Environmental Justice Midterm 1 Keywords

Free, Prior, and Informed Consent

Communities must have access to complete, accurate, and understandable information about a project, before it is designed or approved, without coercion or pressure

consultation

provide information to a community and ask for feedback: not enough, must have instead operate by free, prior, and informed consent

Civil Rights Movement (tributaries)

Strongly intertwined with church leadership, contributed experience with direct action, civil disobedience, and organizing techniques, perspective that disproportionate impact occurs because of systemic oppression

Anti-Toxic Movement (tributaries)

National network of grassroots movements against toxins and hazards impacting their communities, shifted environmentalism to include land use and social impact, contributed idea of pollution prevention (eliminate use of toxic chemicals to reduce toxic waste), created focus on corporate power and economic structure requiring communities to be environmentally harmed

Civil Rights Movement & Anti-Toxic movement unity

Civil Rights Movement agreed with the Anti-Toxic idea of economic structure requiring environmental injustice, Anti-Toxics adopted the idea of systems motivated by structural racism, unity in the 1980s helped create the broader EJ movement

Academics & Academia (tributaries)

Published studies demonstrating disproportional impact of environmental hazards on POC communities, lobbied to the federal government about EJ, created a basis for policy changes, provided funding and legitimacy to the movement

Native American Activists (tributaries)

Provided hundreds of years of experience fighting for self-determination, contributed idea of “we speak for ourselves,” Indigenous Environmental Network (1990) brought causes together

Labor Movement (tributaries)

Grassroots, includes 1960s farm worker movement led by Cesar Chavez, struggled against environmental hazards that posed safety issues to farm workers, worked with unions, United Farm Workers (UFW) union contractually demanded the ban of dangerous pesticides like DDT, started lawsuits against toxins that created policy changes. Occupational Health & Safety and industrial unions also made some contributions.

Traditional Environmental Movement (tributaries)

Contributed little to EJ movement, first wave i.e. Roosevelt historically white and upper-class (conservationists vs preservationists), second wave started post-WWII and culminated around the 70s with Earth Day, focused on legal action and environmental laws, has excluded POC and grassroots activists

First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit

Helped separate the EJ movement from traditional environmentalism, created unity among EJ tributaries, 17 principles of EJ were established

Executive Order 12898

Clinton era: directs federal agencies to include EJ in its policies by working on environmental problems that disproportionately harm marginalized communities, overturned by Trump

Issues with EJ grant progams (EPA)

Grants declined if they reduced business profitability, didn’t focus on policy changes that would help communities be less overburdened, made communities compete with each other for funds instead of working together, didn’t financially incentivize including communities in decisions

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

Prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, used to ban discriminatory impact but now only bans discriminatory intent, making it hard to use for EJ issues

Rulemaking

Create environmental laws and regulations

Permitting

Review and approve applications for permits based on existing laws and regulations, mostly through local and state agencies (sometimes EPA)

Compliance

Makes inspections, monitors if environmental laws are being followed, review records, request info, conducts audits, can prompt civil or criminal investigations if violations are found

Warren County, NC (1982)

Primarily Black community that toxic waste was put in even though it didn’t meet EPA criteria for landfill site (groundwater) and eliminated some safety requirements, 3 lawsuits filed for the community: project allowed to continue with modifications, judge found that there was no intent of discrimination. Communities protested the project’s continuation by blocking trucks, case gained traction for EJ movement.

EJ Grants (EPA)

Small grants to fund community-based, nonprofits & tribes working on improving environmental conditions in overburdened communities

Disproportionate siting and discrimination thesis

Hazardous facilities are more likely to be put in areas mostly inhabited by marginalized groups (not random, a result of systematic discrimination)

Modifiable Area Unit Problem (MUAP)

Use of aspatial units (census tracts, counties) to study spatial relationship can skew our data, i.e. the edge effect and microclustering

Modifiable Area Unit Problem (MUAP) solution

Moving towards unit-hazard coincidence (look at the area of a hazardous site’s impact, etc.)

Edge effect

Assumes that impact of a hazard or issue ceases past the edge of a study area, potentially omitting important data

Evidence for the disproportionate siting and discrimination thesis

Landfills and hazardous sites added to already-established historically Black communities (Riceville, TX, Alsen, LA), hazardous facilities built on Native American reservations, incinerators built in majority Hispanic Kettleman City (Los Angeles)

United Church of Christ study: Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States

Found race was the strongest predictor of commercial hazardous waste facility location, assumed minority communities were pre-established before a site was added (this is sometimes but not always the case)

Argument against the disproportionate siting and discrimination thesis

UCC study took data of communities after hazardous sites were built, not when construction started; racial demographics near hazards are because of residential segregation and other factors

Source (pollution)

The point/activity from which a contaminant is released into the environment, i.e. a factory

Route (pollution)

The way a contaminant crosses a biological barrier to enter a person/organism: Inhalation, ingestion, or dermal absorption (skin)

Pathway (pollution)

Sequence of steps where a contaminant moves from its source, through the environment, (air, water, soil, animals) to contact with humans or ecological receptors (i.e. food, drinking water, air)

Cumulative Impacts

Proximity to multiple hazardous locations has a compounding impact, intersections between race and other marginalized statuses, strength or weakness of community network, etc.

Biological Susceptibility (intrinsic)

Age (i.e. children more susceptible to lead), genetics and gene expression, and pre-existing health conditions

Social Vulnerability

Social conditions that amplify the effects of environmental exposures, like race, class, and discrimination. Example: Maternal stress from racism negatively impacts the child’s health

Health Impact Assessments

Used to see how a program/policy/project/etc. could impact the health and well being of a community BEFORE it is implemented, needs significant community involvement to be meaningful

Microclustering

Small pockets of people or facilities often group together in ways that larger spatial units (counties, census tracts) can hide

Spatial coincidence

Uses predefined spatial units like zip codes, census tracts, and counties), compares demographics of areas with or without a hazard

Unit-hazard coincidence

Focuses on the exact location of a hazard within a spatial unit (i.e. census tract) to see if it overlaps with overburdened populations

Aggregate exposure

The way that ONE chemical can build up in our bodies from multiple routes (i.e. lead in both drinking water and chocolate)

Cumulative exposure

The way that exposure to multiple pollutants (multiple sources, pathways, and routes) impacts us, especially if two toxins create similar effects

Health Impact Assessment in Proctor Creek, GA

Dumping and pollution throughout the watershed in an overburdened area, NGOs collaborated with EPA and community to determine health effects of pollution and go about solutions accordingly, trained citizen scientists and maintained community engagement

Commerce Clause

Grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, courts interpret that disposing of waste is commerce and shows a national interest, so attempts to impede it aren’t successful (incl. states/localities trying to impose fees or limits on out-of-state waste being disposed of or processed in their area)

Equal Protection Clause

14th amendment (equal protection under the law), only prohibits insidious or unjustifiable discrimination intended by the government so it’s very hard to use

Title VI administrative process

Requires Title VI (banning of discrimination by race/ethnicity) complaints to be filed under the EPA, cannot make lawsuits, EPA response time is slow and accepts just a fraction of complaints for review

NJ Cumulative Burden Law

Mandates denying certain environmental permits based on cumulative EJ impacts/impacts in overburdened communities

5 Components of NJ Cumulative Burden Law

Definition of an overburdened community, mandated denial and defining what constitutes a cumulative burden, defines facilities subject to the law, specifies new vs. renewal vs. expansion permits, "Compelling Public Interest" clause

50th percentile rule (NJ)

A community is above the threshold for cumulative impact, so a permit must be denied, if it has more pollution burden than at least half of comparable neighborhoods.

Eminent domain

The power of the government to take private property and turn it into public property or any property for “public use”, including transferring private property to the government and then to a new private owner

Eminent domain justice issues

Areas targeted for eminent domain have higher percentages of minorities and lower income, frequently used in urban renewal to displace marginalized communities for “economic development”

Blight

To justify demolition and urban renewal, communities (usually marginalized) are labeled as “urban blight” or slums

HOLC (Home Owners Loan Corporation)

Created to help homeowners finance their homes after lots of foreclosures from the Great Depression, made redlining maps for investment risk (A-D, with most minority communities at level D marked in red)

Impact of redlining maps

Systemic, institutionalized devaluation of Black, racially mixed, and older inner-city neighborhoods, decreased social mobility for people in these areas as their loans were more frequently denied

Mallach reading key points

Modern demographics aren’t just due to redlining maps but also other factors like white flight and the second great migration, so relying on redlining maps can cause policy to overlook disadvantaged communities outside formerly redlined areas

NJ Cumulative Burden Law: Requirements for Denial

Facility must contribute to at least one stressor in the area that is already above the 50th percentile

Systematic Institutionalized Devaluation

Racial were judgments used to assign lower value to homes owned by Black residents and/or in predominantly Black neighborhoods

Racial zoning

A city decides/restricts where people may live based on race, happened during Jim Crow in many Southern cities

Exclusionary zoning

Rules about housing (i.e. minimum lot size, single-family only) can restrict who can afford to live there, generally decreasing the amount of minorities

Homeownership Programs & Redlining

HOLC: Refinanced mortgages for people who were going to default/foreclose, produced residential security maps that defined racially marginalized & diverse areas as highest risk, these maps weren’t necessarily used for mortgages

FHA (Federal Housing Authority)

Insured private mortgages, used discriminatory standards

Redlining

Discriminatory restrictions on credit (i.e. mortgages) based on neighborhood location and racial composition, penalized minority races and Jews

Greenlining

Favorable ratings and investment advantage for privileged (white, wealthy) suburbs

Impacts of redlining: Detroit’s Birchwood Wall

Developers built a wall between their new white neighborhood and the neighboring Black neighborhood to make sure it would retain a good score and secure a loan from the FHA

Racialized Public Housing

Public housing for whites vs. Blacks built in different areas of town, whites generally had higher-quality public housing

Racially restrictive covenants

Clauses in property deeds or agreements that prevented minority races from buying or selling the property

Blockbusting

Real estate actors get White owners to sell their homes through racial fears, then resell houses at marked up prices to Black buyers who face restricted alternatives