As the presidential election season forges ahead with myriad discussions about race in the United States, we’d like the candidates to take a hard look at an insidious, pervasive form of racism: the environmental injustices that are being perpetrated against our country’s most vulnerable populations every day.
In the United States, the costs of pollution are borne disproportionately by African-American, Latino and Native American communities. These are the communities that get stuck with too many power plants and oil refineries, waste-transfer stations and toxic waste and garbage dumps. These are the communities that suffer higher infant mortality, poorer health and shorter life spans; lost jobs and resources; and a greatly diminished quality of life. We cannot tolerate the fact that 68 percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant that can poison their air and water.
As an example, half of the 1,400 coal ash dumps in the United States have no liners — plastic sheets ostensibly designed to prevent coal ash from leaking into the ground and water table — and 70 percent are situated in low-income communities. Waterkeeper Alliance has investigated dozens of coal ash dumps all over the country. As a result of our investigations in North Carolina, Duke Energy is now being prosecuted for illegal pollution that was discovered leaking out of every single one of its 14 coal ash sites in the state.
Huge amounts of coal ash threaten communities across Georgia. From Rome all the way down to Savannah, coal ash sits in unlined pits at 12 power plant sites in the state. There have also been recent attempts to import coal ash from these sites (and sites in other states) into Georgia communities where no coal ash had been disposed previously. The transfer of coal ash to new locations poses a particular risk of environmental injustice, because ash is more likely to be dumped on the politically disadvantaged communities that have the fewest resources to fight it.
Another egregious example occurs with industrialized animal production. In North Carolina, more than 2,200 factory hog operations housing more than 10 million hogs are concentrated in the southeastern part of the state, and in disproportionately close proximity to communities of color.
These facilities store untreated animal excrement in enormous open-air cesspools that overflow into local waterways or leach into the shallow groundwater of North Carolina’s coastal plain. The liquefied hog waste is then sprayed through the air onto nearby fields, where it drifts onto neighboring homes. Not only are local residents faced with the constant stench and pollution from these facilities, but also studies have shown that those who live near them may also suffer from higher rates of respiratory problems, anxiety, depression and sleep disturbances.
In September 2014, Waterkeeper Alliance, along with partner groups, filed a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Civil Rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging that lax regulation of hog waste disposal discriminates against communities of color in eastern North Carolina. Although our complaint has been accepted for investigation, we are greatly concerned about how the complaint will be handled, because it is a known fact that in its 22 years of processing these complaints, the EPA has never issued a formal finding of discrimination.
The EPA has launched a new initiative to reform its own policies in light of its horrendous enforcement record. Instead of strengthening them, the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights is planning to eliminate key deadlines for accepting and investigating civil rights violations. This is troubling because the EPA has historically taken an average of 350 days just to decide whether to investigate a case. While the EPA’s Office of Civil Rights is the only civil rights office in federal government with self-imposed deadlines, we question how violations will be reduced if deadlines are eliminated.
How can we ever have equality if we do not guarantee protections for communities of color? This is a moral cause and we call on the EPA to strengthen its policies and start getting serious about enforcing Title VI.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 98 new monthly donors before midnight tonight.
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With love, rage, and solidarity,
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