Environmental racism in the United States
Organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, residents of Warren County, along with local civil rights and political leaders, gathered in opposition to the placement of the landfill site.
[18] Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) contribute to the adverse health effects experienced by EJ communities by releasing harmful gas emissions into the air (ammonia, volatile organic compounds, endotoxins, etc.)
An example of a case of environmental racism is a small mainly African American (90%) town called Uniontown, Alabama where a toxic landfill is believed to have caused serious health issues.
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.
[42] 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.
[50] Another example is East Orosi, a small, low-income, Latino town in California's San Joaquin Valley where the groundwater was found to be contaminated with nitrates due to fertilizer runoff at nearby farms.
[61] Additionally, climate change has been found to increase the frequency of extreme heat and pollen events that exacerbate asthma, disproportionately affecting pediatric ED visits of BIPOC.
For example, during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, whites were evacuated, while African Americans were placed into disaster-relief "concentration camps" and forced to work while being held at gunpoint.
[13] A study by sociologist Salvatore Saporito and Daniel Casey found that urban green space is generally distributed unequally across racial and economic groups.
There is one epidemiological study that was performed in the Netherlands that showed a positive link between abundant green spaces and better health mostly apparent among the elderly, housewives, and people from lower socioeconomic groups.
Opponents to the project would like to conserve the area as part of the 3500 acre South River forest (a large green space in southeast Atlanta), and they have said that the development is an example of environmental racism that will lead to increased police brutality against people of color.
The United States sought "remote lands to house bombing ranges and related noxious activities," and, thus, many facilities contained dangerous unexploded ordnance, putting Native populations at risk of exposure to toxic chemicals.
[90] In the early 1990s, the United States government attempted to blackmail Native populations by offering tribes millions of dollars for hosting nuclear waste facilities.
Hooks' and Smith's study also found that the risk assessment code commonly used to measure the danger levels of a site may underestimate the damage it inflicts on Native American communities.
Although it does not cross directly on a reservation, the pipeline is under scrutiny because it passes under a section of the Missouri River which is the main drinking water source for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
[99] Kelly Morgan, the Standing Rock Sioux's tribal archeologist, has voiced concerns that the water crossings destroy land used for burials and other important historical and cultural information, including several stones and markers.
With the legal representation of Linda McKeever Bullard, residents of Houston's Northwood Manor opposed the decision of the city and Browning Ferris Industries to construct a solid waste facility near their mostly African-American neighborhood.
EPA's Administrator Stephen Johnson wanted to redefine the Order's purpose to shift from protecting low income and minority communities that may be disadvantaged by government policies to all people.
[132] Generally, USDA believes its existing technical and financial assistance programs provide solutions to environmental inequity, such as its initiatives on education, food deserts, and economic development in impacted communities.
[135] The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is working to update its policy on protection and management of Native American Sacred Sites, an effort that has included listening sessions and government-to-government consultation.
[138] The NRCS Strike Force Initiative has identified impoverished counties in Mississippi, Georgia and Arkansas to receive increased outreach and training regarding USDA assistance programs.
[144] The Locator provides a spatial view of food deserts, defined as a low-income census tract where a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store.
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.
[152] Similarly, the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican revolutionary nationalist organization based in Chicago and New York City, protested pollution and toxic refuse present in their community via the Garbage Offensive program.
Latino ranch laborers composed by Cesar Chavez battled for working environment rights, including insurance from harmful pesticides in the homestead fields of California's San Joaquin Valley.
Fighting against industrial facilities that were adding to the air, water and soil pollution caused by a nearby smelter that had operated for more than a century in Denver, Colorado, environmental and social justice activist Lorraine Granado and other residents of that city's Elyria-Swansea and Globeville neighborhoods formed Neighbors for a Toxic-Free Community.
[161][162] According to Ojibwe activist Winona LaDuke, "over 1,000 abandoned uranium mines lie on the Navajo reservation, largely untouched by any attempts to cover or cap or even landscape the toxic wastes.
Diné children have a rate of testicular and ovarian cancer fifteen times the national average, and a fatal neurological disease called Navajo neuropathy has been closely linked to ingesting uranium-contaminated water during pregnancy.
– discuss] People living in Pahokee, Florida, face a thick level of soot that pollutes the local area each October due to sugar burning.
A 2015 study supported by the United States Department of Education determined that those exposed to this sugar field burning pollution face higher rates of respiratory issues and weakened immune systems.
