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1996-04-27
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Environmental Justice and the E.P.A.
Environmental justice has slowly gained consciousness of the
American people, from racial events in the 1960s and 1970s to the
confrontation of this issue by national environmental leaders. It
became a real issue, with true roots and a real name, in North
Carolina's Warren County in 1982. National black leaders were
protesting what they called an unfair siting of a waste facility
-- in a depressed area. Benjamin Chavis, Jr., defined
environmental justice as "racial discrimination in environmental
policymaking, enforcement of regulations and laws, and targeting
of communities of color for toxic waste disposal and siting of
polluting industries." This definition has since been broadened to
other minorities, and to the poor as well.
Some examples of environmental injustice include the NIMBY (Not In
My Backyard) theory, in which many black, poor, and/or minority
communities bear the brunt of the rest of America pleading for the
right to not have a landfill or toxic waste site in their
neighborhood. Many blacks stood up during these times and claimed
discrimination because it would affect their status in housing,
social mobility, and employment opportunities. A neighborhood in
Houston went to court in 1979 in a civil case, suing under the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, claiming discrimination due to lack of
environmental justice.
Slowly, but surely, things have changed, and the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) has offered quite a few things to remedy
this problem. To ensure that environmental justice is carried out,
the Office of Environmental Equity was created within the EPA in
1991. For starters, this office is looking into "Cancer Alley" in
Louisiana. For the preparation of then-incoming EPA Administrator
Carol Browner (an alumnus of the University of Florida), an
introductory packet describing and entailing the history and
potential solutions of environmental injustice was produced by
activists and national environmental and social leaders. The EPA
Office of Civil Rights started to investigate environmental
justice under the aforementioned Civil Rights Act of 1964; it was
suggested that procedures be carried out in a non-discriminatory
manner. Once Browner was in office, she claimed that environmental
justice would be one of four key issues that would be addressed
during's Clinton's first term of office.
In summation, the struggle has been slow, painful and tiresome,
but even in the fight for keeping our earth clean and our public
healthy, there can be fairness in the ugly world of racism and
discrimination.