Robert D. Bullard[1]

Bullard, environmental justice, ethnicity and race

Unequal Protection (1994)

 

Environmental justice movement – environmental equity

 

¥ Transboundary waste trade

¥ land-fill sites and contaminants

 

ÒEnvironmental Racism is the link in the chain of acts of unsustainable development. It involves a denial of human rights, environmental protection, and economic opportunities to the communities where people of color live and work.Ó

p. 1.

 

Òenvironmental discrimination is unfair, unethical and immoral. They also recognize that environmental justice is a legitimate area of inquiry. . . . Ò

pp. 1-2.

Race Matters

Oct 27, 1991

Òthis multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit ...to fight the destruction and taking of our lands and communities...do hereby re-establish  our spiritual interdependence to the sacredness of Mother Earth.Ó

p. 3.

Executive Order 12898 ÒFederal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and low-income populations.Ó 2-11-1994

 

Òmany opportunities to address environmental hazards in minority communities and low-income communities ... from being subject to disproportionately high and adverse environmental impacts.Ó

p. 3.

UT Dallas study   46 percent – poor-suited housing development are within a mile of factories reporting Òtoxic emissions to the EPA.Ó

p. 4.

Òprevent environmental threats before they occur.Ó

 

ÒAll communities are not created equal.Ó

West Dallas, West Harlem, South side Chicago, South central Los Angeles.

 

 

Leveling the Playing field

 

Pensacola, Florida EPA relocated 358 families Òfrom a dioxin dump, tagged ÒMount Dioxin, marking the first time a black community was relocated under the federal governmentÕs giant Superfund program.Ó

p. 8

 

Uranium enrichment plant, 1997.

 

Homer, La.  Claiborne Parish between two African Amrican communities -- Forest Grove (1865) Center Springs (1910)

 

ÒFor example African-Americans  constitute 13 percent of the US population, 20 percent of the southern stateÕs population, 31 percent of LouisianaÕs population, 35 percent of LouisianaÕs  northern parishes (counties), and 46 percent of Claiborne Parish.Ó

pp. 8-9.

 

ÒThe aggregate average percentage of blacks in the population within a one mile radius of the seventy eight sites examined (in sixteen parishes) is 28.35 percent. Ò When looking at Ò37 sitesÓ within 9 parishes Òrose to 36.78Ó

 

legal victory fo CANT (opponents)

NRC – Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

Ò1) inaccurately assessed the costs and benefits.Ó

Ò2) they failed to consider the inequitable distribution of costs and benefits.Ó

3) they failed to consider the fact that siting the plant in a community of color followed a national patter.Ó

pp. 9-10.

Environmnetal Justice has faltered (1970s-2002)

p. 11.

Mossville Community Òsurrounded by fourteen industrial facilities that together emit millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, water, and soil each year.Ó

p. 12.

Òcomplexities of building a multiethnic movement whose leaders often have divergent worldviews and sometimes competing interests.Ó

p.13.

NIMBY vs PIBBY

13

ÒThe lives of people living in sacrifice zonesÓ

The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution (2005)



[1] The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution, ed. Robert D. Bullard. San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 2005.