User:Remy8thor/sandbox

The definition of environmental racism is the inequality in the form of racism linked with environmental factors and practices that cause disproportionate distress on minority ommunities. It is a phenomenon incorporating a hybrid of environmental concerns and human welfare . Environmental racism is often used to describe specific policies, events, and outcomes in which minority communities are targeted for the placement of polluting industries and factories. The term also describes the segregation of minority communities into regions where they are Environmental racism is often connected to the exclusion of minority groups from the decision-making process in their communities.

Comment: Just to be sure that neutrality is kept, I would add a sentence about how the legitimacy of environmental racism is heavily debated or something of the sort

Background

The term environmental racism came into popular use at a conference held at the University Michigan's School of Natural Resources in 1990. The conference, which focused on race and environmental hazards, brought together scholars and policymakers to discuss the relationship between racism and the environment. In addition, the term environmental equity movement was used in the late 1980s to describe the growing movement to address racial, gender, and class environmental inequalities. (Dorceta Taylor. Environmental Issues.)

Forms of environmental racism include but are not limited to greater probability of exposure to environmental hazards; uneven negative impacts of environmental procedures; uneven negative impacts of environmental policies; intentional targeting and zoning of toxic facilities in minority communities; segregation of minority workers in hazardous jobs; minority communities with little access to or insufficient maintenance of environmental amenities, for example, parks; and disproportionate access to environmental services such as garbage removal (Dorceta Taylor. Environmental Issues.) Researchers have investigated why minority communities are more likely to reside in environmentally degraded areas, and whether it constitutes intentional or unintentional discrimination.[4]. Some notable areas of environmental racism include In Warren County, North Carolina; Altgeld Gardens, Convent, Louisiana and Kettleman City, California (Dorceta Taylor. Environmental Issues.)

Environmental racism is linked to environmental justice movement, which is another phenomenon incorporating a hybrid of environmental concerns and human welfare and pushes for environmental egalitarianism. The environmental justice movement aims in part to combat environmental racism; environmental justice is "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, sex, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies."[5]

The first association of environmental concerns and human inequality was a report to draw a relationship between race, income, and risk of exposure to pollutants was the Council of Environmental Quality’s "Annual Report to the President" in 1971. In this report, the Council of Environmental Quality’ acknowledged that racial prejudice adversely affected the ability of the urban poor to develop the quality of their environment. [1] In 1979 Robert Bullard, a sociologist at Texas Southern University, completed a report describing the futile attempt of an affluent African-American community in Houston, Texas to block the siting of a hazardous waste landfill in their community. This paper provided evidence that race, not just income status, was a probable factor in this local "uninvited" land-use decision.

In 1977 Sidney Howe, Director of the Human Environment Center, suggested that people positioned in the poor socioeconomic level of their respective communities were exposed to more pollution than others, and that those creating the most pollution live in the least polluted places. He used the term environmental justice to describe the corrective measures needed to address this disparity.(Dorceta Taylor. Environmental Issues.)

During the 1980s, people of color began organizing environmental campaigns to avoid poisoning farm workers with pesticides, lead poisoning in inner-city children, the zoning of toxic facilities such as landfills, polluting industrial complexes, and incinerators. Activists also demanded the cleanup of communities like Triana, Alabama that had been contaminated with dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane (DDT), and the monitoring or closure of facilities like Emelle, Alabama's commercial hazardous landfill, which was the largest of its kind in the United States. In addition, they questioned the placement of large numbers of nuclear waste dumps on Native-American reservations. Meanwhile, activists, scholars, and policymakers began investigating the link between race and exposure to environmental hazards. Two influential studies exploring this relationship—one by the U.S. General Accounting Office (USGAO) and the other by the United Church of Christ (UCC)—found that African-Americans and other people of color were more likely to live close to hazardous waste sites and facilities than whites. The study by the UCC was particularly important because it made an explicit connection between race and the increased likelihood of being exposed to hazardous wastes. The studies also made the issue of race and the environment more salient in communities of color.(Dorceta Taylor. Environmental Issues.)

However, by the early 1990s the term justice replaced equity because environmental justice activists felt justice was a more inclusive term that incorporated the concepts of equality and impartiality. The movement focuses on two kinds of justice: (1) distributive justice, who bears what costs and benefits, and (2) corrective justice, concerned with the way individuals are treated during a social transaction. The environmental justice movement is concerned with distributive justice especially as it relates to identifying past racial injustices and advantages as well as the quest for future remedies. The movement is also concerned with corrective justice as it relates to corporate-worker–community relations and government–local community interactions.

Common Environmental Hazards According to the United States EPA, the six most prominent examples of environmental hazards include the following:[41] Lead—There is a particularly high concentration of lead problems in low-income communities where the public housing units were built before 1970. Waste sites—Low income and minority populations are more likely than other groups to live near landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste treatment facilities. Air pollution—57% of all European Americans, 65% of African Americans, and 80% of Hispanic Americans live in communities that have failed to meet at least one of EPA's ambient air quality standards. Pesticides—Approximately 90% of the 2 million hired farm workers in the United States are people of color, including Chicano, Puerto Ricans, Caribbean blacks, and African Americans. Through direct exposure to pesticides, farm workers and their families may face serious health risks. Wastewater (city sewers)—Many inner cities still have sewer systems that divert overflow into local rivers and streams during storms. Wastewater (agricultural run-off)—Widespread use of commercial fertilizers and concentrations of animal wastes can lead to the degradation of streams and rivers in rural areas.

Comments: I think that you should consider making the environmental justice movement its own section since you have a lot of information here and I think that environmental justice could stand on its own, making the information clearer to the reader. I also think that a table (or some other form of organizational tool) would be really useful for the Common Environmental Hazards sections when you all talking about all the areas that you can find environmental racism. But overall I thought that this information provided a solid background of the topic.

United States

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), in the U.S., there is a correlation between the location of hazardous waste facilities and the ethnic background of an area's residents. In predominantly minority areas, voter registration and education are often lower than average, and citizens are less likely to challenge proposals or seek financial compensation for environmental and health damages.[7] Further, controversial projects are less likely to be sited in areas expected to pursuecollective action.[8] Some studies also suggest that the lack of protest could be due to fear of losing area jobs.[9] Non-minority communities are more likely to succeed when opposing the siting of hazardous waste and sewage treatment facilities, incinerators, and freeways in their areas.[10]

While some social scientists[who?] see the siting of hazardous facilities in minority communities as a demonstration of intentional racism, others[who?] see the causes as structural and institutional. Processes such as suburbanization, gentrification, and decentralization lead to patterns of environmental racism even absent intentionally discriminatory policies. For example, the process of suburbanization (or white flight) consists of non-minorities leaving industrial zones for safer, cleaner, and less expensive suburban locales. Meanwhile, minority communities are left in the inner cities and in close proximity to polluted industrial zones. In these areas, unemployment is high and businesses are less likely to invest in area improvement, creating poor economic conditions for residents and reinforcing a social formation that reproduces racial inequality.[3]

Cases

Warren County, North Carolina

See also Warren County PCB Landfill

By most accounts, racism and environmental justice unified for the first time during the 1982 citizen opposition to a proposed PCB landfill in Warren County, North Carolina . Between June 1978 and August 1978, 30,000 gallons of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB)-contaminated waste were illegally deposited along 210 miles of North Carolinian roads. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared the PCBs a threat to public health and required the state to remove the polluted waste. In 1979, the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources and EPA Region 4 selected Warren County as the site to deposit the PCB-contaminated soil that was collected from the roadsides [1].

Warren County is one of the six counties along the “black belt” of North Carolina. The counties residing in the “black belt” are significantly poorer than the rest of the state. In 1980, the population of Warren County was 54.5% African-American [1]. The decision to discharge the PCB contaminated soil in Warren County was based on politics, rather than scientific findings. The site of the landfill was not scientifically feasible due to the shallow water table, with the drinking water only 5-10 feet below the surface [1].

In 1982, the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People filed a lawsuit in the district courts to block the landfill. The residents lost the case in court [1]. In September of 1982, the outraged citizens of Warren County joined by civil rights groups, environmental leaders, and clergymen protested the first truckloads of PCB contaminated soil . During the protest, over 500 people were arrested and jailed. Despite protests from residents, political leaders, civil rights and environmental activists, and scientific findings that the plan would likely cause drinking water contamination, [11] the Warren County PCB Landfill was built and the toxic waste was placed in the landfill.[12]

After nearly two decades of suspected leaks, state and federal sources paid a contractor $18 million to detoxify the PCB contaminated soil in Warren County [1].

Chicago, Illinois

Altgeld Gardens is a housing community located in south Chicago that was built in 1945 on an abandoned landfill to accommodate returning African-American World War II veterans. Surrounded by 53 toxic facilities and 90% of the city's landfills, the Altgeld Gardens area became known as a "toxic doughnut." With 95% of its population African-American, and 65% below the poverty level, Altgeld Gardens is considered a classic example of environmental racism [13]. The known toxins and pollutants affecting the Altgeld Gardens area include mercury, ammonia gas, lead, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heavy metals, and xylene.[13]

The residents of Altgeld Gardens live in the midst of landfills, contaminated lagoons, a huge chemical waste incinerator, and piles of loose trash. The living conditions have been detrimental to the health of the community. In 1884, a study by Illinois Public Health Sector revealed excessive rates of prostate, bladder, and lung cancer [3]. Additionally, medical records have indicated (1) high rates of children born with brain tumors, (2) high rates of fetuses that had to be aborted after tests revealed that the brains were developing outside the skull, and (3) higher rates of asthma, ringworm, and other ailments. Despite evidence of health problems, the residents of Altgeld Gardens have not been relocated to another public housing project “OECD Seminar Social and Environment Interface Proceedings.”

Chester, Pennsylvania

Chester, Pennsylvania, provides an example of "social, political, and economic forces that shape the disproportionate distribution of environmental hazards in poor communities of color".[14] Chester is located in Delaware County, an area with a population of 500,000 that, excluding Chester, is 91% white. Chester, however, is 65% African American, with the highest minority population and poverty rate in Delaware County,[15] and recipient of a disproportionate amount of environmental risks and hazards.[16]

Chester has five large waste facilities including a trash incinerator, a medical waste incinerator, and a sewage treatment plant.[15] These waste sites in Chester have a total permitted capacity of 2 million tons of waste per year while the rest of Delaware County has a capacity of merely 1,400 tons per year.[17] One of the waste sites located in Chester is the Westinghouse incinerator, which burns all of the municipal waste from the entire county and surrounding states . Additionally, hurricane evacuation plans relied heavily on the use of cars and personal vehicles. However, because minority populations are less likely to own cars, many had no choice but to stay behind, while majority communities were able to escape. A report commissioned by the U.S. House of Representatives found that political leaders failed to consider the fact that "100,000 city residents had no cars and relied on public transit", and the city's failure to complete its mandatory evacuation led to hundreds of deaths.[23]

In the months following the disaster, political, religious, and civil rights groups, celebrities, and New Orleans residents spoke out against what they believed was environmental racism on the part of the United States government.[24] After the hurricane, in a meeting held between the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Urban League, the Black Leadership Forum, the National Council of Negro Women, and the NAACP, Black leaders criticized the response of the federal government and discussed the role of race in this response.

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Caption

Dickson, Tennessee

In 2007, NPR featured a class action lawsuit filed by Sheila Holt-Orsted of Dickson, Tennessee, against local waste treatment agencies.[25] An investigation found that authorities did not notify the African American Holt family about trichloroethylene contamination until years after their white neighbors had been notified. The well where the Holt family got their drinking water was only 500 feet away from the toxic landfill. Some of Holt-Orsted's neighbors were notified within 48 hours of the discovery, while officials continued to tell the Holt family that there was no problem. The Holt family was finally informed that the water they had been drinking, showering in, and cooking with for 9 years was contaminated with cancer-causing agents. Sheila Holt-Orsted, suffered from stage 2 breast cancer, in addition to losing her father Harry Holt to cancer in 2007. Four additional Holt family members suffered from various other illnesses. The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) represented the Holt family, helping them to reach a $1.9 million dollar settlement.

Picture: http://www.google.com/imgres?q=sheila+holt+orsted&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1179&bih=613&tbm=isch&tbnid=U8vwDQ5mDaahBM:&imgrefurl=http://thislandourland.org/poison_iframe.html&docid=aIW7OYRvtWTjtM&imgurl=http://thislandourland.org/images/sheilaholt.jpg&w=420&h=307&ei=3F_KTrjfD6Ty0gH7qoAS&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=207&sig=104248488624170828315&page=1&tbnh=127&tbnw=169&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=126&ty=113

Effects on Native American Nations

See also: Indian removal

The United States army used several tactics to remove the Native Americans from their land. First, the American Bison was hunted almost to extinction in the 1870s. The United States Army encouraged these massive hunts to force Native Americans off their traditional lands and into reservations further west. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Trail of Tears may be considered early examples of environmental racism in the United States. Not only were Native Americans kicked off their land, but many of them were killed in the process. By 1850, all tribes east of the Mississippi had been removed to western lands, essentially confining them to "lands that were too dry, remote, or barren to attract the attention of settlers and corporations".[26]

During World War II, military facilities were often located conterminous to reservations, leading to a situation in which "a disproportionate number of the most dangerous military facilities are located near Native American lands".[26] Native American lands have also been used for waste disposal by the United States and multinational corporations,[27] but illegal dumping poses a greater threat.[28] The International Tribunal of Indigenous People and Oppressed Nations, convened in 1992, established to examine the history of criminal activity against indigenous groups in the United States[29], published a Significant Bill of Particulars outlining grievances indigenous peoples had with the U.S., including allegations that the United States “deliberately and systematically permitted, aided, and abetted, solicited and conspired to commit the dumping, transportation, and location of nuclear, toxic, medical, and otherwise hazardous waste materials on Native American territories in North America and has thus created a clear and present danger to the health, safety, and physical and mental well-being of Native American People”.[29]

Responses to Environmental Racism

See also: Environmental Justice There are many proposed solutions to the problem of environmental racism. Activists have called for "more participatory and citizen-centered conceptions of justice".[30][31] According to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, one possible solution is the precautionary principle, which states that "where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation".[32] Under this principle, the initiator of the potentially hazardous activity is charged with demonstrating the activity's safety. Environmental justice activists also emphasize the need for waste reduction in general, which would act to reduce the overall burden.[33]

Concentrations of ethnic or racial minorities may also foster solidarity, lending support in spite of challenges and providing the concentration of social capital necessary for grassroots activism. Citizens who are tired of being subjected to the dangers of pollution in their communities have been confronting the power structures through organized protest, legal actions, marches, civil disobedience, and other activities.[34]

Other strategies in battling against large companies include public hearings, the elections of supporters to state and local offices, meetings with company representatives, and other efforts to bring about public awareness and accountability.[35] In general, political participation in African American communities is correlated with the reduction of health risks and mortality.[36]

Protests

In 1982, a polychlorinated biphenyls landfill ignited protests in Warren County, North Carolina that became the driving force to a 1983 US General Accounting Office study, "Siting of Hazardous Waste Landfills and Their Correlation with Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities." In the study it revealed that Region 4 (corresponding to 8 southern US states) African Americans made up 20% of the region’s population however 3 of the 4 off-site commercial hazardous waste landfills were located in predominantly African-American communities. The protests also lead to other studies like the "1987 Toxic Waste and Race in the United States" by the Commission for Racial Justice, which found race to be the most influential variable in predicting where waste facilities were located.

Lawsuits

In 1989, the Louisiana Energy Services (LES), a British, German and American conglomerate, conducted a nation wide search to find the “best” site to build a privately owned uranium enrichment plant. The LES claimed to use an objective scientific method to select Louisiana as the the “best” place to build the plant. In response to the selection, the communities of Homer, Forest Grove and Center Springs that are nearby the proposed site formed a group called Citizens against Nuclear Trash (CANT). With the help of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund (later changed to Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund), CANT sued LES for practising environmental racism. Finally after 8 years, on May 1, 1997 a three judge panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board made their final initial decision. The panel found that racial bias did play a role in the selection process. In response to the victory, on May 11, 1997 the London Times declared, “Louisana Blacks Win Nuclear War.”The courts decision was also upheld on appeal on April 4, 1998.

Legislation

The export of hazardous waste to third world countries is another growing concern. Between 1989 and 1994, an estimated 2,611 metric tons of hazardous waste was exported from OECD countries to non-OECD countries.Two international agreements were passed in response to the growing exportation of hazardous waste into their borders.

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was concerned that the Basel Convention adopted in March 1989 did not include a total ban on the trans-boundary movement on hazardous waste. In response to their concerns, on January 30, 1991 the Pan-African Conference on Environmental and Sustainable Development adopted the Bamako Convention banning the import of all hazardous waste into Africa and limiting their movement within the continent. In September 1995, the G-77 nations helped amend the Basel Convention to ban the export of all hazardous waste from industrial countries (mainly OECD countries and Lichtenstein) to other countries.

International

Environmental racism also exists on an international scale. First world corporations often produce dangerous chemicals banned in the United States and export them to developing countries, or send waste materials to countries with relaxed environmental laws.[citation needed] In one instance, the French aircraft carrier Clemenceau was prohibited from entering Alang, an Indian ship-breaking yard, due to a lack of clear documentation about its toxic contents. French President Jacques Chirac ultimately ordered the carrier, which contained tons of hazardous materials including asbestos and PCBs, to return toFrance.[37] E-waste disposal sites, such as one in Giuyu, China, are also subjects of controversy. In Giuyu, laborers with no protective clothing regularly burn plastics and circuit boards from old computers. They pour acid on electronic parts to extract silver and gold, and crush cathode ray tubes from computer monitors to remove other valuable metals, such as lead. Nearly 80 percent of children in the E-waste hub of Giuyu, China, suffer from lead poisoning, according to recent reports.[38] In another example of foreign environmental racism, in 1984, both the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India, and the PEMEX liquid propane gas plant in Mexico City, where minorities reside, blew up, killing thousands and injuring roughly a million nearby residents.[39] The images of the victims in India and Mexico spread knowledge of environmental racism around the globe. In the other hand, some countries have small "eco laws" and are more prone to accept dangerous industries.

Chevron/Texaco in Ecuador

Due to their lack of environmental laws, emerging countries like Ecuador have been subjected to environmental pollution, sometimes causing health problems, loss of agriculture, and poverty. In 1993, 30,000 Ecuadorians, which included Cofan, Siona, Huaorani, and Quichua indigenous people, filed a lawsuit against Texaco oil companyfor the environmental damages. After handing control of the oil fields to an Ecuadorian oil company, Texaco did not properly dispose of its waste, causing great damages to the ecosystem and crippling communities.[40]

Cost Benefit Analysis

I would be more specific in the heading, for example: Policy Implications of Cost Benefit Analysis

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is a process that places a monetary value on costs and benefits to evaluate issues . Environmental CBA aims to provide policy solutions for intangible products such as clean air and water by measuring a consumer’s willingness to pay for these goods. CBA contributes to environmental racism through the valuing of environmental resources based on their utility to society. The more someone is willing to pay for a resource such as clean water or air benefits society more than when people are not willing to pay for these goods. This creates a burden on poorer areas, however, by relocating toxic wastes and other environmentally hazardous goods through the justification that they are not willing (or able) to pay as much as a wealthier area for a clean environment. The placement of toxic wastes near poor people lowers the property value of already cheap land. Since the decrease in property value is less than that of a cleaner, wealthier area the benefits to society are greater by dumping the toxic waste in a “low-value” area .

Overall: I think the biggest challenge with this topic is maintaining neutrality. The piece overall seems rather one-sided. I would include a section about criticism of environmental racism to help balance that. Also, the examples you give have a lot of detail about the outcomes of environmental policy decisions, but there is little mention about why certain cites (for dumping waste for example) were chosen or the actual decision making process behind the policies. Since environmental racism is primarily about how governments purposefully make policies that hurt underrepresented and poorer communities, I think you should talk more about how the government or company displayed environmental racism so that it doesn't seem like the evidence you provide is simply due to correlation as opposed to causation. And on a minor note, there are some typos and grammatical errors that should be fixed as well. But overall this article does a comprehensive job of explaining your topic.

Cole, Luke W., and Sheila R. Foster. From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement. New York: New York UP, 2001. Print.

Taylor, Dorceta E. The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change. Durham: Duke UP, 2009.

Taylor, Dorceta E. "Environmental Racism - United States, Industrial, Toxic, Human, Power, Use." Pollution Issues. <http://www.pollutionissues.com/Ec-Fi/Environmental-Racism.html>.

Comments by urcuyopa: The responses my other group members have given are the same comments I have about the page. It is important to maintain neutrality and I suggest exploring some barriers to mitigating environmental racism such as the lack of public knowledge or lack of solid legislative definition or process for reporting environmental racism. Watch out for spelling errors and include more figures. Urcuyopa (talk) 19:10, 29 November 2011 (UTC)