Delayed environmental justice denied justice
It has taken a long time, but environmental justice has become central to the environmental policy agenda. In New York City, the environmental justice movement has spent decades fighting the location of the North River sewage treatment plant in West Harlem. After a failed site battle, campaigners pushed to improve the treatment plant and reduce its impact on the environment. They worked on the design of Riverbank State Park, a wonderful facility on top of the plant. Percy Sutton and David Dinkins, as well as much of Harlem’s political establishment, battled the factory’s location in Harlem. WEACT’s predecessor West Harlem Environmental Action and its visionary head, Peggy Shepard, partnered with the NRDC and successfully sued the City of New York to minimize the factory’s negative impact on the Harlem community. Published in 1994 fordham law review Written by environmental justice pioneer Vernice D. Miller (now Miller-Travis). Miller’s case study details the terms of New York City’s settlement with the Harlem community:
“In April 1992, the City of New York and DEP committed $55 million in capital to correct design and odor issues in the North River. In lieu of fines against the State Department of Environmental Protection, the City EPA also established a $1.1 million West Harley The Mu Environmental Welfare Fund, administered by a steering committee of community representatives, through which communities hope to conduct health risk assessments, cumulative environmental impact assessments, independent monitoring of factory operations, development of urban gardens and safe play spaces, development of local green industries, and community youth and environmental science internships for students.”
The history of the plant’s location is a case study of environmental racism, as the plant moved northward from the middle of Manhattan’s west side to the north of the island, like magic. But times are changing, and we now have a president committed to environmental justice, whose vision is slowly being realized by a sprawling federal bureaucracy.It starts with a comprehensive environmental policy executive order Released on the seventh day of President Biden’s presidency. Among other provisions, Biden’s order creates an interagency Environmental Justice Commission and establishes a government-wide approach to environmental justice. By order of the President:
“Agency should address environmental justice as an Part of its mission. Such an impact. So this administration’s policy is to ensure environmental justice and create economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities that have historically suffered from pollution and underinvestment in housing, transportation, water and wastewater infrastructure, and healthcare. marginalized and overburdened.”
Last week, as part of an effort to enforce the executive order, the Justice Department and the EPA announced a joint effort to bring charges against polluters affecting low-income communities. There is overwhelming evidence that communities of color and low-income communities are more vulnerable to pollution than wealthier ones. Add to that lack of access to health care. The wealthy are better able to avoid pollution and are better able to treat the health effects when they are exposed to it. Asthma in children is a common example. Children living in poverty may not be able to use inhalers and other medications that prevent and reduce asthma attacks, and the condition may worsen as the child gets older. For a child with better access to health care, asthma can be a childhood disease that they are able to leave behind as they get older.write on Washington post Last week, David Nakamura and Darryl Fears observed:
“Experts say ethnic minorities and economically disadvantaged groups are more prone to health problems caused by environmental pollution or degradation. A Report It said last month that 45 million Americans breathe dirtier air because of racial redlines. The March study found that compared with whites, blacks and Latinos living in areas with a high concentration of disadvantaged populations due to housing discrimination have more smog from cars, trucks, buses, coal-fired power plants and other nearby industrial sources and fine particles. ”
In addition to the Justice Department and EPA’s efforts to step up enforcement, the Biden administration has allocated substantial funding from the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill to pay for environmental infrastructure, such as lead pipe replacement in low-income communities. Despite the steadfastness of the Biden team, opposition from some Republican governors presents a major challenge.according to Nakamura and fear:
“…The administration has yet to say how it will provide hundreds of millions of dollars to communities in states where Republican governors oppose his mission. Activists in places including Louisiana, Alabama and Texas say they doubt they will will see funding like this.”
The overall federal environmental justice initiative is well-intentioned, and given the administration’s narrow majority in Congress, a strategy to utilize resources not specifically allocated to environmental justice may be necessary. Last week, the White House appointed a new environmental justice chief to the Commission on Environmental Quality, as the first environmental justice chief on Biden’s team resigned amid an accelerating pace of work.According to a report Washington post Daryl Fear:
“Jalonne L. White-Newsomean, a scholar who has worked in government and worked with grassroots activists, has been selected as the new Senior Director of Environmental Justice for the Council on Environmental Quality. She will succeed Cecilia Martinez , she said that working nearly 7 days a week, 14 hours a day for more than a year has exhausted her… Mallory oversees an agency with only six staff dedicated to environmental justice. Council members said at least 50 staff were needed, as well as more funding not yet provided by the government’s climate leadership, including national climate adviser Gina McCarthy. ”
Entry into the policy agenda is a necessary but not sufficient condition for producing the organizational outputs needed to change environmental outcomes. It is difficult to provide the required resources for any type of environmental project, and new priorities such as environmental justice must compete for resources with long-established projects. There is still a lot of work to be done, and for a president with a 40 percent approval rating, being a top priority is far from reassuring. But over the past year and a half, Washington has made unprecedented progress.
As important as federal funding and federal policy are to environmental justice, the real battle will continue at the local level and by community activists seeking to protect communities and families. The intensity and risk of these conflicts are high. I witnessed this firsthand when I was a graduate student in Buffalo, as residents near the Love Canal saw toxic waste flow into their basements and backyards. At Love Canal, the community association and its effective leader, Lois Gibbs, fought for years before achieving environmental remediation and restoration. Lead pipes in Flint, Michigan and deadly poisons across America are more common than we admit. This is especially unfair when, in general, our air and water are cleaner than they were half a century ago.
We have start the transition to an environmentally sustainable economy, but we do so in the face of a growing disparity between rich and poor in America. The concept of the Green New Deal provides a mechanism by which this transition can be used to help close the gap while protecting the environment. In New York City, Mayor Adams raised the priority of environmental justice and appointed a new chief climate officer, Rohit Aggarwala. Adams also consolidated multiple units into the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, which is led by Kizzy Charles-Guzman reporting to Aggarwala. In Washington and New York City, we see evidence of a genuine desire to address environmental justice issues. We don’t know yet if these words will translate into action, but I remain optimistic as always. Delayed environmental justice has long been denied justice, but it’s never too late to do better.
