and trying to prove your point, and listened instead?
We were in a bar and I decided that instead of explaining the importance of listening and having a conversation to connect with people, I’d demonstrate the importance.  I got up and moved to sit next to a worker who was having a beer. He was watching the football game on TV and when I caught his attention, I asked what he thought about the plan for the new incinerator.
He replied, “I don’t care.” Showing him the flyer the group published, I followed up with, “What about cancer and other diseases that this flyer says may increase because of pollution?”
“Lady I don’t care . . . I’m watching the game” he replied a bit annoyed.
Waiting for a commercial break, I ask, “What do you care about? What bothers you?” He thought for a moment and said, “potholes.” He explained, he’s an independent trucker and the potholes cause all sorts of damage to his truck which he must pay out-of-his own pocket to repair. Secondly, he added, that traffic signal from hell on the corner. “There is no left turn light and so it takes forever, sometimes two cycles, for me to turn that corner.”
When the next commercial came around I suggested that what he cares about and what the group cares about are the same – – disruption of a beautiful rural community. There will be over 200 trucks driving down that same road making more potholes and a longer line of vehicles that need to turn left at that corner. You may not care about the pollution but there will be plenty of other disruption to the community if this incinerator is built. He agreed and we had a much longer conversation about community power and corporate greed.
My message to the group, then and to us all now, is to stop screaming about how right you are and how wrong others are. Instead, try listening and maybe, just maybe, you’ll see that you aren’t that far apart, and together you can create a better tomorrow.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Backyard Talk

Residential Segregation and Disproportionate Exposure to Airborne Carcinogens

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis published a paper late last year that found carcinogens present in the air of the St. Louis metropolitan area to be highly concentrated in Black and poor neighborhoods. They found that approximately 14% of the census tracks in the city had elevated cancer risk due to exposure to toxic chemicals in the air and that these air toxic hots spots were independently associated with neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and unemployment, and low levels of education. Census tracks with the highest levels of both racial isolation of Blacks and economic isolation of poverty were more likely to be located in air toxic hot spots than those with low combined racial and economic isolation.
This paper is important because the authors used an innovative geospatial approach developed by other researchers to identify spatial patterns of residential segregation in their study area. This approach captures the degree of segregation at the neighborhood level and identifies patterns of isolation of different metrics, which in this study was black isolation and poverty isolation. This approach differs from tradition methods that looked at the percentage of blacks or poverty in a neighborhood.
The authors used these two segregation measures – Black isolation and poverty isolation – to identify neighborhoods segregated by race and income in the St. Louis metropolitan area and evaluated the risks of exposure to carcinogens in the air in these areas. The cancer risk data came from the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Air Toxics Assessment and the census track sociodemographic data came from the American Community Survey. All spatial analyses were conducted using Arc GIS software.
These researchers found that census track levels of poverty, undereducation and unemployment were associated with toxic hot spots, while factors such as per capita income and median household income were inversely associated with toxic hot spots. These findings support other studies that identified disparities in exposures to ambient air emissions of toxic chemicals and that raised questions about whether residential segregation leads to differential exposure to air pollutants.
While the authors discuss a number of possible pathways connecting segregation and health, the relationship between segregation and exposure to air toxics is unclear. They discuss various factors that result in segregation leading to the “cycle of segregation” that includes neighborhoods with low social capital, few community resources and low property values which tends to attract more low income and minority residents and exposures to unhealthy air toxics.
The authors concluded that this study provides strong evidence of the unequal distribution of carcinogenic air toxics in the St Louis metropolitan area and that residential segregation leads to differential exposure to chemicals in the air that cause cancer.

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Backyard Talk

Unequal Infant Mortality Rate Caused by Environmental Injustice

By Monica Lee, Communications & Development Intern
Children are oftentimes more vulnerable to the negative effects of environmental injustice. This is because their bodies have not been fully developed to face the harsh health impacts from their environment. Nonetheless, according to the National Vital Statistics Reports done by the CDC, in 2018, infants of a black mother were more than twice as likely to die compared to infants of a white, Asian, or Hispanic mother. This is an issue raised by inequality that has always been around, and yet does not receive enough attention.
kids
There are many reasons that lead to this infant mortality gap based on race. For example, access to health care, access to adequate food, and other socioeconomic factors create differences in children’s health. Most importantly, however, the environment in which the child grows up in plays the greatest role in affecting the child’s health. Environmental injustice is the most significant factor that affects this infant mortality rate gap.
The major causes of infant mortality in the US include asthma, birth defects, neurodevelopmental disorders, and preterm birth. These illnesses are all effects of the surrounding environment, either directly affecting the child or indirectly through the mother.
Families with lower socioeconomic status tend to be disproportionately exposed to areas with more serious air pollution. Thus, children growing up in these communities have a higher chance of getting asthma. Specifically, even among adults, asthma rates are higher in blacks than in whites. This is a clear case of environmental injustice that leads to the infant mortality rate gap.
Besides asthma, the other causes of infant mortality can also be attributed to environmental injustice. Communities with higher exposures to toxic chemicals lead to more infant mortality deaths. Mothers exposed to toxic chemicals may face health effects, thereby causing birth defects leading to infant mortality. At the same time, infants directly exposed to these toxic chemicals face a greater consequence as their immune system have not been fully developed. Families with lower socioeconomic status tend to reside in these communities with higher exposures to toxic chemicals, thereby causing the infant mortality rate gap.
Many of the causes of infant mortality are created by the environment, and environmental injustice plays a huge role in affecting specific communities with lower socioeconomic status. Thus, there is a large racial gap of infant mortality rates as children’s health are more likely to be affected by the negative effects, such as air pollution and toxic chemicals. This issue requires more attention in order for the inequality to be eliminated completely. As a result of environmental injustice, many infant lives are lost without the chance to enjoy their full life.

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Environmental Justice Grassroots Groups Fight Back Against Pollution

Pollution is disproportionately killing Black Americans. Hazardous waste facilities are 75% more likely to be in close proximity to the homes of African-Americans than other racial groups. Grassroots environmental justice groups are taking a stand against these issues of pollution and environmental racism and are making a huge impact. Read More
Photo by: Matt Rourke—AP

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Backyard Talk

Studies Suggest Air Pollution Increases Threat of Coronavirus Airborne Transmission

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
 

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VA Power Plant Delayed Due to Environmental Justice Concerns

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