Low income and minority communities often bear a disproportionate burden of the health risks associated with poor environmental quality and there are significant health disparities between low income and minority communities and the white, Caucasian population of the US. It is likely that a proportion of these health disparities are due to poor environmental quality, although other factors, such as access to health care, are also likely to be important.
Examples of Environmental Hazards Effecting
Low Income and Minority Communities:
Lead. Almost two-thirds of American housing units were built before 1970. Although the use of lead paint for houses was banned in the 1970's, older homes often contain paint with high concentrations of lead. Additional sources of lead in the home are: drinking water extracting lead from lead pipes and fixtures, lead in dust (usually from paint), and contaminated soils carried in from outside. The primary pathway for exposure is from ingestion of paint chips and dust containing lead. There is a particularly high concentration of lead problems in low-income and culturally diverse populations, who live in the inner city where the public housing units were built before 1970.
Waste Sites. Low income, and quite often culturally diverse populations, are more likely than other groups to live near landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste treatment facilities.Air Pollution. In 1990, 437 of the 3,109 counties and independent cities in the U.S. failed to meet at least one of EPA's ambient air quality standards. Many Americans live in these communities: 57 percent of all whites, 65 percent of African Americans, and 80 percent of Hispanics.
Pesticides. Approximately 90 percent of the 2 million hired farm workers in the United States are people of color, including Chicano, Puerto Ricans, Caribbean blacks and African Americans. Through direct exposure to pesticides, farm workers and their families may face serious health risks. It has been estimated that as many as 313,000 farm workers in the U.S. may suffer from pesticide-related illnesses each year.Wastewater: City Sewers. Modern sewage systems were developed to carry sewage and storm water separately to prevent overflow problems that are common in older, urban areas. Many inner cities still have sewer systems that are not designed to handle storm overflow. As a result, raw sewage may be carried into local rivers and streams during storms, creating a health hazard.
(http://www.epa.gov/compliance/ej/resources/faqs/index.html)
Environmental Justice and the
Location of Hazardous Facilities
The Department of Ecology’s study on Environmental Equity in Washington State found that “there is a disproportionately greater number of [hazardous] facilities located in low income and minority [neighborhoods], and a smaller number of facilities in the non minority / non low-income [neighborhoods]. When comparing data between low-income and minority [neighborhoods], low-income [neighborhoods] have a higher disproportion of facilities than do minority [neighborhoods].” (http://washington.chenw.org/RIgroup/environ_je.html)
Along with the location of hazardous facilities being located in these low income and minority neighborhoods, the location of sites releasing toxic chemicals are more prevalent.
This map shows how pollution has a disproportionate, harmful impact in South Seattle, which has primarily low-income communities and communities of color. The red dots are sites that release, store or use toxic chemicals and hazardous waste.
The neighborhoods in the cream color are low income areas. These neighborhoods line the Interstate 5 freeway. Not only are these neighborhoods close to sites that release toxic chemicals, but they are also the closest to vehicle pollution. As shown on these maps, low income and minority neighborhoods also tend to be closer to city ports where large vessels and trucks emit diesel exhaust fumes. For more information, click here to read an article from the Seattle Post-Intelligence.
Check out these Seattle-based organizations' websites that are dedicated to environmental justice and what they are doing to end the injustice in low income and minority neighborhoods:
The Coalition for Clean & Safe PortsCCEJ Campaigns
Environmental Justice Network in Action
Environmental Coalition of South Seattle
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