GREEN Reactor: Racism and the Environment
Environmental Racism – the placement of toxic facilities, garbage dumps or other hazards within towns or neighborhoods that are mostly inhabited by minority populations — is a well-known and widely documented phenomenon. Though the racism involved may not have been overt – e.g., a sewage plant may have ended up in the low-income black neighborhood because the residents were least resistant to the project – the net result is the same. Such placement is all too common in America.
In some cases these areas developed in the opposite sequence. Best example is “the tracks”. Many communities of America have railroad tracks in or near the town. Through the 20th century, land adjacent to the tracks was “undesirable” for obvious reasons, but for those who couldn’t afford to live elsewhere, property near the tracks was an option. Dangerous and noisy, yes, but it was an affordable roof to live under. This scenario was also true for some other existing areas (near airports, outside smelly chemical plants, etc). The towns COULD have zoned those areas for industrial purposes only. But instead they let residences be built and many poorer – -and generally “non-white” – families moved in and their families grew up there.
In some cases neither was true – a new “dirty” facility was needed by a town or region, and EVERYBODY cried “NIMBY” (“not in my back yard”). But for some reason, the powers that be agreed with the more affluent constituents, and ignored the less affluent ones.
Those in power showed a clear preference for those more of their own persuasion — racism, clear and simple. But the losers of this game had far less access to good legal representation, and state institutions in these states often favor big business over small local interests. A recipe for racial injustice.
In these days of Big Dirty Energy’s rapid expansion of natural gas drilling using fracking techniques, the problem is getting worse. The populous is waking up to the horrendous side-effects of this nasty process – the waste of scarce water to drive the process, the use of toxic chemicals with the excuse that “it’s far underground”, the contaminated ground water in many areas, even small earthquakes. Since so many localities are smart enough to outlaw the practice, the megabucks behind Big Dirty Energy pull strings to find places where they can continue to rape the earth. Guess where this often is? Yep, those same less affluent areas that can’t fight back.
There are any number of examples of places where toxic dumps, fracking, leaky pipelines and air pollution have inserted itself into non-white communities. A major PCB-contaminated landfill in Warren County, one of the “Black Belt” counties in North Caroline. All kinds of nasty dumps in black areas of Louisiana after Katrina. Five major incinerators located in the minority areas of Chester County, PA, of which the rest of the county is 90% white. Toxic waste dump sites on Native American lands. The list goes on and on. And this is true even well beyond our Borders. Remember “Bhopal”?
Though the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) attempts to regulate such sites as they get built, they are NOT responsible for political/racial policies involved in selecting the sites. Thankfully there is a whole movement for Environmental Justice rising up to attempt to right the wrongs of the past and call out those who would attempt to repeat such egregious acts. A clearing-house for these efforts is the Environmental Justice Resource Center in Atlanta. There is even an inter-faith church organization under “Green Faith” that is engaged in advocacy, education and jobs in the field.
Whether we like to admit it or not, there IS a legacy of racism in our environmental policies. Big Dirty Energy will use their deep pockets to fight against efforts to rehabilitate the practice, since it’ll cost them money to find more suitable practices and locations. It’s up to us old fogeys AND our new generations of activists to stand up to them.