Environmental Justice
Environmental Justice
at 20 By Earl L. Hatley, Grand Riverkeeper, Oklahoma
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»In 1987, the Commission for Racial Justice of the
United Church of Christ published the seminal report, Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States. The report documented that the majority of the nation’s hazardous waste sites are located in and around communities of color. The report brought the reality of “environmental racism” to a national audience. Stark evidence of the role of race in industrial pollution brought together organizations working in parallel on social justice, anti-toxics and environmental protection. The Environmental Justice — EJ — Movement was born.
Waterkeeper Magazine Winter 2008
Throughout the 1980s a nationwide anti-toxics movement was coalescing to address the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites. Many of these sites were identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the National Priorities List for immediate governmental response. The law, however, did not provide funding to cleanup the sites. It depended on polluters, or “responsible parties” to pay for cleanup. But many of these sites were abandoned; polluters had moved out, found ways to insulate themselves from responsibility or had gone out of business, leaving communities stuck with orphaned toxic sites. Congress responded to pressure from the fledgling Anti-Toxics Movement to address this problem with the 1986 Superfund Amendment and Reauthorization Act (SARA). SARA included right-to-know provisions that allowed public access to industry permits, enforcement actions and the activities of federal environmental agencies. The Toxics Release Inventory was created; forcing industry and government to publish information on emissions, releases, transfer and storage of hazardous substances. The law also created a tax on industries that generate, treat or dispose of hazardous materials. This tax “Superfund” was a pot of money that EPA could use to clean up abandoned toxic sites. The “polluter pays” provision of the law allowed EPA to charge recalcitrant responsible parties three times the cleanup costs of a site if EPA was forced to pay for cleanup using the Superfund. With this victory the Anti-Toxics Movement solidified into three new national activist groups: Greenpeace Action USA, National Toxics Campaign and Citizens Clearing House for Hazardous Waste. Unlike the so-called “Big 10” or “Beltway” environmental groups, these groups fielded environmental organizers around the country to help local citizen groups facing environmental hazards get organized and develop strategies for dealing with pollution. The Anti-Toxics Movement created a new grassroots paradigm in environmental activism. Local groups fighting contamination in their neighborhoods were empowered to drive the agendas of national organizations. Over time a few of the Big 10 groups joined in the effort by creating www.waterkeeper.org
