User:Bnirula/Environmental racism in the United States

Pollution[edit]

A protest at Crawford Coal Plant

Hazardous waste facilities[edit]

Recent studies show that hazardous waste facilities are more likely to be placed in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. In fact, communities with a high concentration of racial minorities are nine times more likely to be exposed to environmentally hazardous facilities than communities with a low concentration of minorities. A study in Massachusetts by sociologists Daniel R. Faber and Eric J. Krieg found racially-based biases in the placement of 17 industrial waste facilities. Residential segregation is correlated with higher cancer risk; as segregation increases, cancer incidence is higher. A 2018 study by the American Journal of Public Health found that Black people are exposed to 54% more particulate matter than the average American. In Los Angeles, minority children have the highest risk of being exposed to air pollution at school. Environmental health scientists Rachel Morello-Frosch and Manuel Pastor, Jr. found that "at schools ranked in the bottom fifth for air quality, the children were 92% minority." They also found that air pollution is associated with decreased achievement in school. The United States Environmental Protection Agency and United States Census Bureau found that, in the mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the US, minorities are exposed to 66% more particulate matter from vehicles than white Americans. In a study in 2000 in Texas, sociologists Kingsley Ejiogu and Hon R. Tachia found that the percent Asians and percent Hispanics were significant predictors of toxic sites.

Environmental racism is very prevalent in many states across the country. Environmental racism raises ethical issues and can also have implications for a state's laws and constitution, for example the "clean air act", "the fourteenth amendment" and the "civil rights act".

An example of a case of environmental racism is a small mainly African American (90%) town called Uniontown, AL where a toxic landfill is believed to have caused serious health issues. In 2010, the Tennessee Valley Authority moved four million cubic yards of coal ash to a landfill in Uniontown without providing citizens any protection from the waste. Mental health issues, a one-in-five chance of developing cancer and reproductive issues were associated with mercury and arsenic contained within the ash.

Other examples include West Dallas, Texas where African American housing projects have been set up twenty paces from a battery recycling smelter, and Chester Pennsylvania which has become an attraction for toxic waste sites. In California the government also decided to allow pollution in vulnerable communities. The effect of environmental racism is seen in the health data which shows that African Americans are three times more likely to die from asthma. Three out of five African Americans live in a community with a least one toxic waste site. On average it takes twenty percent longer for toxic sites in minority community towns to be placed on the national priority list than white areas.

Water pollution[edit]

A study published by the Annual Review of Public Health found that Low-income communities and communities of color are more likely to have contaminated drinking water. Another study by a team of epidemiologists found that community water systems with higher nitrate concentrations tended to serve communities with higher proportions of Hispanic residents. Nitrates have been linked to cancer, reproductive problems, and death in infants. Additionally, contamination of drinking water contributes to 20 percent of lead poisoning in children; low-income African American and Latino children consistently have disproportionately high levels of lead in their blood.

Several case studies demonstrate race-based inequalities in access to clean water. A recent, highly publicized example of water pollution's disproportionate effect on racial minorities is the Flint Water Crisis. In 2014, Flint, Michigan, a city with a 57% Black population, switched its drinking water to the Flint River, which led to complaints about the water's taste and color. Studies found that the water was contaminated with lead from aging pipes. As of 2015, the US government had spent $80 million in addressing the Flint Water Crisis.

Another example is East Orosi, a small, low-income, Latino town in California's San Joaquin Valley. In East Orosi, the groundwater is contaminated with nitrates due to fertilizer runoff at nearby farms.

Air Pollution

Air pollution is a growing problem in populous cities, particularly those neighboring airports. In the U.S., 70 % of airborne lead exposure is caused by leaded aviation fuel. The Biden administration has prioritized efforts to reduce child lead exposure throughout their administration, but they have not yet banned the use of leaded aviation fuel. While the Clean Air Act of 1963 served to ban the uses of leaded gasoline, it has yet to address the continued consumption of leaded aviation fuel.The negative impact of the use of leaded aviation fuel can be seen in the case of the Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose, where in 2021 blood lead levels of children living within a 1.5 mile radius of the airport tested at double that of children at the peak of the Flint Michigan Water crisis. Furthermore, 97% of the affected community identifies as non-white. Since then, the use of such fuel has been banned in Santa Clara County, but it remains a primary contributor of airborne lead in the rest of the United States.

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