Environmental injustice occurs when certain communities endure higher levels of environmental risk or contamination, and when communities do not receive equal protection through programs, laws and enforcement. The result is that indigenous, low-income and minority communities are disproportionately burdened by polluted waterways, land and air (1). According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), environmental justice is attained when all people, regardless of income, national origin, race or color, receive the same treatment and protection from environmental hazards and have equal access to the process in which such decisions are made (2).

The U.S. has recently seen an increased public awakening to the extent of the harm caused by environmental injustice. Despite this shift, environmental injustice remains pervasive in the south and throughout the nation. The historical legacy of environmental injustice alone remains a very real and present threat to communities across the nation through waterways, land and commercial sites that remain contaminated to this day.  

The true toll of environmental injustice is hard to measure with precision. Although difficult to quantify, the reality of environmental injustice in the U.S. is clear: people of color and impoverished people have higher asthma rates, cancer rates, mortality rates, and are in poorer health than white and more affluent people. A study done by the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment determined that black people experience exposure to 1.5 times more lung and heart disease causing pollution than white people, with Hispanic people experiencing exposure to 1.2 times the amount. People living in poverty are exposed to 1.3 times the amount of these pollutants than those not living in poverty (3).

There are many reasons why minority and lower income communities have been disenfranchised and subject to environmental injustice, including unequal political power, unequal enforcement by regulatory agencies and discrimination in locating sites that cause pollution. Data shows that hazardous waste sites located in minority communities take twenty percent longer to be listed on the federal priority system for cleanup, and that plants that violate laws are more likely to be shut down if they are in a more affluent neighborhood.  Research has also shown that plants in minority areas receive lower penalties for environmental violations, with monetary penalties for violations in predominantly white neighborhoods being about five hundred percent higher. These stark inequalities in pollution protection work to encourage companies that pollute to continue to do so in lower income and minority communities, thus perpetrating the cycle of environmental injustice (4).

Sources

1. Environmental Justice For All Act, H.R.5986, 116th Cong. (2020)

2. Environmental Justice. (2020, October 05). Retrieved October 16, 2020, from https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice

3. Lockhart, P.R. (2020, July 9). Environmental racism is dangerous. Trump’s EPA doesn’t seem to care. Vox. Retrieved October 16, 2020 from https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/7/9/17542240/environmental-racism-justice-scott-pruitt-donald-trump

4. Diaz, S. Getting to the Root of Environmental Injustice. The Vermont Journal of Environmental Law. Retrieved October 16, 2020 from http://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/getting-to-the-root-of-environmental-injustice/