Environmental Injustice

How the USEPA and State Environmental Programs fail at protecting poor communities of color

Environmental Justice: As is the case with most buzzwords, the draw to the cause it represents can be both visceral and immediate, but the lasting impact is often shallow and short-lived. In all of its stated nobility of purpose, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmental Justice (EJ) initiative, which is designed to protect vulnerable communities from the dangers of environmental pollution, is failing.

The EPA and States have well-crafted EJ policies. Most describe plans and policies to actively assist, engage, and train poor communities of color in environmental decisions that affect their community. However, only minimal adherence to these guidelines is actually required by Law or Regulation.

Many developments and projects that affect EJ communities are those that pollute (read: incinerators, transfer stations, and auto body shops). In non-EJ communities, generating opposition to unwanted projects in a community is easy to do. Oftentimes, just by showing up and making lawful demands a community can thwart a developer’s efforts to get an unwanted project approved.

So, when the Environmental Regulators aren’t doing their best to engage the community, they are aiding private industry in their quest to locate these unwanted projects in EJ communities. Less outreach means less people at the meetings, which means less opposition…