Fact Pack

Though any single piece of legislation would fail to address the complex nature of the issues surrounding environmental injustice, our proposed bills work to establish the necessary foundations as well as require states to implement investigative and participatory processes. Everyone deserves a healthy environment.

Public Participation Works

In December 2001, the Texas State and Tribal Environmental Justice Advisory Panel noted that, due to a state bill requiring public participation in the permitting process, “there [were] a lot more public meetings now, a lot more comments from people,” and the public became involved in the process earlier. This kind of participation helps keep communities abreast of a company’s progress during the permitting process. Our legislation is modeled after this Texas bill, HB 801. For the entire Panel meeting’s notes, please see State and Tribal Environmental Justice Advisory Panel Meeting, December 11, 2001.(1)

What Does Environmental ‘Injustice’ Look Like?

Toxic Waste Exposure

• In a landmark report prepared by the United Church of Christ’s Commission for Racial Justice in 1987, investigators discovered that three of the five largest hazardous waste landfills in the United States are in African-American or Latina/Latino neighborhoods.
• An update to this report found that, in 1993, the percentage of people of color remains three times higher in areas with the highest concentration of commercial hazardous waste facilities than areas without commercial hazardous waste facilities.
• Studies done by the American Lung Association in 1990 show that 60 percent of African-Americans and Latinas/Latinos (three out of five) live in communities where toxic waste sites are located. Please see the full report.(2)

Air Pollution

• Scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory found that populations of color experience greater exposure to substandard outdoor air quality. In particular, their research indicates that people of color live in greater concentrations both in areas with above-average numbers of air polluting facilities and in air quality non-attainment areas.
• Argonne scientists found that 52 percent of all whites live in counties with high ozone concentrations. For African-Americans the figure is 62 percent, and for Hispanics it is 71 percent. Population group distributions were found to be similar for carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead, and particulate matter, with higher percentages of African-Americans and Hispanics than whites residing in counties with excessive levels of these pollutants.
• Moreover, the Argonne study found that 57 percent of all whites, 65 percent of African-Americans, and 80 percent of Hispanics live in counties that failed to meet at least one of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ambient air quality standards. Five percent of whites, 10 percent of African-Americans, and 15 percent of Hispanics live in counties that exceed standards for four air quality standards.(3)
• Several U.S. groups, including the Atlanta-based Georgia Coalition for the People’s
  Agenda and the Washington-based Black Leadership Forum, released a study showing that 68 percent of African-Americans lived within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, compared with 56 percent of U.S. whites. The study stressed that 30 miles is the distance within which people experience the maximum effects of smokestack emissions. For more information, please see the Reuters article on the subject.(4)

Chemical Exposure

• Migrant farm workers in the United States represent a diverse group of people. About 85 percent are people of color, including Latinas/Latinos (65 percent), African-Americans, Jamaicans, Haitians, Laotians, and Thais.
• Every year, an estimated 300,000 farmworkers are poisoned by pesticides. According to the Office of Technology Assessment, an estimated 4 to 9 percent of agricultural and other workers acutely poisoned by pesticides experience delayed persistent neurological and psychiatric effects including agitation, insomnia, weakness, nervousness, irritation, forgetfulness, confusion, and depression. Additional studies of agricultural workers indicate that pesticide poisoning can lead to poor performance on tests involving intellectual functioning, motor skills, and memory.(5)(6)

What This Means For Children…

Air Pollution

• Findings reported by Columbia University researchers indicate that carcinogens in ambient air can be transferred trans-placentally from mother to fetus. In fact, genetic damage to the fetus was found to be higher than damage to mothers, indicating the increased sensitivity of the developing fetus to the effects of carcinogenic exposures. Children in the study had decreased birth weight, body length, and head circumference.
• The health risks from air pollution are likely to be more serious for children who are already exposed to toxic chemicals, because they live or attend school near landfills, toxic waste sites, bus depots and rail yards, industrial plants, or similar facilities. Because of low-quality housing, overcrowding, and lack of air conditioning, children in low-income communities may also spend more time outdoors on smoggy summer days. (In the absence of air conditioning, indoor concentrations of ozone can approach 80 percent of outdoor levels.) In addition, children in low-income families are less likely to receive sufficient health care.
• Along with the greater likelihood that children of color reside in the areas of worst air pollution, African-American and Latina/Latino children are potentially more susceptible to air pollution due to their increased rates of asthma. Moreover, black children aged five to fourteen years are four times more likely than whites to die from asthma, and African-Americans under the age of twenty-four are 3.4 times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma. Children of Latina (mainly Puerto Rican) mothers have a rate of asthma 2.5 times higher than whites and more than 1.5 times higher than blacks.(3)

Lead Poisoning

• In an interview addressing environmental justice, Dr. Bruce Lanphear, an associate professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, who has studied lead for 10 years, offered revealing information about lead poisoning:
  • About 4.4 percent of children across the country are believed to have lead levels at or above 10 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dL) of blood, the level of concern set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of particular concern nationwide is the fact that a disproportionate number of African-American children have high lead levels.
  • Some 22 percent of black children, almost five times the percentage of white children, are estimated to have lead levels at or above 10 µg/dL. Lead poisoning can lessen intelligence, stunt growth, and impair hearing. Research revealed that race was the second most significant predictor of lead poisoning. (Lead-contaminated household dust is the most significant.)(7)
• The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III, a nationwide, cross-sectional health survey studying persons aged one year or older) reported, in 1997, that some 900,000 American children aged one to five years have blood-lead levels higher than the Centers for Disease Control’s level of concern (10 µg/dL). The toxicity of lead in relatively small doses is associated with learning disabilities, poor attention spans, and lowered IQ scores. In addition, a variety of behavioral problems, both subtle and serious, stem directly from the presence of lead in our children.(7)

Pesticides

• According to the National Academy of Sciences, concern about children’s exposure to pesticides is valid because “exposure to neurotoxic compounds at levels believed to be safe for adults could result in permanent loss of brain function if it occurred during the prenatal and early childhood period of brain development.”(5)