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History
of Environmental
Justice
Many name Warren County, North Carolina as the birth
of the Environmental Justice movement. In
1982, this small, low-income, predominately African American community was identified by
the state as the site for its hazardous waste landfill. The landfill was scheduled to accept PCB-contaminated soil from 14 counties
in the state. Civil rights and environmental
activists collaborated to stage numerous demonstrations against this action on the grounds
that citing the landfill in this community was an unfair and prejudiced action. Although the demonstrations and subsequent arrests
did not stop the landfill from being sited, it did mark the first time that focused
community opposition brought national attention to racial and class biases present in
government decisions to site hazardous waste facilities. As a direct result of the community opposition raised in Warren County and
in other locations throughout the United States, studies were conducted demonstrating the
predominance of waste facilities in minority and low-income communities. This community action and the necessary supporting
evidence sparked the Environmental Justice movement.
Supporting
Evidence
Several seminal documents on Environmental Justice
are summarized below. Since the early
nineties a large body of literature has emerged on this topic, brief summaries of which are presented elsewhere on this
Web site.
United States General
Accounting Office. At the request of
North Carolina Congressman Walter Fauntroy, the United States General Accounting Office conducted a
study of eight southern states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee) to determine the correlation between the location
of hazardous waste landfills and the racial and economic status of the surrounding
communities. The results showed a clear bias in landfill placement, with three out of
every four landfills sited near predominantly minority communities.
Siting of
Hazardous Waste Landfills and their Correlation with Racial and Economic Status of
Surrounding Communities, United States General Accounting Office, GAO-RCED-83-168, B-211461,
June 1, 1983.
United Church
of Christ, Commission on Racial Justice. In
1987, the Commission on Racial Justice published Toxic
Waste and Race in the United States. This
report demonstrated that race was the most significant factor in determining the siting of
hazardous waste facilities, and that three out of every five African
Americans and
Hispanics live in a community housing toxic waste sites. The commission also noted that
African Americans were heavily over-represented in areas neighboring toxic waste sites.
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