ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

4/30/2008 Atlanta: Transit Advocates Unveil Riders’ Vision for Regional Transit By Jonathan Springston for The Atlanta Progressive News
A diverse coalition of transit riders, employees, and other advocates released a new report Tuesday, April 29, 2008, outlining a vision for regional transit in Atlanta from the perspective of riders who depend on transit. The report is a result of two years of research conducted by the Atlanta Transit Riders’ Union (TRU), a group of transit dependent riders affiliated with Atlanta Jobs with Justice, and the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 732 (ATU). The first section of the report examines existing transit systems, the demographics of transit riders, and transit proposals in Atlanta through the eyes of people without cars. The second section outlines the transit riders’ and workers’ vision of an accessible, affordable, and accountable regional transit system. The areas of study include the ten counties which are also represented on Atlanta’s Transit Planning Board (TPB), which is a governmental effort to plan regional transit in Atlanta: Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, and Rockdale. The report recommends reducing the congestion relief weight and increasing the weight for the measure of mobility and accessibility for all. To view the full article please click HERE. To view the TRU plan click HERE.

4/23/2008 Poll Finds Deep Concern Among Hispanics by Jim Lobe for IPS
Hispanic voters in the United States show a high degree of awareness and concern about environmental issues, particularly global warming, according to an unprecedented national survey on Latino opinion and the environment released here Wednesday by the Sierra Club. The poll, which was conducted by Bendixen & Associates, found a strong willingness by the largest and fastest-growing ethnic community to take measures to curb energy use and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say contribute to climate change. More than 80 percent of the 1,000 Hispannic voters interviewed in the poll said they recognised that energy usage had a substantial impact on their environment. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/14/2008 Catfish consumption as a contributor to elevated PCB levels in a non-Hispanic black subpopulation by Max Weintrauba, and Linda S. Birnbaumb
This paper is the first to suggest a fish consumption link to racial disparities in PCB exposure at the national level and cites EPA fish data, USGS watershed data, and CDC human body burden data.  It also includes historical data about racial disparities in PCB exposure. the study suggests that catfish consumption may be a significant PCB source for the one million non-Hispanic black anglers who fish for catfish. In comparison to non-Hispanic white anglers, non-Hispanic black anglers consume more catfish, are more likely to eat the whole fish rather than just the fillets that contain less PCBs, and are more likely to fish in watersheds with high PCB contamination. To view the full article please click HERE (Fee Based).

4/13/2008 Sludge Tested As Lead-Poisoning Fix by John Heilprin and Kevin S. Vineys for The Associated Press
Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients. Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department. To view the full article please click HERE or HERE.

4/10/2008 The Toxic 100: The Top Corporate Air Polluters in the U.S.
The Toxic 100 index identifies the top U.S. air polluters among the world's largest corporations. The index relies on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) project. The starting point for the RSEI is the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), which reports on releases of toxic chemicals at facilities across the United States. To view the report please click HERE.

4/9/2008 The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index
The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index developed by CNT and its collaborative partners, the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD), is an innovative tool that measures the true affordability of housing. Planners, lenders, and most consumers traditionally measure housing affordability as 30 percent or less of income. The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, in contrast, takes into account not just the cost of housing, but also the intrinsic value of place, as quantified through transportation costs. To use this tool please click HERE.

4/9/2008 Climate Change Brings Health Risks: CDC Official Predicts Health Impacts From Climate Change by H. Josef Hebert for The Associated Press
A top government health official said Wednesday that climate change is expected to have a significant impact on health in the next few decades, with certain regions of the country — and the elderly and children — most vulnerable to increased health problems. Howard Frumkin, a senior official of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gave a detailed summary on the likely health impacts of global warming at a congressional hearing. But he refrained from giving an opinion on whether carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, should be regulated as a danger to public health. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/7/2008 Poor left out of environmental loop: Those with low incomes will be most affected by climate change, but often are least informed by Julie A. Varughese for the Times Union
When you're struggling with bills, the last thing on your mind is global warming. Or your carbon footprint. About 14 percent of residents in the Capital Region live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census. In 2007, the poverty threshold was defined by the federal government as a person with an income of just over $10,000 a year. Experts say climate change is going to take a much greater toll on poorer populations who tend to live in locations vulnerable to floods and who are less likely to hear warnings of natural disasters. And while that may not apply directly to the Capital Region, poor living conditions coupled with rising temperatures can also pose problems for residents here. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/7/2008 Judge Spotlights Hazards of Sewage-Based Fertilizer by the Associated Press
It was a farm idea with a big payoff and supposedly no downside: ridding lakes and rivers of raw sewage and industrial pollution by converting it all into a free, nutrient-rich fertilizer. Then last week, a federal judge ordered the Agriculture Department to compensate a farmer whose land was poisoned by sludge from the waste treatment plant here. His cows had died by the hundreds.The Associated Press also has learned that some of the same contaminants showed up in milk that regulators allowed a neighboring dairy farmer to market, even after some officials said they were warned about it. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/2/2008 Dr. King's Legacy Four Decades After His Death in Memphis by Dr. Robert D. Bullard for Black Agenda Report
This April 4th marks the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.   Dr. King was called to Memphis in 1968 on an environmental and economic justice mission involving 1,300 striking sanitary public works employees from Local 1733.  The strike shut down garbage collection, sewer, water and street maintenance. Clearly, the Memphis struggle was much more than a garbage strike.  The "I AM A MAN" signs reflect the larger struggle for human dignity and human rights.  Although Memphis was Dr. King's last campaign, his legacy lives on even to this day. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/2/2008 The Audacity of Corporate New Orleans; Name Change an insult to memory of Mayor Ernest N. Morial by Vincent Sylvain, The New Orleans Agenda
Last year when I received word that officials at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center were considering changing the name its name I was assured by the communication department that my information was incorrect and was assured that no such discussions were being entertained. To my disbelief it was announced this week that the "Convention Center has been renamed in promotional and advertising material in an attempt to better market it in an increasingly competitive environment center will now be called the New Orleans Morial Convention Center in brochures, pamphlets and on the uniforms and badges of employees, among other places." To view the full article please click HERE.

4/1/2008 Jobs Trails by Kelly Virella for the Chicago Reporter
The greatest job growth in the six-county Chicago region in the last 16 years occurred predominantly in municipalities with the lowest black population, according to The Chicago Reporter’s analysis of payroll data from the Illinois Department of Employment Security. Of the 97 of 139 municipalities that experienced job growth in the Chicago region between 1991 and 2007, only five were more than 30 percent black in 2007. Those cities are South Holland, Calumet City, Broadview, Forest Park and North Chicago. Of the 42 cities that experienced job loss during the same time period, nine—more than 20 percent—were more than 30 percent black. To view the full article please click HERE.

3/29/2008 EPA drops ball on danger of chemicals to children Agency oversight panel out of money and, critics say, beholden to industry By Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger
The Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to evaluate compounds in products such as flame retardants in mattresses and car seats to see if they are especially harmful to children. But it doesn't. The EPA's Voluntary Children's Chemical Evaluation Program, which relies on companies to provide information about the dangers of the chemicals they produce, is all but dead. Funding ran out last August. Committees haven't met in nearly a year. Key members of the program can't even say if it is still alive. The EPA's own advisory committee blasted the pilot program as severely flawed and has called for a total overhaul. Still, EPA administrators call the program a priority and routinely cite it as proof that the government is answering concerns about kids being exposed to potentially dangerous household chemicals. To view the full article please click HERE.

3/27/2008 Contaminated homes denied funds by David Hammer, The Times-Picayune
It was one thing for Leatrice Roberts to find out that the government had sold her a townhome built on top of a waste dump. But it was mindboggling to learn, at age 74, that the Road Home can't buy her out because the land is contaminated. The state's $10.3 billion Road Home program pays homeowners up to $150,000 to rebuild their homes or to buy them out and transfer the land to a New Orleans redevelopment authority. Financing for the program comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which currently runs HANO -- the same agency that decades ago built the Press Park complex where the Robertses' storm-damaged townhome is located. In the past two weeks, state officials informed homeowners such as Leatrice Roberts who lived atop the old Agriculture Street landfill before Hurricane Katrina hit that their Road Home applications had been placed on hold indefinitely because they live on a Superfund cleanup site. To view the full article please click HERE.

3/25/2008 Dr. King's Legacy Four Decades After His Death in Memphis: Growing Just and Green Black Communities by Robert Bullard for OpEdNews
This April 4th marks the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.   Dr. King was called to Memphis in 1968 on an environmental and economic justice mission involving 1,300 striking sanitary public works employees from Local 1733.  The strike shut down garbage collection, sewer, water and street maintenance. Clearly, the Memphis struggle was much more than a garbage strike.  The "I AM A MAN" signs reflect the larger struggle for human dignity and human rights.  Although Memphis was Dr. King's last campaign, his legacy lives on even to this day.  To view the full article please click HERE.

3/13/2008 EPA Sets New Ozone Standards Short of Protecting the Most Vulnerable Populations
The EPA's new smog limit is 75 parts per billion of ozone, down from the current level of 80.  Because of rounding, the old standard was effectively 84 parts per billion. The EPA failed to head the advice of its independent science advisory panel who unanimously had said the standard should be no higher than 70 parts per billion. In a March 2007 letter to the EPA, panelists said there is "overwhelming scientific evidence" for a reduction of that magnitude. Click HERE for full story. 

3/11/2008 RIGHTS-US: U.N. Panel Finds Two-Tier Society by Haider Rizvi for IPS (Inter Press Service)
The United States government is drawing fire from international legal experts for its treatment of American Indians, Blacks, Latinos and other racial minorities. The U.S. is failing to meet international standards on racial equality, according to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) based in Geneva, Switzerland. Last Friday, after considering the U.S. government's written and oral testimony, the 18- member committee said it has found "stark racial disparities" in the U.S. institutions, including its criminal justice system. The CERD is responsible for monitoring global compliance with the 1969 Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, an international treaty that has been ratified by the United States. In concluding the CERD report on the U.S. record, the panel of experts called for the George W. Bush administration to take effective actions to end racist practices against minorities in the areas of criminal justice, housing, healthcare and education. Click HERE for full story.

3/10/2008 Water Contamination Suit Filed Against Dickson County, Tennessee by ENS
The Natural Resources Defense Council and two residents of Dickson, Tennessee have filed a lawsuit against the Dickson County and city governments. They allege that trichloroethylene, TCE, an industrial chemical disposed at the Dickson Landfill that has been linked to neurological and developmental harm and cancer, poses an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment. Dickson, a town of some 12,000 people is located about 35 miles west of Nashville. The Dickson County Landfill, 74 acres off Eno Road, sits within 500 to 2,000 feet of approximately 40 homes, most owned by blacks. Click HERE for full story.

3/4/2008 Local Citizens, Conservation Group File Suit Seeking Cleanup of Alleged Water Contamination in Dickson County, Tennessee
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and two residents of Dickson, Tennessee, Sheila Holt-Orsted and Beatrice Holt, today filed a lawsuit against the Dickson County and City governments. The Complaint alleges that trichloroethylene (TCE), an industrial chemical disposed at the Dickson Landfill that has been linked to neurological and developmental harm and cancer, poses an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment. Click HERE for full story.

2/20/2008 Groups vow to fight carbon emissions cap-and-trade plan by Margot Roosevelt for the Los Angeles Times
Low-income community groups in five California cities launched a statewide campaign Tuesday to "fight at every turn" any global-warming regulation that allows industries to trade carbon emissions, saying it would amount to "gambling on public health." The 21-point "Environmental Justice Movement Declaration" challenges the stance of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a national advocate of a cap-and-trade program that would allow heavy polluters, often located in poor neighborhoods, to partly buy their way out of lowering their emissions. The defiant tone of news conferences in Los Angeles, Fresno, Oakland, Sacramento and San Diego indicated that political turbulence might be ahead as the state Air Resources Board hammers out a strategy to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as required under a 2006 law. To view the full article please click HERE.

2/18/2008 Rich, Poor and Climate Change by Rachel Oliver for CNN
The general dialogue on adapting to a world affected by climate change by definition excludes the world's poorest people. And yet it's the world's poorest who are often put forward as the ones who are likely to feel the affects of climate change the most and are likely to be able to deal with them the least. Around half of the world's population -- slightly fewer than 3 billion people -- survives on less than $2 a day. None of them are likely to go shopping for an automobile any time soon in a bid to reduce on their greenhouse gas emissions; and investing in photo voltaic solar panels to put on their rooftops probably won't be a priority, either. To view the full article please click HERE.

2/13/2008 Seeing Green under a Different Light: The National Conference of Black Mayors oppose stricter clean air standards by Marcia A. Wade for BlackEnterprise.com
Evironmentalists claim that the National Conference of Black Mayors is trading the health of their residents for job creation because the NCBM does not support an increase in the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Act standards. However, George L. Grace, mayor of St Gabriel, Louisiana, and president of the NCBM, contends that "poverty causes bad health also." Others disagree. "It is an illegitimate argument to even say that strengthening the Clean Air Act, protecting people’s health, and coming into compliance [with NAAQS] will hurt the economy and black people," cautions Robert D. Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. To view the full article please click HERE.

2/13/2008 Metro Detroit area had highest foreclosure rates in 2007 by Alex Veiga for the Associated Press
The Detroit area, hit hard by the double-whammy of unemployment and a slumping housing market, had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation last year, with several cities in California ranked close behind, an analysis of foreclosure activity in the country's largest 100 metropolitan areas shows. Some 4.9 percent of the households in the Detroit metro area were in some stage of foreclosure in 2007 -- 4.8 times the national average, according to the study being released Wednesday by mortgage research company RealtyTrac Inc. To view the full article please click HERE.

1/29/2008 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms Racial Discrimination (CERD) Shadow Report 2008 by the Human Rights Network
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, also known as ICERD, or more commonly, CERD, is an international treaty designed to protect individuals from discrimination based on race, whether that discrimination is intentional, or is the result of seemingly neutral policies. Now that the government report is submitted, groups will have an opportunity to submit their own "shadow" reports highlighting issues the U.S. fails to cover or providing additional information.Groups will be coordinating their submission to prevent excessive duplication of issues, and to enable pooling of resources between groups with more and less experience in the process. To view the full report please click HERE.

1/29/2008 Clinton Offers Broad Plan To Boost EPA's Environmental Justice Focus by the Risk Policy Report, InsideEPA.com
Sen. Hillary Clinton  (D-NY) has introduced sweeping new legislation to boost EPA and other federal agencies, environmental justice (EJ) policies -- an issue that has been drawing attention at the agency as it moves to identify risk assessment tools and practices that will improve its ability to protect public health and the environment in minority and poor communities. The legislation, endorsed by Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA), a prominent House Democratic leader on EJ and civil rights issues, and several environmental justice groups, comes amidst a heated Democratic primary campaign where Clinton has clashed with her main Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama  (IL), over the candidates' records on race and civil rights. To view the full article please click HERE. (Subscription Required)

1/29/2007 Probe: FEMA sugarcoated danger of hurricane trailers by CNN.com
The Federal Emergency Management Agency manipulated scientific research to play down the danger posed by formaldehyde in trailers issued to hurricane victims, according to an investigation by congressional Democrats. Democrats on a House Science and Technology subcommittee wrote the letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. FEMA is part of the Homeland Security Department. In a separate letter, lawmakers said the federal health agency that provided guidance to FEMA was "complicit in giving FEMA precisely what they wanted." Victims living in FEMA trailers have complained of health problems related to formaldehyde, but initial FEMA tests revealed the air quality in the trailers was safe if those trailers were properly ventilated. To view the full article please click HERE.

1/25/2008 Environmental pollution and diabetes may be linked: Scientists call for more research into neglected area by the University of Cambridge
Cambridge scientists are advocating additional research into the little understood links between environmental pollution and type 2 diabetes. In the most recent edition of the Lancet, Drs. Oliver Jones and Julian Griffin highlight the need to research the possible link between persistent organic pollutants (POPs, a group which includes many pesticides) and insulin resistance, which can lead to adult onset diabetes. In their commentary, Dr Jones and Dr. Griffin cite peer reviewed research including that of Dr D Lee, et al, which demonstrated a very strong relationship between the levels of POPs in blood, particularly organochlorine compounds, and the risk of type 2 diabetes. To view the full article please click HERE.

1/24/2008 Clinton, Solis Introduce Legislation to Address Unfair Impact of Pollution on Minority Neighborhoods by MetroLatinoUSA.com
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis (D-CA) announced the introduction of the Environmental Justice Renewal Act. The legislation championed by Senator Clinton and Congresswoman Solis will increase the federal government’s efforts in addressing the disproportionate impact of environmental pollution upon racial and ethnic minority and low-income populations. The Environmental Justice Renewal Act will address the inaction of the Bush Administration on environmental justice issues by strengthening the federal infrastructure to address environmental justice and codifying the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. It will expand existing grant programs and create new grant opportunities to help community-based groups and states address environmental justice, and will require the EPA to engage in additional outreach at the community level, and create the position of Environmental Justice Ombudsman to investigate the agency’s handling of environmental justice complaints. To view the full article please click HERE.

1/23/2008 U.S. given poor marks on the environment by Felicity Barringer for the New York Times
A new international ranking of environmental performance puts the United States at the bottom of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and 39th among the 149 countries on the list. European nations dominate the top places in the ranking, which evaluates sanitation, greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural policies, air pollution, and 20 other measures to formulate an overall score, with 100 the best possible. The top 10 countries, with scores of 87 or better, were led by Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. The others at the top were Austria, France, Latvia, Costa Rica, Colombia, and New Zealand, the leader in the 2006 version of the analysis, which is conducted by researchers at Yale and Columbia universities. To view the full article please click HERE.

1/21/2008 MLK and the struggle for environmental justice by Nuisance Industry for the Daily Kos
As we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and consider the effects Dr. King's work have had on the United States, I want to highlight an often overlooked aspect of that work, how Martin Luther King and the civil rights struggle have influenced American notions of environmental health and justice. To view the full article please click HERE.

1/18/2008 FEMA Flip-Flops Again on Trailers by Marc Kaufman for the Washington Post
Those trailers the Federal Emergency Management Agency bought to house Hurricane Katrina victims were at the center of the storm again yesterday -- and not in a way that's going to make folks at the beleaguered agency any happier. FEMA hurriedly bought the 145,000 trailers and mobile homes via no-bid contracts just before and after Katrina hit the coast in August 2005. But the purchase quickly became problematic, with some communities refusing them for a variety of reasons. FEMA was forced to put trailers on the market, selling them to anyone for 40 cents on the dollar. Yesterday, however, the emergency agency offered to buy them back, for their original purchase price, because of concerns that the trailers are tainted with formaldehyde. The agency said it is making the offer because of concerns about "possible adverse health effects" associated with the trailers. To view the full article please click HERE.

1/17/2008 Webcast of the Smithsonian 23rd Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Observance Presenting Dr. Robert Bullard
Dr. Bullard will be speaking on the topic “Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities and Environmental Justice Twenty-Five Years after Warren County.” Dr. Bullard is the author of numerous books and publications that address sustainable development, environmental racism, urban land use, industrial facility siting, community reinvestment, housing, transportation, climate justice, emergency response, smart growth, and regional equity. To view the Webcast please click HERE.

1/8/2008 Diversity Conversation: Dr. Robert Bullard, The Grand Rapids Community College
GRCC Behavioral Science professor Dr. Michael Vargo interviews founder of the Environmental Justice Resource Center, Clark Atlanta University, Dr. Robert D. Bullard. To view the Webcast please click HERE.

1/3/2008 BOOK: Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Equity and the Environment, edited by Robert C. Wilkinson and William R. Freudenburg
Over the past decade, a growing body of research has shown that equity issues need to receive greater attention in academia -- not just among activists, and not just as the focus of courses on environmental ethics, but as topics that deserve careful academic study and that in many ways are at the core of what we call "environmental" problems. This volume brings together the leading research on equity and the environment and includes contributions from leading academics and researchers in the field. As environmental justice scholar Robert D. Bullard has said over the years, “we are not likely to achieve a sustainable world without addressing issues of equity and justice.”  Clearly, equity and inequality deserve to be absolutely central to the study of connections between humans and the habitat that we share with all other life on earth. Research in Social Problems and Public Policy full-text online at ScienceDirect.

1/1/2008 Talking Environmental Justice, with Dr. Robert D. Bullard feature on Waterkeeper Magazine Volume 4 Number 3, Winter 2008
Dr. Robert Bullard, a principle author of Toxic Waste and Race in the United States the seminal 1987 report on environmental justice, recently testified at the first ever Senate hearing on Environment Justice is interviewed in the winter issue of Waterkeeper magazine. To view the interview please click HERE.

12/12/2007 FEMA to start testing air quality in trailers by Dec. 19 by Associated Press
Air-quality tests on the government-issued trailers housing thousands of Gulf Coast hurricane victims are scheduled to begin by next Wednesday, nearly two months after the Federal Emergency Management Agency postponed them. Harvey Johnson, FEMA's deputy administrator, disclosed the agency's latest plans for the tests during a hearing Wednesday in Washington before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Senators pressed Johnson to explain the delays in testing 500 occupied trailers in Mississippi and Louisiana, where tens of thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. To view the full article please click HERE.

12/6/2007 House Passes Solis’ Green Jobs Act as Part of Comprehensive Energy Reform Bill
The U.S. House of Representatives passed The Green Jobs Act of 2007, legislation introduced by Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis (CA-32) to train workers for “green” collar jobs – such as energy efficiency retrofit and service, green building construction, and solar panel installation. The bill was passed as part of H.R. 6, the Energy Independence and Security Act, historic energy reform legislation which will put the United States on a path toward energy independence. To view the full article please click HERE.

11/29/2007 For landfill’s neighbors, 35 years is enough By Taylor Sisk for The Carrboro Citizen
To a young Neloa Jones, it was simply “the homeplace.” Jones grew up mostly in Maryland, but would come down once or more a year, back in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, to visit with family – the Rogers, the Barbees, the Wests and others – families with deep and rich heritages in this community to the north of Chapel Hill. It was from her grandmother, Velcie Rogers Barbee, that Jones first heard the community, once a township, referred to as the homeplace. Today Jones is a resident of that neighborhood – most commonly referred to as the Rogers Road community – and a spokesperson for the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism, an organization working to keep a solid-waste facility out of the community and to gain enhancements in return for having housed landfill facilities for the past 35 years. To view the full article please click HERE.

11/28/2007 Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo Sues EPA for Denying the Public Access to Information Toxic Chemicals in their Neighborhoods: Cuomo Leads Coalition of 12 States to Overturn EPA’s New Restrictions
Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that New York and eleven other states are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over new regulations denying the public access to information about toxic chemicals in their communities. The EPA will allow thousands of companies to avoid disclosing information to the public about the toxic chemicals they use, store, and release into the environment by rolling back chemical reporting requirements. The suit seeks to overturn the weakened reporting requirements and provide the public with the access they had in the past. To view the full article please click HERE.

11/15/2007 Patterns emerge on race and environment: National studies and federal action cause changes in how environmental justice issues are determined and addressed By Taylor Sisk for The Carrboro Citizen
On Nov. 5, the Orange County Board of Commissioners announced they were reopening the site search for a solid-waste transfer station. The commissioners had voted unanimously last April to place the station on Rogers Road. While this was but one of the demands made by the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism, the decision to reopen the search was, for the community, an essential step forward. This community alleges it has suffered the effects of public-policy decisions that reflect what Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, calls a “pattern” of environmental racism in underserved communities. Undeniably, though, significant strides have been made in 25 years of environmental justice organization and action to turn back this pattern. As a result, the Rogers-Eubanks community proceeds today on firmer ground. To view the full article please click HERE.

11/13/2007 Economic Ladder Shaky for African Americans by Ali Gharib for IPS
Black families in the United States lag significantly behind whites in economic mobility over the past 35 years, says a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts released Tuesday. The report, titled "Black and White Families", is one of three parts of a study on the state of generational mobility since 1968, when the project began to follow over 2,300 participants, interviewing them and their descendants about their economic standing up until the early 2000s. "The report calls into question whether the American Dream is a reality for black and white families alike," said a summary of the findings. "In every income group, blacks are less likely than whites to surpass their parents' family income and more likely to fall down the economic ladder." Alarmingly, nearly 70 percent of blacks whose parents were in the middle fifth of incomes fell into the lower two income groups. Only 40 percent of white adult children showed a drop in the same circumstances. To view the full article please click HERE.

11/8/07 The Effects of Climate-Change Policies on the Federal Budget and the Budgets of Low-Income Households: An Economic Analysis by Chad Stone and Matt Fiedler for Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Effective measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions can be compatible with sound budgeting and the fair treatment of low-income consumers. Designing a policy that meets these objectives requires, however, that lawmakers be mindful not just of the environmental consequences of their actions but of the budgetary and distributional implications as well. Restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions, whether achieved through a “cap-and-trade” system that directly limits annual emissions or a carbon tax, are necessary to avoid unacceptable economic and environmental costs from global climate change. These policies end the free disposal of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at the lowest possible cost by providing market signals encouraging energy efficiency and the development of clean alternatives to fossil fuel. At the same time, however, they raise the price of energy and energy-related products and services. Households with limited incomes will be affected the most by those higher prices, since they spend a larger share of their incomes on energy-related products and services than more affluent households do. To view the full article please click HERE.

11/8/2007 The grassroots of environmental justice By Taylor Sisk for The Carrboro Citizen
Robert Bullard is the Ware Distinguished Professor of Sociology and director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University and is often called “the father of the environmental justice movement.” His book Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality, published in 1990, is considered by many observers of environmental justice to be a seminal work. In October, Bullard attended the North Carolina Environmental Justice Summit, hosted by the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, in Franklin County, where he met Rev. Robert Campbell, a member of the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism and a longtime leader in the Rogers Road community. Bullard says that in talking with Rev. Campbell and in listening to him speak at the summit, what he heard was a story that’s all too familiar - another chapter in an extended narrative of the treatment of underserved and inadequately represented communities. To view the full article please click HERE.

11/1/2007 Toxins Threaten to Uproot Entire Town By Mark Weisenmiller for IPS
The quiet village of Tallevast in Florida's Manatee County traces its roots back to the 1890s, when a community of shacks was built there for African-American labourers who worked tapping sap from the local pine forests to make turpentine and grew sugarcane, celery and strawberries in the fields. Today, Tallevast is home to about 250 people, many of them descendants of the former slaves who founded the town. But those families now face a bitter choice. For 25 years, from 1961 to 1996, the American Beryllium Company ran a plant in Tallevast that made parts for nuclear reactors and weapons. Because beryllium has a low density and is stronger than steel, the metallic chemical compound is often used by aerospace industry companies. With the end of the Cold War, the need to produce such materials subsided and the plant was closed in 1996. To view the full article please click HERE.

10/25/2007 Letter to President Bush Demanding Truth About Climate Change
Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis, Chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Task Force on Health and the Environment, along with Rep. Joe Baca, Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus send a letter to President Bush expressing concern regarding allegations that the White House officials heavily edited testimony provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention about the impact of climate change on public health. Click HERE to read the letter.

10/19/2007 Environmental Justice for All by Tracy Fernandez Rysavy for Co-op America Quarterly Fall 2007
What happens to our country's garbage isn't only an environmental issue. It's a human rights and health issue, too. And for some communities-particularly working class communities of color-it's also a life or death matter. Across the US-from the South Bronx, an area riddled with waste treatment facilities and incinerators; to Chicago's "toxic donut" of clustered hazardous waste landfills; to Louisiana's "Cancer Alley," where oil refineries and chemical plants pump foul air over the Mississippi shoreline-communities of color are bearing the toxic burdens of our industrial way of life. Neighborhoods near toxic facilities often suffer debilitating health effects from the harmful chemicals released by these facilities-chemicals often linked to birth defects, hormone disruption, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. To view the full article please click HERE. (PDF)

10/18/2007 Martin Luther King III Discussed Impact of Climate, Oil Dependence on “Vulnerable Communities”
Many of the world’s poorest communities are also the ones most in danger from these twin challenges. Whether it is geographic location in low-lying areas, or rough economic conditions made even worse by unstable or high energy prices, or the severe health effects of a warming earth, global warming and oil dependence hit these communities hard. Witnesses discussed these challenges, as well as the solutions available to these problems. For more information please click HERE.

10/4/2007 Testimony by John B. Stephenson, Before the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials, Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives
According to John B. Stephenson, Director Natural Resources and Environment, EPA's recent rule could reduce availability of toxic chemical information used to assess environmental justice. Also, EPA initially disagreed with
GAO's July 2005 environmental justice recommendations, saying it was already paying appropriate attention to the issue. GAO called on EPA to improve the way it addresses environmental justice in its economic reviews and to better
explain its rationale by providing data to support the agency's decisions. A year later, EPA responded more positively to the recommendations and committed to a number of actions. However, based on information that EPA has subsequently provided, GAO concluded in a July 2007 testimony that EPA's actions to date were incomplete and that measurable benchmarks were needed to hold agency officials accountable for achieving environmental justice goals. To view the full report, please click HERE. (PDF)

10/3/2007 The environmental justice braintrust: A dispatch from the Congressional Black Caucus conference by Lauren Trevisan for Grist.com
Appropriately, the theme of this year's 37th annual Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., was "Unleashing Our Power." For the first time in history, the U.S. House of Representatives has four African-Americans serving as chairpersons of major committees. In addition, 17 African-Americans lead major subcommittees, and Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina is the House Majority Whip. Activists and health experts hope that this change in leadership will help enact serious environmental justice legislation to promote safe and healthy communities. To view the full article please click HERE.

10/1/2007 Standing on Principle: The Global Push for Environmental Justice by Luz Claudio in Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 115, Number 10.
Climate change, acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, species extinction-all of these issues point to one thing: environmental health is a global issue that concerns all nations of the world. Now add environmental justice to the list. From South Bronx to Soweto, from Penang to El Paso, communities all over the world are finding commonality in their experiences and goals in seeking environmental justice. To view the full article please click HERE.

9/19/2007 Black Mayors’ Judgment Clouded by Smog: The Air is Tough to Breathe by Robert Bullard for blackagendareport.com
Environmental racism has moved to the forefront of African American concerns, but some Black mayors have crawled into bed with the polluters. Desperate to get job-creating industry into their communities at any environmental cost, these city executives throw health issues to the winds, their minds clouded by dreams of "economic development." Sadly, the National Conference of Black Mayors' executive director is urging federal officials not to raise standards of allowable air pollution, in fear of chasing away investment in their cities. The result: the populations of Black-led cities will literally choke on the chimera of growth. To view the full article please click HERE.

9/18/2007 2007 Annual Urban Mobility Report released by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University
The 2007 mobility report notes that congestion causes the average peak period traveler to spend an extra 38 hours of travel time and consume an additional 26 gallons of fuel, amounting to a cost of $710 per traveler. Along with expanding the estimates of the effect of congestion to all 437 U.S. urban areas, the study provides detailed information for 85 specific urban areas. The report also focuses on the problems presented by "irregular events"—crashes, stalled vehicles, work zones, weather problems and special events—that cause unreliable travel times and contribute significantly to the overall congestion problem. To view the full article please click HERE.

9/9/2007 The world's a dirty place when you are poor by Diane Roberts for the Special to the St. Petersburg Times
One of our persistent national fantasies - right up there with having God's permission to do pretty much anything we want - is that America has no class system. We tell ourselves we're not like stratified, calcified Europe. Here it doesn't matter if you went to school at Andover or Dixie County High; if you drink chateau-bottled Burgundy or Schlitz; if you live behind a gate or behind the landfill. In America, we are all equal. To view the full article please click HERE.

9/7/2007 Environmental brigade takes 'toxic tour': Newtown shows off city's southside by Debbie Gilbert for the The Times-Gainesville
Even as the fumes of a landfill fire still lingered in parts of Hall County Thursday, a group of environmentalists came to Gainesville to study air pollution from a historical perspective. The San Francisco-based National Bucket Brigade, which trains volunteers to collect air samples in their neighborhoods, is holding its annual conference in Atlanta Saturday. Some of the participants arrived early and took a bus to Gainesville to go on a "toxic tour" with the Newtown Florist Club. To view the full article please click HERE.

9/6/2007 EPA smog proposal sparks debate over environmental justice by Daniel Cusick for Greenwire
A rift between black mayors and public health experts over long-held notions about the racial dimension of environmental problems took center stage yesterday at a hearing here on a U.S. EPA proposal for tightening air pollution standards for ground-level ozone. Experts on public health in minority communities argued at the Atlanta Federal Center that poor air quality takes a disproportionate toll on blacks, and urged EPA to tighten the standard. But the National Conference of Black Mayors — representing more than 600 officials — strongly endorsed continuation of the current standard, set in 1997, which limits ozone concentrations to 80 parts per billion over an 8-hour period. To view the full article please click HERE.

9/4/2007 EPA Urged to Strengthen Ozone Standards to Protect the Most Vulnerable by Robert D. Bullard
Air pollution threatens the health of millions of Americans, especially those who live in urban areas. EPA's current ozone standard is not adequate to protect human health. The agency should come clean and set tougher new ozone standards at the lowest level to protect the most vulnerable in our society, including children and the elderly. To view the full article please click HERE.

8/9/2007 Whites Now Minority in 1 in 10 Counties: Diversity Straining Race Relations by Stephen Ohlemacher for The Associated Press
Whites are now in the minority in nearly one in 10 U.S. counties. And that increased diversity, fueled by immigration and higher birth rates among blacks and Hispanics, is straining race relations and sparking a backlash against immigrants in many communities. As of 2006, non-Hispanic whites made up less than half the population in 303 of the nation's 3,141 counties, according to figures the Census Bureau is releasing Thursday. Non-Hispanic whites were a minority in 262 counties in 2000, up from 183 in 1990. To view the full article please click HERE.

8/2/2007 HBCU Experts Call on Congress to Assist Minority Communities Near Toxic Waste Sites by Charles Dervarics
Experts from two Black colleges are calling on Congress to help low-income, minority communities, which are disproportionately more likely than other communities to live near toxic waste sites with health hazards for children and families. The House and Senate should hold hearings, clarify legal mandates and adopt new regulations to promote environmental justice, the witnesses told a Senate subcommittee in late July. To view the full article please click HERE.

8/2/2007 FEMA Suspends Use of Disaster Trailers by The Associated Press
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has stopped donating and selling disaster trailers while it studies reports that people living in them after hurricanes Katrina and Rita got sick from formaldehyde exposure. Federal health scientists are in Louisiana and Mississippi investigating the safety of the travel trailers being used by hurricane victims, FEMA officials said. The scientists have been asked to identify an acceptable air quality level for formaldehyde, which is commonly used in building materials but can cause respiratory problems in high doses or with prolonged exposure.

8/1/2007 Environmental racism takes Senate stage. By James Wright for AFRO News
Sheila Holt-Orsted sat quietly in the Senate hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building while before her a dream was fulfilled: the first Congressional hearing on environmental justice. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the Environmental and Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, held the unprecedented hearing on July 25.

8/1/2007 American Lung Association Releases State of Lung Disease in Diverse Communities: 2007
The American Lung Association is well aware of the health disparities among racially and ethnically distinct communities and has created the American Lung Association State of Lung Disease in Diverse Communities: 2007 as a resource to those who have been affected by asthma, lung cancer, SIDS, RSV and other lung diseases. The report provides members of these communities with much needed health information that can be used in the fight against lung disease and risk factors that cause or contribute to lung disease. It provides statistics, background material and ongoing research about important lung health issues such as asthma, smoking and clean air as they relate to racially and ethnically diverse communities.

7/30/2007 An Open Letter to the Members of Congress: Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty
An Open Letter to the Members of Congress. Signed July 20, 2007. More than one hundred environmental justice networks, civil rights and human rights, faith based, and health allies, representing millions of Americans, call on Congressional leaders to address environmental and health disparities in low-income and people of color communities.

7/29/2007 In minority neighborhood, kids' risk of cancer soars by Howard Witt for The Chicago Tribune
Like so many of their poor and working-class Hispanic neighbors, Rosario Marroquin's family settled in the southeast Houston neighborhood of Manchester a generation ago because the clapboard houses were cheap, the streets were safe, transportation was convenient and downtown was only 20 minutes away. It was an ideal neighborhood, except for the coughing spells, the nosebleeds, the burning odors and the acrid smoke. To view the full article please click HERE.

7/28/2007 WHO Says Environmental Hazards Kill Millions of Children
This Reuters article explores a study from the World Health Organization (WHO) released last week that concluded that four million children under the age of five die every year from environmental hazards. Polluted air or water and exposure to chemicals are to blame for this, and poisoning, acute respiratory illness, diarrhea diseases, and malaria account for most of the deaths.

7/17/2007 Bullard: Green issue is black and white by CNN
As he surveys the nation's landfills, chemical plants, waste facilities, and smelters, Robert Bullard sees an insidious form of institutional racism.Widely acknowledged as a pioneer in environmental justice, Bullard has worked in the field since 1978. He is the author of several books on the topic, including "Confronting Environmental Racism," "Dumping on Dixie" and "Unequal Protection." In his nearly two decades of work in the field, Bullard said little has changed. To view the full article please click HERE.

7/8/2007 Research Links Lead Exposure, Criminal Activity: Data May Undermine Giuliani's Claims by Shankar Vedantam for the Washington Post
Rudy Giuliani never misses an opportunity to remind people about his track record in fighting crime as mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. Although crime did fall dramatically in New York during Giuliani's tenure, a broad range of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that the mayor deserves only a fraction of the credit that he claims. The most compelling information has come from an economist in Fairfax who has argued in a series of little-noticed papers that the "New York miracle" was caused by local and federal efforts decades earlier to reduce lead poisoning.

7/1/2007 NAACP Crisis Magazine Publishes Special EJ Issue
The NAACP’s Crisis Magazine devoted its July/August 2007 issue to “The Fight for Environmental Justice.” In spite of governmental protective laws, people of color bear the health burden of toxic soil, polluted water and air that is foul and contaminated. To view the special issue, click HERE.

6/27/2007 Implicit Bias Among Physicians and Its Prediction of Thrombolysis Decisions for Black and White Patients
This study represents the first evidence of unconscious (implicit) race bias among physicians, its dissociation from conscious (explicit) bias, and its predictive validity. Results suggest that physicians’ unconscious biases may contribute to racial/ethnic disparities in use of medical procedures such as thrombolysis for myocardial infarction.

6/27/2007 Citgo Found Guilty of Clean Air Act Violations by Brett Clanton for The Houston Chronicle
Citgo Petroleum Corp. was found guilty in federal court today of operating two open-air storage tanks at a Corpus Christi refinery without proper emission controls. But it avoided a guilty verdict on charges that it knowlingly violated federal air-quality laws by releasing illegal levels of benzene, which research has linked to cancer. To view the full article please click HERE.

6/21/2007 Decades of Discrimination Against Black Farmers May End with Passage of Bipartisan Bills by Sherrel Wheeler Stewart for BlackAmericaWeb.com
With support growing on both sides of the aisle in Congress, backers of bills to end decades of discrimination against black farmers said they are optimistic about soon getting a possible fix. Eight years ago, the government reached a settlement in a major discrimination case involving black farmers. But when thousands of black farmers filed claims, they were denied. Other black farmers did not receive adequate notice of the settlement, so they either filed late or did not file claims at all, according to farmers and their representatives. To view the full article please click HERE.

6/21/2007 Army Ceases VX Wastewater Shipments Until Hearing
The U.S. Army has agreed to stop shipping VX nerve gas wastewater to Port Arthur, Texas, until a federal judge is able to hear the case. In May, environmental groups joined forces with a Port Arthur organization to file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Indiana against Veolia Environmental Services and the U.S. Department of the Army in protest of the incineration of wastewater from neutralized VX gas being performed at a Port Arthur facility.

6/20/2007 Regionalism: Growing Together to Expand Opportunity to All
The President’s Council—an organization of leaders from some of the largest African American-owned and operated businesses in the Cleveland area—commissioned the African American Forum on Race and Regionalism (AAFRR) to explore how regional equity policies could strengthen both Greater Cleveland’s black community as well as the health of the entire region. Two years in the making, the report, Regionalism: Growing Together to Expand Opportunity to All, shows how and why equity must be seen as a cornerstone—not a stumbling block—in regional planning. By uniting communities with opportunity—through better education, transportation, housing and economic investment—the entire Cleveland region can be more prosperous, healthy, and just. To view the report please click HERE.

6/19/2007 Hurricane Katrina Response: Committee Probes FEMA's Response to Reports of Toxic Trailers
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing investigating formaldehyde levels in FEMA trailers provided for victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes and FEMA’s response to these reports. The Committee heard from current residents occupying FEMA trailers, experts who are familiar with the health impact of formaldehyde, and from FEMA Administrator Paulison. Formaldehyde is a chemical used in paint and adhesives, and is classified as a “known carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Reports of high formaldehyde levels found in FEMA issued trailers and FEMA’s response raise serious public health concerns. To view the report please click HERE.

6/1/2007 Disparities in Health Care Are Driven by Where Minority Patients Seek Care
In "Disparities in Health Care Are Driven by Where Minority Patients Seek Care" (Archives of Internal Medicine, June 25, 2007), a research team including Romana Hasnain-Wynia, Ph.D., of the Health Research and Educational Trust, Joel Weissman, Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School, and Fund senior program officer Anne Beal, M.D., M.P.H., examined quality-of-care data reported by U.S. hospitals participating in the Hospital Quality Alliance, a public–private collaboration formed to measure and publicly report on the quality of hospital care. The researchers found minority patients receive lower quality care, especially counseling services, and that lower-performing hospitals tend to serve a larger proportion of minority patients. "An underlying cause of disparities may be that minority patients are more likely to receive care in lower-performing hospitals," the authors write.

5/31/2007 After Katrina: Rebuilding a Healthy New Orleans
The Final Conference Report of the New Orleans Health Disparities Initiative is now available. The report, titled Rebuilding a Healthy New Orleans grew out of a community-based conference in June of 2006 on the need to address minority health disparities in both the health care system rebuilding and in the environment after Hurricane Katrina. To view the report please click HERE.

5/30/2007 No Black Plan for the Cities, Despite the Lessons of Katrina by blackagendareport.com. The Katrina catastrophe indisputably revealed the corporate plan for America's cities. No sooner had the waters receded than corporate planners devised elaborate schemes for a "new" New Orleans - a "better" city in which Blacks would never again be allowed to become majorities. African American "leadership" should have understood that, with Katrina, corporate America had shown its hand: dramatic reduction of Black populations is at the core of the corporate urban "renaissance" model. Nevertheless, African Americans have failed to tackle the job of comprehensive urban planning that serves existing populations, and conserves Black political power for the future. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/29/2007 25th Anniversary of the Warren County PCB Landfill Protests by www.dissidentvoice.org. It has now been twenty-five years since the 1982 protests against a controversial toxic waste dump in Warren County, North Carolina gave birth to the national environmental justice movement.  The protests also put environmental racism on the map. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/18/2007 Life in Poison: An Alabama Town’s Long Struggle to Survive by Joaquin Sapien for The Center for Public Integrity
From the 1930s to the 1970s, a PCB manufacturing plant formerly owned and operated by agricultural-chemical giant Monsanto Co. discharged contaminated wastewater into streams, ditches and landfills in the impoverished west end of town, exposing hundreds of people to the hazardous materials used in electrical devices as coolants, insulators and lubricants. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/18/2007 Human Exposure 'Uncontrolled' at 114 Superfund Sites by The Center for Public Integrity
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been reluctant to revealcritical information about 114 toxic waste sites where dangerous and possible cancer-causing substances could harm nearby residents, according to an ongoing Center for Public Integrity investigation. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/15/2007 Draft EPA Indicators May Increase Focus On Environmental Justice by InsideEPA
Findings in EPA’s draft Report on the Environment (ROE) showing minorities face increased risks of adverse health effects due to contaminants than whites could bolster efforts by Democratic lawmakers and civil rights activists to force the agency to consider environmental justice concerns in its policies. The report, which uses a host of indicators to measure the status of air, water, land, human health and ecological systems in the United States, shows, for example, that non-Hispanic blacks have the highest blood levels of lead and mercury and face the highest rates of cancer and infant mortality in the country. To view the full article please click HERE. (Subscription Required)

5/9/2007 Study: Mostly minorities live near hazardous waste By Mike Dunne, Advocate staff writer
Nearly 90 percent of the people who live near a commercial hazardous waste site in the Baton Rouge area are minorities, according to a new study. The burden of pollution falling on black people here and nationally has gotten worse rather than better in the past 20 years, according to Robert Bullard of Clark Atlanta University. Bullard has done a lot of research on “environmental justice” in Louisiana and the South and is one of the authors of a new study, “Toxics at Twenty.” It reprised a 1987 study that showed the burden of pollution falls more heavily on minority communities. Bullard was in Baton Rouge on Friday as part of a National Conference of Black Mayors panel on environmental issues confronting urban areas. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/9/2007 Link between race, hazardous-waste sites still strong by Corinne Purtill for The Arizona Republic
Twenty years after a landmark study showed that people of color were more likely to live near hazardous-waste sites than any other demographic, a follow-up report has found that the disparity is even greater across the U.S. today. The problem is more entrenched in metropolitan Phoenix, where 63.7 percent of the residents living in neighborhoods adjacent to hazardous-waste facilities are of color, according to the new report commissioned by the United Church of Christ. Nationally, the figure is 56 percent. Black and Latino residents are more likely than Anglos to live next to facilities storing the most dangerous types of wastes. They are exposed in disproportionate numbers to the potential health and safety risks of living next to volatile chemicals. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/7/2007 Burning Deadly Military Waste in Blacks Back Yard by Robert Bullard
Race is a potent factor in sorting people into their physical environment and in determining land use, industrial facility siting, housing patterns, and infrastructure development. In the real world, some communities have the “wrong complexion for protection.” The incineration of the deadly nerve agent VX waste water in Port Arthur, Texas typifies the environmental justice challenges facing African Americans and other people of color communities detailed in the new Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty report, released in March 2007. Racism and Jim Crow segregation forced Port Arthur’s African Americans to the west part of town. There the city built the Carver Terrace housing development for low income blacks. By the 1970s, black were able to purchase homes on the other side of the KCS Railroad and many black families expanded through other parts of the city. And by 2006, 60 percent of the city’s population was African American.

5/4/2007 Fighting Environmental Racism by Scott Dyer for Diverse Online
The National Conference of Black Mayors unveiled a partnership Friday with environmental consultants Envirosource and Historically Black Colleges and Universities aimed at studying the impact of landfills on African-American communities. Robert Bowser, mayor of East Orange, N.J. and president of the National Conference of Black Mayors, said that 2,800 of the 3,000 landfills in the U.S. today are located in African-American communities. The National Conference of Black Mayors is having its annual convention in Baton Rouge this week. In addition, Bowser said the HBCUs and minority-owned Envirosource  are looking at alternative disposal methods that are a lot cleaner that traditional landfills. The catch is that the alternative disposal methods require more volume than smaller cities can generate, he said. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/4/2007 Wasted People: Environmental Racism, a 20-Year Saga by Dr. Robert D. Bullard for Black Agenda Report
Back in 1987, the environmental racism movement won its first significant victory. Twenty years later, a cadre of Black and progressive scientists are calibrating the methodical harm that has been done to Black communities by a society that treats people of color as wasted human flesh. The Bush administration has done everything in its power to silence this growing environmental-racism resistance, cutting off funding to programs that could uncover crimes against whole communities perched on the cusp of disaster - chemical death. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/3/2007 Leaders of African-American, Hispanic, and Religious Groups Take Global Warming Message to Capitol Hill by By Rosanne Skirble for Voice of America News
Global warming has become a hot topic in the U.S. Congress. Several bills now pending with lawmakers address how to reduce the carbon emissions responsible for climate change. A coalition of leaders from Latino, African-American and faith communities recently came to Washington to urge lawmakers to incorporate their concerns into proposed climate-change legislation. The two-day lobby session begins with a pep talk from Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network, a group that promotes grassroots environmental activism year Environmental activist Irma Munoz fights oil drilling in her Los Angeles neighborhoodround and sponsor of the event. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/3/2007 Making Dirty Air Permanent by Frank O'Donnell for TomPaine.com
Parting, as Shakespeare put it, is such sweet sorrow. But some of the people in the Bush administration that we’d like to part with aren’t going away-even though the Senate has sent clear signals that they ought to beat it. Defying the Senate, the White House is trying to leave behind a polluter-friendly legacy (rather like planting a dangerous virus in a computer system) that will continue to plague us long after the President has gone back to clearing brush at the ranch. Much has already been written about the legacy of the Bush Supreme Court, but it’s time to start paying more attention to this regulatory virus—and the damage it may cause. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/2/2007 EPA Resumes Quietly Dismantling Library System: Environmental Prosecutions at Risk from Loss of Original Documents and Cost by Common Dreams NewsCenter
Despite promises to consult with Congress before proceeding with dismantlement of its library system, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered its libraries to “disperse or dispose of their…contents,” according to agency directives released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The move to eliminate physical collections comes as EPA’s own enforcement branch warns about the risks of hampering environmental prosecutions. To view the full article please click HERE.

5/1/2007 American Lung Association releases State of the Air: 2007
The years 2003, 2004 and 2005 showed the first truly split picture for the nation’s air quality since the American Lung Association started these annual report cards. The nation’s two most widespread and dangerous pollutants tracked in decidedly different directions: ozone went down from the peaks reported in 2002, but particle pollution—the more dangerous—went up. This finding stems from a close look at air pollution data that states themselves collected on a county-by-county basis, using the most up-to-date quality-assured data available for nationwide comparison presented in the American Lung Association State of the Air: 2007. To view the full report please click HERE.

4/27/2007 The costs of contamination: Neighbors sue Texas Instruments over pollution by Jeff Bounds for the Dallas Business Journal
More than 100 African-Americans have quietly filed a lawsuit against Texas Instruments Inc., alleging that 129 properties they own in historic Hamilton Park have been contaminated by chemicals released by the semiconductor giant. The group of 111 represents ownership of about 17% of the 740-odd lots in Hamilton Park, which opened in North Dallas in the early 1950s as a housing development for blacks of all income levels. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/25/2007 Justice delayed: New report looks at 20-year span of environmental racism by Curt Guyette for the
Although its origins may be diffuse, a primary starting point can be traced to North Carolina, circa 1982, when the state opened a landfill for soil contaminated by the highly toxic compound PCB in rural Warren County. Area residents, predominantly African-American, organized in protest. That resistance attracted the attention of the United Church of Christ (UCC). Inspired by the struggle taking place in Warren County, the UCC in 1987 released "Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States," the first national study to show a correlation between the location of hazardous waste facilities and race. Its findings that race is "the most potent variable in predicting where commercial hazardous waste facilities were located in the United States ..." served as a catalyst. To view the full report please click HERE.

4/24/2007 Environmental Justice Stalled, Report Finds by Cindy Skrzycki, for The Washington Post
Federal regulations have an impact on the development of technologies, the finances of companies, the competitive playing field and how many lawyers are on a company's staff to interpret the rules. These are the practical, known effects of regulations on business. The rules also have an effect on communities when it comes to important decisions about where to locate a hazardous-waste facility, an industrial plant or a refinery, especially if race is involved. A recent report by the United Church of Christ in Cleveland suggests that decisions made by federal, state and local governments, as well as by companies, have penalized minority groups. The evidence: There are a disproportionate number of hazardous-waste facilities near where they live.
The report, a reprise of a 1987 examination of the problem, found that over the past 20 years, minorities have been subjected to excessive levels of toxic pollutants from sites that have negatively affected their health and, often, property values. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/22/2007 A family still cries out for justice in toxic waste case by Dwight Lewis for The Tennessean
After 20 years, one would think that certain horrific situations would get better. Unfortunately, that's not the case when it comes to exposing people of color to toxic wastes. As we celebrate Earth Day, Dickson County has been declared the "poster child for environmental racism in 2007" in a new report on race and toxic waste. Back in December 2003, a Dickson County family filed a lawsuit alleging that toxic waste at the county landfill poisoned their well water and caused cancer and other illnesses in their family. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of 11 members of the Holt family, sought unspecified damages from two companies that dumped waste at the landfill, as well as from Dickson County and the city of Dickson. The landfill was first opened more than 50 years ago. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/16/2007 The Ten Best Cities for African Americans: May's BLACK ENTERPRISE Reveals the Top Places to Live, Work, and Play by PRNewswire
BLACK ENTERPRISE today revealed its most recent list of top cities for African Americans as featured in its May 2007 issue. The top picks were culled from more than 2,000 interactive surveys completed on http://www.blackenterprise.com and by editorial staff evaluation. The editors weighed the following criteria as it pertained to African Americans in each city: median household income, percentage of households earning more than $100,000, percentage of businesses owned, percentage of college graduates, unemployment rates, home loan rejections, and homeownership rates. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/12/2007 State has most minorities near toxic facilities by Janet Wilson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
L.A. tops the nation's major urban areas with 1.1 million Latinos, blacks and Asians living within two miles of hazardous waste sites. California has the nation's highest concentration of minorities living near hazardous waste facilities, according to a newly released study. Greater Los Angeles tops the nation with 1.2 million people living less than two miles from 17 such facilities, and 91% of them, or 1.1 million, are minorities. Statewide the figure was 81%. The study, conducted by researchers at four universities for the United Church of Christ, examined census data for neighborhoods adjacent to 413 facilities nationwide that process or store hazardous chemical waste produced by refineries, metal plating shops, drycleaners and battery recyclers, among others. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/9/2007 Americans on the “Fenceline” Have No Defense: People of Color More Concentrated Near Hazardous Waste Facilities Than Twenty Years Ago by Robert D. Bullard for Dissident Voice
Recycling events, neighborhood cleanups, awareness festivals, lectures series, and other activities are slated throughout the nation to mark the 37th anniversary of Earth Day April 22.  While there is much to celebrate, there is also good reason to raise the red flag that all is not well in America.  This is especially true for the physical environments where people of color live, work, play, worship, and attend school.  Let us all celebrate Earth Day 2007, but let’s not forget that there is still much work to be done to ensure that the environment of all Americans is protected -- without regard to race, ethnicity, income, or the ability of individuals to  hire lawyers, technical experts, and  “vote with their feet” to escape unhealthy environments. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/4/2007 Wasted People: Environmental Racism, a 20-Year Saga by Dr. Robert D. Bullard for the Black Agenda Report
Back in 1987, the environmental racism movement won its first significant victory. Twenty years later, a cadre of Black and progressive scientists are calibrating the methodical harm that has been done to Black communities by a society that treats people of color as wasted human flesh. The Bush administration has done everything in its power to silence this growing environmental-racism resistance, cutting off funding to programs that could uncover crimes against whole communities perched on the cusp of disaster - chemical death. To view the full article please click HERE.

4/2/2007 – EJ Scholars Complete New Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty, 1987-2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism Report.
This year, the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries commissioned a new report as part of the twentieth anniversary of the release of the landmark 1987 Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States report. The 2007 Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty report uses 2000 census data. The new report chronicles important environmental justice milestones since 1987 and includes a collection of two-dozen “impact” essays from environmental justice leaders on a wide range of topics. It also examines the environmental justice implications in post-Katrina New Orleans and uses the Dickson County (Tennessee) Landfill case, the “poster child” for environmental racism, to illustrate the deadly mix of waste, race, and government inaction. The report is designed to facilitate renewed grassroots organizing and provide a catalyst for local, regional and national environmental justice public forums, discussion groups and policy changes in 2007 and beyond. Download the Toxic Wastes as Race at Twenty full report.

4/1/2007 Transportation Apartheid: Left Behind by Transportation Apartheid Before and After Disasters Strike by Robert D. Bullard for Focus Magazine (Vol. 35 , No. 2)
Transportation serves as a key component in addressing poverty, unemployment, and equal opportunity goals by ensuring access to education, health care, and other public services. Transportation equity is consistent with the goals of the larger civil rights movement and the emerging regional equity movement. American society is largely divided between individuals with cars and those without cars. e private automobile is still the most dominant travel mode of every segment of the American population, including the poor and people of color. Clearly, private automobiles provide enormous employment access advantages to their owners. Having a car can also mean the difference between being trapped and escaping natural and man-made disasters. To view the full article please click HERE.

3/26/2007 Report Sees Rise in Environmental Racism by Cheryl Corley for NPR
A new report says environmental racism is actually getting worse, not better. Two authors of the report, Robert Bullard (director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University) and Paul Mohai (professor of natural resources and the environment at the University of Michigan) speak with Cheryl Corley. To listen to the report please click HERE.

3/23/2007 Separate But Toxic: The Houston environmental magnet school that's an environmental catastrophe by Dave Mann
Climb into Juan Parras’ rickety Jeep Cherokee, and he’ll show you around the neighborhood. He calls it his “toxic tour.” Parras lives in Houston’s East End, the poorer, predominantly minority side of town that borders the Houston Ship Channel. A former union rep, he now heads an environmental nonprofit in the East End called Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (TEJAS) that wants the roughly 30 refineries and chemical plants in the East End to reduce their emissions. Clad in a green vest and cap, Parras steers the Jeep through a maze of back streets and overpasses to the environmental hot spots that worry him the most: two federal Superfund sites—one with chemicals still leaking from barrels; the bayous flooded with trash; an elementary school three blocks from the steaming Valero Energy Corp. refinery the kids call “the cloud maker”; and of course, the acrid-smelling Ship Channel, where supertankers sidle next to refineries and factories. “All the things nobody wants in their neighborhood, we got here,” Parras says as we drive past a house bracketed on three sides by freight rail lines. The tour’s final stop is the site that angers him most of all—Cesar Chavez High School. Click HERE for full story.

3/22/2007 EcoWellness: Race and hazardous waste By Christine Dell'Amore, UPI
Twenty years after a landmark study proved a link between hazardous-waste sites and minority neighborhoods, the phenomenon has only settled deeper into U.S. towns and cities, a new report says. What's more, the racial differences are much greater than previously thought, according to "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty," a preliminary anniversary report released today. The updated report found more than 9 million Americans live in neighborhoods within about 2 miles of the 413 commercial hazardous-waste facilities in the United States. Click HERE for full story.

3/22/2007 Toxic Pollution and Health: An Analysis of Toxic Chemicals Released in Community Across the United States. U.S PIRG
Using the 2004 TRI data, PIRG examined releases of chemicals known or suspected to cause serious health problems and identified states and localities that are bearing the brunt of this pollution.

3/20/2007 A Well of Pain: Their Water Was Poisoned by Chemicals. Was Their Treatment Poisoned by Racism? by Lynne Duke, Washington Post Staff Writer
Sheila Holt-Orsted sits on the edge of a sofa in her mother's living room, digging through the large translucent plastic bins arrayed at her feet. The Holt family's fight is in there -- the contaminated water, the cancers, the allegations of racism, the lawsuit. A family's seeming devastation, documented in those bins. Papers are everywhere, spilling onto the sofa, the floor. Holt-Orsted, 45, burrows in deep. But the document she's looking for can't be found. Click HERE for full story.

3/20/2007 Environmntal Racism: It's the Real Thing by Oread Daily
The specific story below is not a new one even though it is just now getting some actual attention. It was back in 2003 that Holt family members filled the pews of the Dickson County, Tennessee courtroom one Tuesday night carrying signs to publicly charge county Landfill Director Jim Lunn of allowing their well water to be contaminated and then lying to them about the quality of their water. The family had been plagued with cancer and other illnesses and blames the health problems on contamination of their drinking water supply near the county landfill. Click HERE for full story.

3/2/2007 Port Cities Work to Rid Air of Pollutants by Saul Gonzalez, NewsHour Correspondent
Air monitoring stations in communities adjacent to California ports record dangerous levels of nitrogen oxide as well as fine soot and sulfur oxides. The NewsHour reports on how port cities are working to combat the pollution. To listen to the report please click HERE.

3/2/2007 Environmental Justice Drives Push for Superfund Taxes, TRI Rules for Inside EPA
Key congressional Democrats and environmental justice advocates are pushing to reinstate the expired Superfund taxes and reverse an EPA toxic release reporting rule as a way to address concerns that minority and low-income communities are disproportionately harmed by hazardous waste. (Subscription Required)

2/26/2007 Nightmare on Eno Road (Dickson, TN): Environmental Racism Kills
Dickson County, Tennessee covers more than 490 square miles-an equivalent of 313,600 acres. However, for the past 40 years Dickson city and county officials have clustered their garbage dumps, landfills, other solid waste facilities just 54-feet from a 150-acre farm owned by the Harry Holt family, African American landowners that have lived in the mostly black Eno Road community for five generations-turning this family's American dream into a hellish nightmare. Click HERE for full story.

2/21/2007 NCC Gulf Commission gives governments low marks
On Ash Wednesday, when many Christians around the world begin the season of Lent, a time of self-examination, a special commission of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) issued a report on how local, state and federal government in the Gulf Coast region have contributed to hardships for millions of victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. After more than a half a dozen post-Katrina trips to the Gulf Coast region and extensive on-the-ground analysis, the NCC's Special Commission on the Just Rebuilding of the Gulf Coast gave low marks across the board to local, state and federal governments. The report card reviewed response and rebuilding efforts in the city of New Orleans, the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and the federal government in areas such as transportation, healthcare, housing, schools, insurance, and environmental justice. To view the full report please click HERE.

2/17/2007 Democrats Face Grassroots Push For Stronger Environmental Justice Plans for InsideEPA.com
Congressional Democrats, who are working to tighten federal environmental justice (EJ) and civil rights policies, are facing growing pressure from grassroots groups to strengthen legislative proposals that activists say do not go far enough to protect low-income and minority communities from pollution. Some grassroots sources are arguing that a draft bill prepared by House Democrats requiring EPA to “devote attention” to EJ concerns in its decisions does not require the agency to mitigate any harms. Meanwhile, one grassroots group, the Environmental Justice Coalition, is lobbying key lawmakers to back a draft bill that allows citizen suits to block construction of polluting facilities in minority or low-income neighborhoods. To view the full article please click HERE.

2/14/2007 Three Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Reverse EPA Changes in Toxic Reporting Requirements
U.S. Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Hilda L. Solis (D-CA) and U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) today introduced companion bills in their respected chambers that will undo U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations weakening toxic reporting requirements that have been in place nearly two decades. They announced the legislation at a news conference today on Capitol Hill. The Toxic Right-to-Know-Protection Act codifies the stronger reporting requirements that were in place before the Bush administration weakened them late last year. By codifying these requirements, neither the current administration nor future administrations could again change the guidelines without the approval of Congress. To view the Press Release please click HERE.

2/14/2007 Dying for a Home by Amanda Spake for The Nation
Along the Gulf Coast, in the towns and fishing villages from New Orleans to Mobile, survivors of Hurricane Katrina are suffering from a constellation of similar health problems. They wake up wheezing, coughing and gasping for breath. Their eyes burn; their heads ache; they feel tired, lethargic. Nosebleeds are common, as are sinus infections and asthma attacks. Children and seniors are most severely afflicted, but no one is immune. There's one other similarity: The people suffering from these illnesses live in trailers supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Administration. (Subscription Required)

2/5/2007 Lawsuit Aims to Speed Phaseout of Three Pesticides published by ENS
A government plan allowing six more years' use of a deadly pesticide it admits needs to be banned is being challenged by conservation and farmworkers' groups. The groups, represented by Earthjustice, reopened a lawsuit in federal district court aimed at speeding up the removal of azinphos-methyl, commonly called AZM or guthion.
The legal actions also take aim at two other deadly pesticides, phosmet and chlorpyrifos. All three were developed from World War I nerve toxins. AZM is used to kill insects on orchard crops such as apples, cherries, pears, peaches, and nectarines. The highest uses occur in Washington, Oregon, California, Michigan, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. To view the full article please click HERE.

2/3/2007 Disaster's Consequences: Hurricane's legacy includes arsenic by Aimee Cunningham for Science News
Within the construction debris strewn across the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina is a disturbing amount of arsenic, according to a new study. The tainted rubble, as it is currently managed, might contaminate groundwater, the researchers say. Before 2004, chromated copper arsenate (CCA) was the preservative most commonly used to prevent pest infestation of construction wood. Because of arsenic's toxicity, the Environmental Protection Agency has since banned use of the chemical for residential projects. However, many old utility poles, decks, and fences contain CCA-treated wood. To view the full article please click HERE.

2/3/2007 Disaster's Consequences: Hurricane's legacy includes arsenic by Aimee Cunningham for the Science News Online
Within the construction debris strewn across the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina is a disturbing amount of arsenic, according to a new study. The tainted rubble, as it is currently managed, might contaminate groundwater, the researchers say.

2/1/2007 Still Toxic After All These Years: Air Quality and Environmental Justice in the San Francisco Bay Area. Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community
The study documented environmental disparity by analyzing several different databases on toxic air emissions and concentrations from stationary facilities, such as factories and refineries, as well as mobile sources like traffic.

1/30/2007 Transcript for Paula Zahn Now Show with Dr. Robert D. Bullard and Sheila Holt-Orsted (Dickson County Landfill)
To view the transcript please click HERE.

1/18/2007 Study: Children living near Houston Ship Channel have greater cancer risk by Cindy Horswell, Houston Chronicle
The results of an 18-month study released today identify for the first time a link between cancer risks and hazardous air pollutants being released in Harris County. In particular, the study conducted by the University of Texas School of Public Health found that children living within two miles of the Houston Ship Channel had a 56 percent increased risk of contracting acute lymphocytic leukemia when compared to children living more than 10 miles from the channel. In addition, children who were living in areas with increased emissions of 1,3-butadiene from petrochemical industries were found to have an increased risk of developing any type of leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia.

1/16/2007 Atlanta Named 2007 Asthma Capital
There is no place free from asthma triggers, and some cities are more challenging places to live than others. This year, Atlanta, Georgia, has been named the top "Asthma Capital" in our annual ranking of the 100 most challenging places to live with asthma.

12/26/2006 Wrong Complexion for Protection by Robert Bullard for The Next American City
In the real world, all communities are not created equal. If a community happens to be poor, black, or located on the "wrong side of the tracks," it receives less protection than communities inhabited largely by affluent whites in the suburbs. Generally, rich people tend to take the higher land, leaving the poor and working class more vulnerable to flooding and environmental pestilence. Race maps closely with social vulnerability and the geography of environmental risks.

12/26/2006 Showdown at South Central Farm By Robert Gottlieb for The Next American City
In 1991, Daniel Perez decided to "beautify" a median strip in Manhattan on a block of Broadway between 153rd and 155th streets. Perez, who grew up in a small farming village in the Dominican Republic and lived in an immigrant neighborhood between Harlem and Washington Heights, cleared land that had been filled with old newspapers, garbage, and weeds.

12/12/06 Urban Environmental Report 2006
Earth Day Network’s Urban Environment Report (UER) scores the current environmental performance of 72 of our nation’s cities based on over 200 indicators, taking into account those populations which may have greater sensitivity or susceptibility to environmental, health, and social problems. http://www.earthday.net/UER/report/.

12/5/2006 Activists use research to win pollution battles By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY
The buses idle along 146th Street, the faint smell of diesel exhaust in the air. The weathered brick bus depot sits across the street from day care and recreation centers for seniors and children.Millicent Redick raised a son and daughter here in Harlem, across the street from the city's Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot. She recalls how they both suffered from eczema and asthma. "I was always led to believe that I had to keep the dust out of my apartment, so I cleaned all the time," says Redick, 61, a retired accountant. "But I was never informed that the air we were breathing played a role. … I thought it was all me."

11/15/2006 Dickson City and County (Tennessee) Settle Leaky Landfill Lawsuits with White Families (But Not with Black Family) Are White Lives Worth More Than Black Lives? By Robert D. Bullard
Just a little over week ago, on November 6, in a special called meeting, Dickson County (Tennessee) Commissioners voted unanimously to settle lawsuits with several white families that had alleged ground water contamination from the leaky Dickson County Landfill located in the historically black Eno Road community. The city and county have now settled with all of the white families, but have refused to deal fairly with the Harry Holt family-an African American family whose wells were contaminated by the landfill.

10/17/2006 From rich to poor: Ivory Coast tragedy highlights hazardous waste trade on rise by The Associated Press
Not long after hundreds of tons of toxic waste was jettisoned around Ivory Coast's main city under cover of darkness, Jean-Jacques Kakou awoke like thousands of others here to an overpowering stench that burned his eyes and made it hard to breathe. Three weeks later, he was dead - one of at least 10 deaths authorities suspect were linked to a tragedy that has thrown light on a growing global trade in hazardous waste. Poison is still being shipped out of developed nations and dumped in the Third World despite international legislation. To view the full article please click HERE.

10/2/2006 Poisoned in Eno by Bob Herbert for New York Times
If you stand in front of the Holt family home late at night, after everyone has gone to sleep, with the sound of a soft wind drifting through the trees and the damp sweet smell of abundant grass heavy in the humid air, you can really imagine what this area was like in the days of slavery. And then the quiet is broken by the sudden eruption of dogs barking and howling on nearby property, and you are reminded that the tiny population of blacks in Dickson County, even after all these years, is still frequently treated - literally - like garbage. To view the full article please click HERE.

9/29/2006 And (Environmental) Justice for All The Tavis Smiley Show
Robert Bullard, Ware Professor of Sociology and Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University and Sheila Holt-Orsted discuss Holt-Orsted's family's fight against cancer and environmental racism as they participate in the nationwide Environmental Justice bus caravan tour To listen to the full interview please click HERE.

9/29/2006 National Public Radio's Living on Earth Air Date: Week of September 29, 2006
A fight's brewing over the Bush administration's choice for the Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency. Washington correspondent Jeff Young tells us why this little-known position has a big impact. To listen to the full article please click HERE.

9/25/2006 Environmental Justice for All: Tour '06 Videos
Environmental Justice for All: Tour '06 brings together environmental justice, social justice, public health, human rights, and workers' rights groups from all over the country to host a national tour of communities directly impacted by industrial pollution to meaningfully link these communities together in a public call for safe solutions to unnecessary toxic contamination. To view the videos from the tour please click HERE.

6/27/2006 The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General
U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona today issued a comprehensive scientific report which concludes that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at home or work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25 to 30 percent and lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent. The finding is of major public health concern due to the fact that nearly half of all nonsmoking Americans are still regularly exposed to secondhand smoke. The report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, finds that even brief secondhand smoke exposure can cause immediate harm. The report says the only way to protect nonsmokers from the dangerous chemicals in secondhand smoke is to eliminate smoking indoors. To see the report please click HERE.

6/23/2006 From landfills to freeways: Movement links ecology, justice By Rich Heffern Originally published in National Catholic Reporter issue of 06/16/2006
There's the environment, and then there are justice and human rights. It seems that these realms are separate, the former concerned with wetlands and wilderness while the latter is all about public policies or insuring equal protection under the law. For Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia, the two are intimately connected and he has played a major role in organizing and mobilizing the environmental justice movement over the past two decades. To see the article please click HERE.

5/17/2006 Report profiles data on industrial releases and children's health
The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) released a "call for efforts to determine the sources, levels of exposure, and risks that industrial chemicals pose to children's health." The appeal is made in a report entitled Toxic Chemicals and Children's Health in North America, which uses for the first time a recognized methodology (toxic equivalency potentials—TEPs) to describe the relative hazard of industrial chemical releases in North America.
The report focuses on the releases of carcinogens, developmental and reproductive toxicants, and suspected neurotoxicants, as reported by the national pollutant release and transfer registers (PRTRs) of Canada and the United States in 2002. It finds that lead, mercury, PCBs, dioxins and furans, phthalates and manganese are substances of either significant or emerging concern. To see the report please click HERE.

4/14/2006 LET THEM EAT DIRT: Will the "Mother of All Toxic Cleanups" Be Fair to All NOLA Neighborhoods, Even When Some Contamination Predates Katrina? By Robert D. Bullard
Hurricane Katrina has been described as a one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S history. A September Business Week commentary described the handling of the untold tons of "lethal goop" as the "mother of all toxic cleanups." However, the billion dollar question facing New Orleans is which neighborhoods will get cleaned up and which ones will be left contaminated. Sediments of varying depths were left behind by receding Katrina floodwaters primarily in areas impacted by levee overtopping and breaches. More than 100,000 of New Orleans 180,000 houses were flooded, and half sat for days or weeks in more than six feet of water. Returning residents are getting mixed signals from government agencies when it comes to contamination and potential public health threats. Government and independent scientists remain worlds apart and offer divergent interpretations of what contamination is in the ground, how harmful it is to returning residents, and the appropriate remediation plan. Just this past week, a multi-agency task force issued a press release, Release of Multi-Agency Report Shows Elevated Lead Levels in New Orleans Soil, Consistent with Historic Levels of Urban Lead, that appears to endorse the notion that it's acceptable for New Orleans residents to return to neighborhoods with elevated lead if those same neighborhoods were polluted before Katrina. The federal EPA and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality recommend that "residents in the vicinity protect themselves and their children from potential exposure to lead in the home and in the surrounding soil of their neighborhoods." Instead of cleaning up the mess, government officials appear to be taking the position that "dirty neighborhoods should stay dirty forever." The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University (DSCEJ) in partnership with the United Steelworkers (USW) have undertaken A Safe Way Back Home pilot neighborhood clean-up project-the first of its kind in New Orleans. Click HERE to view the full article.

4/5/2006 Deadly "Tennessee Two-Step" Keeps Leaky Landfill Away from Officials' Homes by Robert D. Bullard
Dickson, Tennessee elected officials are faced with a moral test of deciding whether to burden a black family with health risks that they are unwilling to bear themselves. Dickson County is less than five percent black. Local government officials are using tax dollars to fight a black family whose wells were contaminated with trichloroethylene (a suspected carcinogen) by the county-run landfill. The family's homestead is just 54 feet from the landfill property line. Where do the locally elected officials live? Only one Dickson City council member's home is within a one-mile radius of the landfill. Five of the eight city council members' homes are more than two miles from the landfill. The Dickson Mayor lives nearly four miles from the landfill. Dickson County officials live even further away from the leaky landfill than their Dickson City counterparts. Two county commissioners' homes are within two miles of the landfill; three commissioners live three to four miles from the landfill; and seven of the twelve commissioners' homes are six or more miles from the landfill. Two of the commissioners live more than fifteen miles from the landfill. The county mayor lives three miles from the landfill. On average, the twenty Dickson City council and County commissioners live nearly 5.5 miles from the controversial landfill and for years have had access to clean City tap water. It is unlikely that any of these men and women would allow their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, spouses, and children to drink contaminated well water for one day-and certainly not for twelve years-as in the case of the black family. Click HERE to view the full story and maps.

3/14/2006 Justice in Time: Meet Robert Bullard, the father of environmental justice BY GREGORY DICUM
Robert Bullard says he was "drafted" into environmental justice while working as an environmental sociologist in Houston in the late 1970s. His work there on the siting of garbage dumps in black neighborhoods identified systematic patterns of injustice. The book that Bullard eventually wrote about that work, 1990's Dumping in Dixie, is widely regarded as the first to fully articulate the concept of environmental justice. Grist caught up with Bullard as he took a break from working on a Ford Foundation-funded study of how government actions have endangered the health and welfare of African Americans over the past seven decades. Most recently, this work has turned Bullard's attention to the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina, which he describes as the latest urban environmental sacrifice zone. For the full interview please click HERE.

2/22/2006 Toxic Terror in a Tennessee Town Government Makes Black Family Wait for Clean Water by Robert D. Bullard
What would you call an individual who climbs the water tower in Dickson, Tennessee and deliberately dumps deadly chemicals in the town's drinking water supply that ultimately makes local residents sick? Most of us would label that person a toxic terrorist.