Lessons in Environmental Justice. Группа авторов
punishes polluters. White communities see faster action, better results and stiffer penalties than communities where blacks, Hispanics and other minorities live. This unequal protection often occurs whether the community is wealthy or poor” (pp. S1–S2). These findings supplement the findings of earlier studies and reinforce what many grassroots leaders have been saying all along: People of color differentially are impacted by industrial pollution, and they also can expect different treatment from the government.
New Technology, Research to Action, Policy, and Organizing Tools: 2000s
The 2000s ushered in new technological advances that offered tremendous benefits to the environmental justice movement and frontline communities. A record number of grassroots leaders from low-wealth and people-of-color communities were able to gain access to new computing and communication technology and the Internet, which enabled them to better connect with their constituencies and allies. New funding opportunities from private foundations allowed more grassroots community groups and their leaders to have access to cell phones, geographic information systems (GIS) and other spatial mapping tools, community-based participatory research (CBPR) (see Chapter 6), and multi-stakeholder networks, including community-university partnerships and collaborations.
A 2002 study, Air of Injustice: African Americans and Power Plant Pollution, found that more than 68 percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, the distance within which the maximum effects of the smokestack plume are expected to occur, compared with 56 percent of white Americans (Clean the Air et al., 2002). In September 2005, the Associated Press (AP) released results from its analysis of an EPA research project showing that African Americans were 79 percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution is suspected of posing the greatest health danger (Pace, 2005). The study revealed that in 19 states, blacks were more than twice as likely as whites to live in neighborhoods where air pollution seems to pose the greatest health danger. Hispanics in 12 states and Asians in seven states were also more likely to breathe dirty air than whites in some regions of the United States. The AP found that residents of at-risk neighborhoods were generally poorer and less educated, and unemployment rates in those districts were nearly 20 percent higher than the national average. The 2007 study Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty 1987–2007 found that people of color make up the majority (56 percent) of those living in neighborhoods within two miles of the nation’s commercial hazardous waste facilities (Bullard et al., 2008).
This study reveals that where facilities are clustered together, people of color make up 69 percent of these neighborhoods. This pattern underscores the cumulative impact from discriminatory zoning and land-use practices. People of color were also overrepresented in populations living within a one-mile radius (44 percent) and a three-mile radius (46 percent) of the nation’s 1,388 Superfund sites.
A 2008 study by University of Colorado researchers on race, income, and environmental inequality in the United States concluded that African Americans experience such a high air-pollution burden that black households with incomes of $50,000 to $60,000 live in neighborhoods that are, on average, more polluted than neighborhoods of white households with incomes less than $10,000 (Downey & Hawkins, 2008). In effect, research indicates that environmental inequality for African Americans could not be reduced to a “poverty thing.” That same year, Hoerner and Robinson (2008), in their study of differential impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations, found that 43 percent of African Americans live in urban “heat islands,” compared to only 20 percent of whites. Nationally, African Americans have a 5.3 percent higher prevalence of heat-related mortality than whites, and 64 percent of this disparity is traced to disparities in the prevalence of home air conditioning.
In 2011, a team of Duke University researchers also found significant air pollution burden borne by people of color compared to whites (Miranda et al., 2011). They found that
non-Hispanic blacks in the United States suffer worse air quality across multiple metrics, geographic scales, and multiple pollution metrics. Hispanics also suffer worse air quality with respect to particulate matter, but not necessarily so for ozone. It also appears that environmental justice concerns are more prominent along race/ethnicity lines, rather than measures of poverty. (Miranda et al., 2011, p. 1755)
In ranking the 75 worst polluting coal-fired power plants in the United States, a NAACP (2012) study, Coal Blooded: Putting Profits before People, found that four million people live within three miles of these plants. Two million people live within three miles of one of the top 12 “dirtiest” coal-fired power plants. Approximately 76 percent of these residents are people of color and the average per-capita income is $14,626, compared with the national average of $21,587. People of color are severely overrepresented in communities that host the “dirty dozen” coal power plants since they made up only 37 percent of the U.S. population in 2010 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010).
A Coming Clean (2012) report, Who’s in Danger? A Demographic Analysis of Chemical Disaster Vulnerability Zones, found that fence-line residents who live closest to the facilities have average home values 33 percent below the national average and average incomes 22 percent below the national average. The percentage of blacks in the fence-line zones is 75 percent greater than for the United States as a whole, and the percentage of Latinos is 60 percent greater. The percentage of adults in the fence-line zones with less than a high school diploma is 46 percent greater than for the United States as a whole, but the percentage with a college or other post–high school degree is 27 percent lower; and the poverty rate in the fence-line zones is 50 percent higher than for the United States as a whole.
Oil trains also pose special risk to people of color, who often live on the “wrong side of the tracks.” The nation’s oil trains are more likely to run through communities of color and expose their residents to elevated risks from explosion and derailment “blast zones.” The blast zone is everything within a mile of tracks used for the oil trains (ACTION United, ForestEthics, and PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center, 2016). The Fumes across the Fence-Line report details the health toll the oil and gas industry has on black communities (NAACP and Clean Air Task Force, 2017). More than a million African Americans live within a half-mile of an oil and gas operation, and more than 6.7 million live in a county that is home to a refinery. Many of these communities (Manchester in Houston; Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”; North Richmond, California; Southwest Detroit; Port Arthur, Texas) are described as “sacrifice zones” because of the concentration of oil and gas pollution. And because of heightened exposure to oil and gas pollution, African American children suffer from 138,000 asthma attacks and 101,000 lost school days each year (NAACP and Clean Air Task Force, 2017).
The 150 or so U.S. oil refineries operating in 32 states emit thousands of tons of hazardous air pollutants, including substances that cause cancer. Half of the people at an increased cancer risk from refineries’ pollution are people of color (Garcia, 2014). America is still segregated, and so is pollution (Bullard et al., 2011). More than 69.2 percent of Hispanic children, 61.3 percent of African American children, and 67.7 percent of Asian American children live in areas that exceed the EPA ozone standard, compared with 50.8 percent of white children. University of Minnesota researchers found that African Americans and other people of color breathe 38 percent more polluted air than whites and are exposed to 46 percent more nitrogen oxide (Clark et al., 2014). All indicators point to pollution taking a heavy health toll on Black America—especially black children.
The former vice president under Lyndon Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey, once said, “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” Children, especially poor children of color, form one of our most vulnerable groups in the United States when it comes to pollution. In addition to schools, many urban parks and playgrounds are located next to refineries, coal plants, chemical facilities, and highways. The adverse health effects of living or playing so close to polluting sources is elevated asthma and respiratory disease. For example, the asthma rate among African Americans is 35 percent higher than among whites; the hospitalization rate for African Americans and