User:Yaxeni/sandbox

Altgeld Gardens in Chicago, Illinois[edit]
Altgeld Gardens is a 6,000 unit public housing community located in south Chicago. It was built in 1945 on an abandoned landfill to accommodate returning African American World War II veterans. Surrounded by 53 toxic facilities and 90% of the city's landfills, the Altgeld Gardens area became known as a "toxic doughnut."[54] In Altgeld Gardens, 90% of its population are African-American and 65% are living below the poverty level.[55] The known toxins and pollutants affecting the Altgeld Gardens area include mercury, ammonia gas, lead, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heavy metals, and xylene.[55]

In 1984, a study by Illinois Public Health Sector revealed excessive rates of prostate, bladder, and lung cancer.[56] Additionally, as reported in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's seminar on social and environment interface, medical records have indicated (1) high rates of children born with brain tumors, (2) high rates of fetuses that had to be aborted after tests revealed that the brains were developing outside the skull, and (3) higher rates of asthma, ringworm, and other ailments. Despite evidence of health problems, the residents of Altgeld Gardens have not been relocated to another public housing project.[56]

Little Village in Chicago, Illinois[edit]
In Chicago's predominantly Latino neighborhoods such as Little Village, the array coal plants were contributors to respiratory diseases and other health complications during the early twenty-first century.[57] In addition to air pollution, Little Village lacked safe outdoor recreational areas yet housed a County Jail that occupied 96 acres.[58] Despite widespread displeasure among community members, the fact that Latino regions were primarily populated by working class citizens caused the demand for environmental and community improvement to inevitably come with joint fear of gentrification among activists.[59] Some advocates still fought for environmental improvements regardless of their fear, and when their requests began to come to fruition, like the eventual increase in local green spaces, many residents were left feeling out of place in their homes, which could be attributed to shifts in factors like local police presences, local racial diversity, and overall class of the townsfolk.[60]

Homer, Forest Grove, and Center Springs, Louisiana[edit]
In 1989, the Louisiana Energy Services (LES), a British, German and American conglomerate, conducted a nationwide search to find the "best" site to build a privately owned uranium enrichment plant. The LES claimed to use an objective scientific method to select Louisiana as the "best" place to build the plant. In response to the selection, the communities of Homer, Forest Grove and Center Springs that are nearby the proposed site formed a group called Citizens against Nuclear Trash (CANT). With the help of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund (later changed to Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund), CANT sued LES for practicing environmental racism. Finally after 8 years, on May 1, 1997, a three-judge panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board made their final initial decision. The panel found that racial bias did play a role in the selection process. In response to the victory, on May 11, 1997, the London Times declared, "Louisiana Blacks Win Nuclear War." The courts decision was also upheld on appeal on April 4, 1998.[68]

Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas[edit]
San Antonio's Kelly Air Force Base (KAFB) is one of the Air Force's major aircraft maintenance facilities and takes up 4000 acres of land. It is surrounded by residential neighborhoods of primarily Hispanic populations. KAFB maintains various parts of aircraft such as jet engines, and accessory components and nuclear materials, generating as much as 282,000 tons of hazardous waste each year.[69]Residents of the nearby communities have complained many times of unusual illnesses their children have experienced along with respiratory illnesses and kidney disease.[70][71] A 1997 survey done in the residential neighborhoods close to KAFB showed 91% of adults and 79% of children are suffering from conditions ranging from nose, ear, and throat issues to central nervous system disorders. Scientists released information in 1983 revealing that toxic waste had been dumped into an uncovered pit from 1960 to 1973. The waste in the pit contained various chemicals, such as PCB's and DDT, that contaminated groundwater.[72]

New Orleans, Louisiana[edit]
At the time of Hurricane Katrina, 60.5% of New Orleans residents were African American. The pre-existing racial disparities in wealth within New Orleans worsened the outcome of Hurricane Katrina for minority populations. Institutionalized racial segregation of neighborhoods left minority members more likely to live in low-lying areas that were more vulnerable to flooding.[73][74] Additionally, hurricane evacuation plans relied heavily on the use of cars and did not prepare for people who relied on public transportation.[75] Because minority populations are less likely to own cars, some people had no choice but to stay behind, while white majority communities were able to escape. A report commissioned by the U.S. House of Representatives found that political leaders failed to consider the fact that "100,000 city residents had no cars and relied on public transit", and the city's failure to complete its mandatory evacuation led to hundreds of deaths.[76]

In the months following the disaster, political, religious, and civil rights groups, celebrities, and New Orleans residents spoke out against what they believed was racism on the part of the United States government.[77] After the hurricane, in a meeting held between the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Urban League, the Black Leadership Forum, the National Council of Negro Women, and the NAACP, Black leaders criticized the response of the federal government calling it "slow and incomplete" and discussed the role of race in this response.[78] With rising sea levels, lack of mobility of non-white populations in coastal cities like New Orleans foreshadow future unequal impacts of climate change and natural disasters on minority communities.[79]

Flint, Michigan[edit]
Main article: Flint water crisis

Since April 2014, residents of Flint, a city that is almost 57 percent black and notably impoverished, have been drinking and bathing in water that contains enough lead to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's definition of "toxic waste". The toxicity value of chemical that a person can breath in is 0.2 micrograms. Before 2014 when the city of Flint switched to their own river as means of water, Lake Huron provided the area with water. Researchers at Virginia Tech discovered in 2015 that the Flint River is 19 times more corrosive than Lake Huron. Lead contamination can engender multiple health conditions. A November 2015 class-action lawsuit describes how Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) failed to treat the new water source with an anti-corrosive agent, thereby causing the water to become increasingly discolored. This was in violation of the Lead and Copper Rule and MDEQ did not correctly complete the Safe Drinking Water Act mandated lead assessments.[80] Adding that agent (orthophosphate) would have cost $100 per day, according to CNN, and 90 percent of the problems with Flint's water would have been averted if it had been used.[81]

Generally the consumption of Lead is considered among the environmental problems and some of the ways people can be exposed to it is from the corrosion of old pipes, the dust from lead-based paint and gasoline has metal dust which contains lead; but the amount of lead in gasoline has been reduced and this contributed a lot when it comes to Lead exposure.[82]

After an official investigation was conducted, Michigan's attorney general Bill Schuette initially filed charges against three government officials: two state officials of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Michael Prysby and Stephen Busch, and a Flint city employee, Michael Glasglow, who was the city's water quality supervisor. They were brought up against felony charges such as "misconduct, neglect of duty, and conspiracy to tamper with evidence."[83] They were also charged with violating the Michigan Safe Water Drinking Act.[83]

Chester, Pennsylvania[edit]
Chester, Pennsylvania, provides an example of "social, political, and economic forces that shape the disproportionate distribution of environmental hazards in poor communities of color."[84] Chester is located in Delaware County, an area with a population of 500,000 that, excluding Chester, is 91% white. Chester, however, is 65% African American, with the highest minority population and poverty rate in Delaware County,[85] and recipient of a disproportionate amount of environmental risks and hazards.[86] Chester has five large waste facilities including a trash incinerator, a medical waste incinerator, and a sewage treatment plant.[85] These waste sites in Chester have a total permitted capacity of 2 million tons of waste per year while the rest of Delaware County has a capacity of merely 1,400 tons per year.[87] One of the waste sites located in Chester is the Westinghouse incinerator, which burns all of the municipal waste from the entire county and surrounding states.[84] These numerous waste facilities engender very significant health risks to the citizens of Chester, as the cancer rate in this area is 2.5 times higher than it is anywhere else in Pennsylvania.[88] The mortality rate is 40% higher than the rest of Delaware county.[84]

Louisiana's Chemical Corridor[edit]
See also: Cancer Alley

Diamond, a small African American community, filed a lawsuit against Shell gas company after years of experiencing toxic emissions from the neighboring refinery.[89] The community experiencing these toxic emissions believed that the gas had caused them headaches, stinging eyes, allergies, asthma, and other respiratory problems, skin disorders, and cancers. Shell offered to buy out the homes that the residents owned, however, the property value was so low that residents could not get new housing. In addition to the loss of homes, shell did not offer these individuals jobs. Eventually after protesting and making the issue a public matter, Shell agreed to relocate the residents (Lerner, 2005).[90]

North Carolina[edit]
North Carolina is home to 31 coal ash pits that store an expected 111 million tons of harmful waste created by coal-fired power plants. It is also home to many excrement pits, referred to indirectly as "lagoons," that store roughly 10 billion pounds of wet waste created every year by swine, poultry, and dairy cattle in the state.[91] North Carolina's mechanical hog tasks are firmly grouped in a couple of districts on the beach front plain that housed the most subjugated individuals preceding the Civil War. In the decades since, the area has held the state's densest populace of provincial African-American residents.[91]

Wilmington, North Carolina[edit]
Wilmington, NC is usually one of the first cities hit by hurricanes off the Atlantic coast, and its environmental risks are increased by its proximity to hog farms, nuclear reactors, and coal-ash pits—one of which has already spilled over, due to Hurricane Florence in September 2018.[92] Hog waste spills can be destructive to the individuals who live close to these pits and farms and a significant number of the neighbors are low-income ethnic minorities. African Americans have been battling for their justice in the port city. This can be traced to the Wilmington Rebellion of 1898, when whites stripped away black individuals' rights to cast a ballot and hold office through the power of force, in spite of the significant role African Americans play in building the greater part of the city's monuments. In 1971, racial strains over the absence of protection for African Americans in the threatening integration endeavors prompted a mob and resulted in the capture of several black activists who would later be known as the "Wilmington Ten." One of those activists, Benjamin Chavis, would later turn into a significant figure in the environmental justice movement.[92] Two studies of disease transmission analysts conducted at the University of North Carolina at Sanctuary Slope distributed a paper in 2014 titled: "Industrial Hog Operations in North Carolina Excessively Effect African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans."[93] They expressed, "Flood of waste pits amid overwhelming precipitation occasions results in gigantic spills of animal waste into neighboring networks and conduits."[91]

Louisiana's Chemical Corridor[edit ]
See also: Cancer Alley

Diamond, a small African American community, filed a lawsuit against Shell gas company after years of experiencing toxic emissions from the neighboring refinery.[89] The community experiencing these toxic emissions believed that the gas had caused them headaches, stinging eyes, allergies, asthma, and other respiratory problems, skin disorders, and cancers. Shell offered to buy out the homes that the residents owned, however, the property value was so low that residents could not get new housing. In addition to the loss of homes, shell did not offer these individuals jobs. Eventually after protesting and making the issue a public matter, Shell agreed to relocate the residents (Lerner, 2005).[90]

Ecuador [edit ]
Due to their lack of environmental laws, emerging countries like Ecuador have been subjected to environmental pollution, sometimes causing health problems, loss of agriculture, and poverty. In 1993, 30,000 Ecuadorians, which included Cofan, Siona, Huaorani, and Quichua indigenous people, filed a lawsuit against Texaco oil company for the environmental damages caused by oil extraction activities in the Lago Agrio oil field. The main reason for this lawsuit was the background of the decision making. There was conversation about the areas of choice when deciding where do put waste that would lead to pollution. The Largo field created many issues for the community such as water pollution, environmental issues, and cultural changes within the communities. This issue was taken to the a court in Ecuador where ordered that the community be compensated for the damages. The fight did not stop here however, Texaco refused and took the issue to a United States court where the court ruled in opposition and Texaco was not responsible for the damages. After handing control of the oil fields to an Ecuadorian oil company, Texaco did not properly dispose of its hazardous waste, causing great damages to the ecosystem and crippling communities.[108]

Environmental Racism can be traced back around 500 years with the arrival of the Europeans and their displacement of Native Americans. The Environmental Justice Movement, however, seems to be fairly recent having been rooted around the same time as the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement influenced the mobilization of people by echoing the empowerment and concern associated with political action.[111]  This is where the civil rights agenda and the environmental agenda met. Despite this being the case, environmental organizations such as Sierra Club distanced themselves from cases such as the Warren County case likely because of their unwillingness to risk technical support when dealing with a controversial social issue.[112]