Although environmental activists have been fighting for change for more than 40 years, environmental racism persists. No matter where you look in the world, marginalized and low-income communities are disproportionately affected by environmental hazards.
With landfills, refineries and nuclear and fossil fuel power plants more likely to be built near communities of color, there are direct links to health problems with respiratory and cardiovascular health, cancer, weakened immune systems and preterm labor.
One of the earliest examples of a community coming together to fight for environmental justice was in 1982 in Afton, a town in Warren County, N.C. The community acted as a catalyst for congressional research into the impact of dumping toxic waste when it was proposed to move the dump site to a poor, rural and predominantly African American community.
While the effort was unsuccessful and the state still buried 7,000 truckloads of contaminated soil in the landfill, it sent a clear message that the environmental justice movement wasn’t going to stop and kickstarted the creation of policy dictating how toxic waste could be handled. The landfill was eventually cleaned up, just 21 years too late.
Those living near toxic facilities are at a higher risk for health issues, and low-income communities struggle to have access to healthcare or medical services, making them even more vulnerable.
When it rained, hazardous PCB chemicals leached into the ground and contaminated Afton’s water supply. PCBs were and are well known to be toxic and carcinogenic, resulting in suppressed immune systems and an increased likelihood of cancer.
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality recently held a public hearing on the use of PFAS pellets for fuel by the UNC cogeneration facility. Fun fact: those pellets are filled with forever chemicals. From everything I’ve heard, no one who spoke said they were for the change. Moreover, the coal waste the facility currently uses gets dumped in predominantly Black and poor communities in South Boston and Virginia.
The events in Afton took place 50 years before that hearing. It seems like a long time, but justice is rarely as swift as it should be. Once the feminist movement started, it took 72 years for women to get the right to vote and another 55 before a single woman could apply for loans and credit. But we're not as far along as we should be; it is still a constant need to do more to do right by minority communities.
As clean up begins for the Los Angeles fires, there must be a site where all the hazardous debris can be processed. This site is currently Lario Park in Irwindale, surrounded by majority Latino communities. While there isn’t a guarantee that the hazardous waste will be harmful, it will be if handled improperly or if clean up takes years. It doesn’t help when there hasn’t been proper communication with the affected communities from the state and federal officials.
