The Love Canal case first brought up the issue of environmental justice in the 1970s, and directly contributed to the “Community Right-to-Know” provision in the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Acts (SARA Title III). In 1982, racial concerns were added to environmental justice when a proposed PCB landfill was approved in a minority community in North Carolina (Roseland 162). Then the National EnvironmentalJustice Advisory Council was established in 1993, bringing together representatives from the community, academia, industry, tribes, local governments, and (of course) environmental groups. In 1994, President Clinton issued an executive order addressing environmental justice in federal agencies, and finally, in 2003 EPA regional offices were required to submit environmental justice action plans to report progress (Roseland 162). Why am I recounting this history? Because it sheds light on the slow, labored movement of this very important issue, defined as: the (1) unequal distribution of environmental risk, (2) unequal access to information, and/or (3) lack of opportunity to contribute in the public comment process, based on race, economic status, or both (Wheeler 184).
Examples abound. People of color (versus whites) are more likely to live in urban areas with reduced air quality, with the highest rates of asthma in the U.S. among blacks aged 15-24 (Wheeler, p. 185). Numerous studies and mappings of coal plant locations and hazardous waste sites prove that environmental discrimination exists, yet it has been one of the more overlooked aspects of sustainable development. This might be partly due to the fact that it comes in various forms: procedural equity, social (intra-generational) equity, distributional (geographical) equity, inter-generational equity, and inter-species equity (Roseland 162).
One of my earlier blogs on Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) in Fort Wayne mentioned when and where CSO upgrades were being planned in the city, and whether nicer neighborhoods were being serviced first. Below is a map of minority and low income areas of Fort Wayne. Solid yellow = low income. All other colors/patterns indicate minority areas. Solid green, crosshatched pink-and-green, and crosshatched pink-and-blue indicate low income AND a minority.
The next map is of current CSO sites (yellow dots) and proposed upgrades (dark purple spots) in Fort Wayne. I added a few street names to make it easier to compare, since the graphs are on different scales.
See if you can tell me whether there is an environmental justice issue here. How did you decide? What other information am I (purposefully) leaving out that might help make the decision? (Oh okay, here’s a few things: population density, CBA of people served vs. project costs, engineering feasibility, overflow rates at each CSO site, etc)
It seems Fort Wayne isn’t the only city in Indiana under scrutiny regarding environmental justice and CSO upgrades. Indianapolis is also under the gun. Below is a map of Marion County, with active CSOs (blue dots), recently eliminated CSOs (purple dots), and proposed upgrades for 2009-2013 (green dots). The darker areas of the map represent regions with a greater proportion of people at or under the poverty level, lighter areas are better off. This study determined that the proposed CSO elimination plan did not “effectively address” the environmental justice issue, and found a strong correlation between active CSOs and poorer neighborhoods.
Environmental justice (or injustice, as it is most of the time) is a really interesting and hot-button topic these days, especially among politicians. This summer I interned with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and one of the projects I worked on was a comparison piece between the Michigan EJ plan and the EPA's EJ plan (which doesn't go into effect until 2014). To give you some background: The Michigan EJ Plan was drafted in 2009 under a Democratic governor, but not signed to go into effect under her term. The next election saw a Republican, with many other priorities, get ushered in. He was of the mindset that the EPA was going to put their EJ plan into effect in 2014, so why should Michigan bother with ours? Well, there were some key differences between the plans, which made the Michigan plan much more applicable to Michigan than the EPA plan was. Namely, the fact that Michigan made a blatant effort to include an entire section on how to incorporate Native Americans and tribal lands into the environmental justice sphere, which is something the EPA doesn't really address (this is probably the case because Michigan has one of the largest percentage of Native Americans in the nation). Interns and I worked together to compile all the differences we could find, in the hopes that our governor would see that the Michigan plan was important and should not be dismissed so readily. I haven't found out if anything happened with the plan yet, but my guess is that nothing will come of it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, holy long story. Clearly, environmental justice is something really important, and it's sad to see that, like in Michigan, many cases of environmental justice are just getting ignored.
Chrissy, well done with the graphs and making it interactive. It seems like this is an issue everywhere, but one glimmer of hope...this summer I worked for the City of Cincinnati's Office of Environmental Quality and volunteered with the Parks Dept. They are in the process of ridding their city of the CSOs. (they have one of the oldest piping systems in the US...eww) Anyway, they are looking to redo an entire mile long area along a river. They want to take out the CSO's and restore it to its natural habitat. To make it even better, it is in one of the most run-down areas of the city. In addition, to restore its natural beauty, they want to build a park next to it!!! Plans are already in the works.
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