Environmental Justice

Chapter 31

Environmental Justice Mo´nica Ramirez-Andreotta

Widespread environmental pollution became an issue in the United States due to a number of factors. One primary factor was that economic growth was the sole focus of development, with minimal concerns given to the potential impacts on the environment or human health. In other words, development was not carried out in a sustainable manner, but rather based on economics. As discussed in this chapter, a major factor in this was that no economic value was attributed to environmental resources such as soil, air, and water, which means no costs were apportioned for their impairment or degradation. These and other factors coalesced and led to the situation where soil, air, and water pollution was endemic across the United States in the mid-20th century. As we will discuss in this Chapter, the distribution of pollution, and the resultant impacts on human health and well-being, are generally spread nonuniformly among the populace.

31.1 START OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT There are pivotal periods in U.S. history in which individuals and new social movements contested the dominant attitude toward the environment (Cox and Pezzullo, 2016). With regard to pollution, there was the public health and the environment movement (1960–70s), and the environmental justice movement (1980–90s). The U.S. environmental movement began with Rachel Carson (1962) and others and focused on wilderness and wildlife preservation, resource conservation, and pollution abatement (Bullard, 1990). The first Earth Day began on April 22, 1970, where 20 million people advocated for environmental controls on industrial pollution. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was born in 1970, along with a suite of environmental legislative landmarks (see Chapter 30). These activities led to major improvements in water and air quality, and consequently the health and well-being of all. Despite these milestones in environmental history, it was continually challenging to hold polluting entities accountable for their waste and resultant impacts on individuals across the United States and globally (Cox and Pezzullo, 2016). Communities were increasingly worried about the Environmental and Pollution Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-814719-1.00031-8 Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

contamination of water and soil. Prominent historical examples include the small New York Community of Love Canal (1978), which was built atop a hazardous waste site, and Times Beach Missouri (1982) where residents were forced to leave their town because of elevated levels of dioxins in soils. These and other examples helped usher in the CERCLA program to deal with uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (Chapters 19 and 30). Another program, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act was developed to manage the production, storage, and disposal of hazardous materials.

31.2 THE ROLE OF SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND RACE IN THE EXPOSURE TO POLLUTION Despite the major advances made in the 1970s to improve environmental quality, U.S. environmental organizations failed to recognize the full spectrum of problems faced by urban residents and those in certain rural communities. As a result, environmental quality challenges in urban and rural settings continued. This led to the development of disparities in the distribution of environmental health effects. Health disparities are differences in health outcomes that are closely linked with social, economic, and environmental disadvantage. Environmental factors such as air, water, soil, and food are fundamental determinants of our health and well-being. Just like access to green space and high quality foods can improve human health, environmental factors can also lead to disease and health disparities when the environments where people live, work, learn, and play are toxic. These health inequalities are considered unnecessary, avoidable, and unfair/unjust (Commission on Social Determinants of Health, World Health Organization, 2008). In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King went to Memphis, Tennessee to work with African American sanitation workers who were on strike for better sanitation conditions and wages. In 1971, there was an Urban Environment Conference, which grew out of an effort to provide a forum to discuss issues of joint concern to urban reform groups, environmentalists, and organized labor. Residents of these 573

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communities felt dumped upon and that certain communities were targeted as “sacrifice zones” (Bullard and Johnson, 2000). With roots in the civil rights movement, the Environmental Justice (EJ) movement emerged from local communities’ struggles with toxic contamination in the United States. This was later termed environmental racism, which is the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color. Cox and Pezzullo (2016, p. 42) further define this term to mean: “…not only threats to their health from hazardous waste landfills, incinerators, agricultural pesticides, sweatshops, polluting factories, but also the disproportionate burden that these practices place on the people of color and the workers and residents of low-income communities.” In 1990, the father of environmental justice Robert Bullard articulated the nuances of the time in his renowned book, Dumping in Dixie, Class and Environmental Quality. Bullard describes that there are three competing advocacy groups, as presented in Information Box 31.1. The motivations of these groups were typically not aligned, which led to competition and lack of collaboration. For example, environmentalists did not realize the social implications of the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) phenomenon (Morrison, 1986), meaning when environmentalists advocated for the removal of, or petitioned against the placement of hazardous wastes, garbage dumps, and polluting industries in their local region, these unwanted land uses typically ended up in poor, powerless communities rather than in affluent suburbs. Dumping in Dixie, Class and Environmental Quality focuses on the southern United States since it was undergoing significant development at the time. More than 17 million new jobs were added in the South between 1960 and 1985. The south had its own ecology, later termed “southern ecology” by Historian David R. Goldfield. The “Southern ecology has been shaped largely by excessive economic boosterism, a pro-business climate, lax enforcement of environmental regulations, and industrial strategies that had little regard for environmental cost” (Bullard, 1990). Bullard further describes how economic boosters convinced minority leaders in the south that environmental regulations were bad for business, even when the decisions had adverse

impacts on the less advantaged. When environmental proposals were made, employees were threatened by plant closures, layoffs, and economic dislocation. This was later termed “job blackmail, meaning businesses were” threatening their employees with a “choice” between their jobs and their health, and employers worked to make the public believe there were no alternatives to “business as usual” (KazIis and Grossman, Fear at Work, p. 37). In general, toxic dumping and the location of undesirable land uses have followed the “path of least resistance,” where minority and poor communities have been disproportionately burdened with these types of externalities. Government and private industry have continued to follow the path of least resistance when addressing externalities such as pollution discharges, waste disposal, and nonresidential activities that may pose a health threat to nearby communities. As noted by Robert Bullard “... all of the issues of environmental racism and environmental justice don’t just deal with people of color. We are just as much concerned with inequities in Appalachia, for example, where white people are basically dumped on because of lack of economic and political clout and lack of having a voice to say no and that’s environmental injustice.” Appalachian residents in southeastern Ohio who live along the Ohio River are disproportionately subject to industrial pollution, such as perfluorooctanoic acid, or C8, a chemical used in numerous consumer products (Information Box 31.2). This exploitative pattern can also be seen in communities neighboring resource extraction sites. These actions by industry have created economically impaired regions that, in turn, limit political debate and activism around environmental quality in order to have or maintain economic development and employment (Kozlowski and Perkins, 2015). Community members living adjacent to active resource extraction sites may feel as though they have to choose between economic growth and environmental quality (Ramirez-Andreotta et al., 2016). This challenge is exacerbated when information and power imbalances exist between the affected community and government and industry stakeholders, also known as information disparities.

INFORMATION BOX 31.1 The Three Major Competing Advocacy Groups In 1990, the father of environmental justice Robert Bullard articulated the nuances of the time in his renowned book, Dumping in Dixie, Class and Environmental Quality. Bullard describes that there are three competing advocacy groups: l Environmentalists: Concerned about leisure and recreation, wildlife and wilderness preservation, resource conservation, pollution abatement, industrial regulation

l

l

Social justice advocates: Major concerns are about basic civil rights, social equity, expanded opportunity, economic mobility, and institutional discrimination Economic boosters: Chief concerns are regarding profit maximization, industrial expansion, economic stability, and deregulation

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INFORMATION BOX 31.2 Appalachian Residents and Perfluorooctanoic Acid (C8) Appalachian residents in southeastern Ohio who live along the Ohio River are disproportionately subject to industrial pollution, such as perfluorooctanoic acid (see Chapter 12), or C8, a chemical used in numerous consumer products (Kozlowski and Perkins, 2015). The Appalachian region faces a long history of exploitation by industries that establish and abandon hazardous facilities with minimal regard for the health of nearby residents (Glasmeier and Farrigan, 2003). Kozlowski and Perkins (2015) posit, “…white, working-class communities

31.3 THE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT AND ITS EVOLUTION INTO A FIELD OF STUDY It is important to note that environmental justice is both a social movement and a field of study (Bullard and Johnson, 2000). As a field of study, scholars aim to address inequitable distributions of environmental health risks from exposure to pollution and environmental hazards (Bullard and Johnson, 2000). The environmental justice movement began in 1982 when the state of North Carolina had to identify a location to dispose of PCB-laden soils. They settled on Shocco, Warren County, NC a small AfricanAmerican community. Local residents and supporters tried to stop the state’s plan by filing two lawsuits, but failed. When the trucks started rolling into Warren County, they were met with a nonviolent protest formed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and others. More than 500 protesters were arrested for acts of nonviolent civil disobedience including Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., from the United Church of Christ, and Delegate Walter Fauntroy, then a member of the United States House of Representatives from the District of Columbia. Regardless of the protest and activism, the hazardous waste landfill was still placed in Warren County. Shortly after, definitive studies emerged demonstrating the link between minority status, low socioeconomic status, and community proximity to toxic landfills (e.g., US General Accounting Office, 1983; United Church of Christ, 1987). The environmental justice movement links social justice and environmental quality and was in response to environmental injustices that occurred in Warren County and elsewhere. Now, Environmental justice is defined by the US EPA as: “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies” (US EPA, 2016). Major events in the history of the movement are presented in Information Box 31.3. The current literature on environmental justice comprises a wide range of quantitative studies consistently

must challenge the notion of privilege that defends the contaminated status quo.” Scholars working in Appalachia have documented the severe environmental health risks people are willing to accept in order to maintain employment, specifically in the context of immobility and economic uncertainty. Interestingly these findings are similar to what Bullard documented in some of the predominately black communities he studied in the 1980s.

concluding that environmental risk burdens, known or potential, are distributed inequitably across racial/ethnic minorities and individuals with lower socioeconomic status (Chakraborty et al., 2014). Within the context of social justice, we also must consider other variables that impact justice issues in our society and perpetuate environmental injustices. These additional factors are listed and defined below.

31.3.1

Factors

Privilege: In sociology, this concept is a social theory that special rights or advantages are available only to a particular person or group of people. For example, in the United States, privilege is granted to people who have membership in one or more dominant social identity groups, such as those in the highest economic status. Limited political influence: Lacking the social and economic resources to influence political decisions; this is likely to be the case in areas of greater concentrations of poverty (Schulz and Northridge, 2004). Linguistic isolation: People who do not speak the dominant language may be left out of the dialog thus impairing their participation in the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Class differences: A social context that individuals inhabit over time and a fundamental lens through which we see ourselves and others (Kraus et al., 2012). Because people of lower socioeconomic status have fewer resources and opportunities than those of relatively higher status, they tend to believe that external, uncontrollable social forces and others’ power have correspondingly greater influence over their lives (Kraus et al., 2012). Rural health: A rural health determinant has been proposed as a determinant of health outcomes, suggesting that there may be cultural and environmental factors exclusive to towns, regions, or economic types (e.g., farming, mining, manufacturing, or federal/state government dependent) that may affect health behavior and health (Hartley, 2004). To effectively address rural health disparities one must

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INFORMATION BOX 31.3 Major Environmental Justice History Milestones 1982—The U.S. Government Accounting Office completed the Siting of hazardous waste landfills and their correlation with racial and economic status of surrounding communities study confirming the pattern of disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards. 1987—The Commission for Racial Justice’s 1987 study Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States revealed that race is a major factor related to the presence of hazardous wastes in residential communities throughout the United States. 1990—Robert Bullard wrote Dumping in Dixie, Class and Environmental Quality—describing more cases and incidences of environmental pollution correlated with low-income communities of color, predominately in the South. 1991—On October 27, 1991, 650 grassroots and national leaders from around the world came together for the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. They Adopted 17 Principles of Environmental Justice. These 17 principles were and continue to be used for EJ organizing (see Information Box 31.4 for details).

1993—US EPA creates the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee. 1994—Environmental Justice Meeting for the first research grant program on environmental justice and health by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. 1994—President Clinton’s issuance of Executive Order 12898, Federal Action to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations. 2002—Second National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. 2010—Lisa Jackson, US EPA Administrator, hosted a White House forum and initiated meetings across the country. Stated they would focus on green jobs in disadvantaged communities. 2014—A set of strategies proposed by the USEPA to reinvigorate environmental justice efforts called “Plan EJ 2014.” This also acknowledged the 20th anniversary of President Clinton’s issuance of Executive Order 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.

INFORMATION BOX 31.4 Principles of Environmental Justice 1. Environmental justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction. 2. Environmental justice demands that public policy be based on mutual respect and justice for all peoples, free from any form of discrimination or bias. 3. Environmental justice mandates the right to ethical, balanced and responsible uses of land and renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for humans and other living things. 4. Environmental justice calls for universal protection from nuclear testing, extraction, production, and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes and poisons and nuclear testing that threaten the fundamental right to clean air, land, water, and food. 5. Environmental justice affirms the fundamental right to political, economic, cultural, and environmental selfdetermination of all peoples. 6. Environmental justice demands the cessation of the production of all toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the containment at the point of production. 7. Environmental justice demands the right to participate as equal partners at every level of decision-making including needs assessment, planning, implementation, enforcement, and evaluation. 8. Environmental justice affirms the right of all workers to a safe and healthy work environment, without being forced to choose between an unsafe livelihood and unemployment. It also affirms the right of those who work at home to be free from environmental hazards. 9. Environmental justice protects the right of victims of environmental injustice to receive full compensation and reparations for damages as well as quality health care.

10. Environmental justice considers governmental acts of environmental injustice a violation of international law, the Universal Declaration On Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on Genocide. 11. Environmental justice must recognize a special legal and natural relationship of Native Peoples to the U.S. government through treaties, agreements, compacts, and covenants affirming sovereignty and self-determination. 12. Environmental justice affirms the need for urban and rural ecological policies to clean up and rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature, honoring the cultural integrity of all our communities, and providing fair access for all to the full range of resources. 13. Environmental justice calls for the strict enforcement of principles of informed consent, and a halt to the testing of experimental reproductive and medical procedures and vaccinations on people of color. 14. Environmental justice opposes the destructive operations of multinational corporations. 15. Environmental justice opposes military occupation, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms. 16. Environmental justice calls for the education of present and future generations which emphasizes social and environmental issues, based on our experience and an appreciation of our diverse cultural perspectives. 17. Environmental justice requires that we, as individuals, make personal and consumer choices to consume as little of Mother Earth’s resources and to produce as little waste as possible; and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritize our lifestyles to ensure the health of the natural world for present and future generations. (Source: Text adapted from Principles of Environmental Justice, adopted on October 27, 1991, in Washington, D.C., Energy Justice Network. https:// www.ejnet.org/ej/principles.html).

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acknowledge the nexus between individuals, culture, and environment, which is also the case when working with EJ communities. Information disparities: Knowledge differences between the potentially affected community and government and industry stakeholders (Emmett and Desai, 2010). Forms of information disparity are provided in Information Box 31.5. Health issues: Grineski (2007) argues that health outcomes—instead of proxies for health is a next step in quantitative environmental justice research. Correlating exposure to pollution and health issues and disparities needs to be considered and documented to fully understand environmental injustices.

31.3.2

Visualizing Environmental Justice

In the United States, people of color, low-income communities, and tribal populations have been, and continue to be, disproportionately exposed to environmental conditions that can harm their health. To improve our understanding of the convergence of contaminant exposures and sociodemographic information, the United States Environmental Protection Agency developed EJSCREEN. The EJ SCREEN “is a single, nationally consistent tool that can be used by EPA, its governmental partners, and the public to understand environmental and demographic characteristics of locations throughout the United States” (U.S. EPA, 2016). The EJSCREEN was released in 2015 and is an accomplishment under the 1994 EO 12898. It includes 11 environmental indicators and six demographic indicators (see Information Box 31.6 and Table 31.1).

31.3.3

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Climate Justice

Global climate change is one of the most pressing issues for society (see Chapter 25). Temperature increases will range from 0.03 to 4.8°C by 2100, depending on mitigation strategies implemented (Pachauri et al., 2014). Major emitters of carbon dioxide are coal-fired power plants, chemical producers, mining operations, and vehicles. Fossil fuel combustion in higher income countries and the burning of biomass in lower income countries account for 85 percent of airborne particulate pollution (Das and Norton, 2017). The effects of climate change on public health will be substantial as there is already a disproportionate distribution of risk in our society based on socioeconomic factors, such as education level, ethnicity, and poverty level. Thus we can anticipate that climate change will serve to perpetuate these disparities in health (Frumkin et al., 2008). Termed a “cruel irony,” climate justice stresses how those living in poverty contribute the least to climate change but suffer the most consequences (Farber, 2012). This is illustrated in Fig. 31.1. This is further exacerbated by their voices being left out of solution discussions. Building upon the principles of environmental justice (Information Box 31.1), the Bali Principles of Climate Justice were proposed in 2002. Climate justice seeks to remedy this by providing a platform for disadvantaged voices to be heard and to create community-based solutions. Just as seen with the environmental justice movement, these principles forced the discussion to not only be a scientific– technical debate, but also one about ethics that focused on human rights and justice (Agyeman et al., 2010).

INFORMATION BOX 31.5 Forms of Information Disparities As outlined by (Emmett and Desai, 2010), potentially affected communities may lack the following when compared to other stakeholders: l Technical expertise l Representation on Advisory Committees l Access to information/ability to conduct Toxicological Testing l Ability to conduct/ability to conduct epidemiologic studies l Capacity to develop detailed submissions (e.g., public comments to regulatory processes)

l

l l

l

Lack of detailed day-to-day information about presence/ levels of chemical in environmental media including water. Previous knowledge of chemicals in environmental media Authority or ability to influence level of discharges or control measures at industrial facilities Access to scientific publications

INFORMATION BOX 31.6 A Tool to Understand Environmental and Demographic Characteristics. EJSCREEN, “an environmental justice mapping and screening tool that provides EPA with a nationally consistent dataset and approach for combining environmental and demographic indicators” (US EPA, 2016). The EJ Screening Tool also provides the EJ indexes, which summarize how environmental

indicators and demographics come together in the same location. For example, the EJ Index for traffic would combine Traffic proximity and volume with the reported low-income and minority population size residing in the selected Census block group.

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TABLE 31.1 Components of the U.S. EPA’s EJ Screening Tool Environmental Indicators

Demographic Indicators

National-scale air toxics assessment (NATA) air toxics cancer risk

Percent low-income

NATA respiratory hazard index

Percent minority

NATA diesel PM

Less than high school education

Particulate matter

Linguistic isolation

Ozone

Individuals under age 5

Traffic proximity and volume

Individuals over age 64

Lead paint indicator Proximity to risk management plan sites (places where is potential for a chemical accident) Proximity to treatment storage and disposal facilities Proximity to national priorities list (NPL) sites Wastewater dischargers indicator (stream proximity and toxic concentration) From https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen/what-ejscreen.

FIG. 31.1 Mapping the Impacts of Climate Change; Quantifying Vulnerability to Climate Change: Implications for Adaptation Assistance, and informs his project mapping the impacts of climate change. (Prepared by David Wheeler, Center for Global Development, University of Colorado, Boulder).

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31.4 METHODS TO ADDRESS ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICES As outlined before and throughout this book, challenges at hazardous waste and contaminated sites are persistent, complex, and multifactorial. They encompass cleanup and environmental remediation challenges as well as issues related to human health and well-being. The persistence of contamination and environmental injustices can be attributed in part to the lack of collaboration, information transfer, and partnership building among government, the affected community, scientists, site owners, industry, and other interested parties. Issues pertaining to public participation in environmental decision-making, collaboration between all stakeholders and the affected communities, and communicating risk to the communities add an additional layer of complexity for which most environmental scientists have not been trained to manage. Traditionally, environmental scientists and engineers are not introduced to the nuances of environmental communication and the social sphere associated with contaminated sites. Hence, they may not be aware of the voices and practices that various stakeholders and community groups use when discussing environmental issues, and they are not instructed in how to raise public awareness, or work with the communities neighboring contamination (Cox and Pezzullo, 2016). This set of deficiencies is likely to hinder the effectiveness of environmental scientists in their efforts to address environmental issues. Understanding how to work with all stakeholders, build partnerships, elicit local knowledge, and increase community capacity can enhance their success. Communication about environmental issues and solutions is too often restricted to the technical sphere, and thus excludes those who are most affected, such as the communities neighboring contaminated sites (Cox and Pezzullo, 2016). Issues beyond the technical aspects of site remediation can hinder the cleanup of a site and as a result, a legacy of mistrust can permeate the relationship between regulatory officials, scientists, and the affected communities. Efforts to address and resolve local environmental issues are most effective when scientists from various disciplines, regulatory officials, industry, and the affected community are fully engaged working toward a unified solution. To effect meaningful changes in the environments and health of communities, community-based organizations and leaders must engage the larger public and work in coalition with government agencies, academic institutions, public and private foundations, policymakers, legal experts, and local businesses (Shepard et al., 2002). Freudenberg (2004) argues that it is at the community level where environmental health issues should be confronted because it is frequently the site for health promotion interventions and because it is the place where the individual is confronted

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with socioeconomic factors that then influence specific patterns of health and disease. How do regulatory agencies engage the communities neighboring contaminated sites, and are these community involvement mechanisms effective? Chess and Purchell (1999) reviewed the usefulness of traditional public participation methods (public meetings, workshops, and Community Advisory Committees) and developed a set of “public participation rules of thumb” to improve public involvement efforts. These rules are: clarify goals, begin participation early and invest in advanced planning, modify participation format to community style and needs, provide multiple forms of public participation, and collect feedback on public participation efforts to determine whether they worked (Chess and Purchell, 1999). In 2008 the National Research Council, 2008 published a report entitled: “Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making,” emphasizing the importance of public participation in environmental issues. When done well, public participation improves the quality and legitimacy of a decision, builds the capacity of all involved to engage in the public process, and leads to better results in terms of environmental quality and other social objectives such as environmental health. Research translation and community engagement activities may engage different constituencies and have different goals, but it is important to recognize that stakeholders often share common goals and objectives in the cleanup of contaminated sites. The challenges associated with research translation and community engagement are as follows: l

l

l

l

l

What methods need to be employed to advance the communication of complex problems found at contaminated sites? How can we increase public participation in environmental decision-making? How can we increase collaboration between other stakeholders and the affected communities? How do we effectively communicate risk to the affected communities? How do we build the ability of communities to take action at the individual, community, and policy level to improve environmental health (community capacity)?

As discussed before, the importance of developing and supporting full participation by communities and community members affected by a given site has been well established. However, the method by which to most effectively accomplish such participation has yet to be determined. Many disciplines have been grappling with the challenges associated with environmental and risk communication, public participation in environmental data generation and decision-making, and increasing community capacity. Ramirez-Andreotta et al. (2015) posit that it is

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INFORMATION BOX 31.7 The Environmental Research Translation Framework Proposed ERT framework: 1. Provides a team with scientists and practitioners from various disciplines to help tackle the life-world problem (a transdisciplinary team) 2. Ensures that a true collaboration is taking place (effective collaboration) 3. Calls for a place-specific strategy to ensure effective bidirectional communication efforts (information transfer) 4. Values the observations, interests, and knowledge generated by the affected community, encourages their

advantageous to synthesize and integrate the observations and approaches of these disciplines to develop an effective toolkit for environmental scientists. After reviewing selected public participation approaches to research and education, Ramirez-Andreotta et al. developed an integrated approach for environmental research translation (ERT) to facilitate participation of and communication with communities affected by contamination. This approach can be employed at any contaminated site (regardless of contaminant or demographics) to address the injustices described before, and to improve collaboration, bidirectional information transfer, and partnership building among scientists, the affected community, and other stakeholders. Incorporating participatory methods into an environmental scientist’s toolkit will improve the effectiveness and the authenticity of their community engagement activities. As a means to promote interaction and communication among involved parties at contaminated sites, RamirezAndreotta et al. (2014) developed the Environmental Research Translation (ERT) concept and framework, presented in Information Box 31.7 and in Fig. 31.2. To implement ERT, we must draw upon and bring together existing participatory approaches to improve interactions between the community, stakeholders, and academic institutions for effective communication of, and action toward reducing, environmental human health risks. The concepts and approaches described below were intentionally selected to properly equip an environmental scientist to interact effectively with communities and other stakeholders. Knowledge generation and the application of knowledge to contribute to solving societal problems can be achieved if scientists and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines work together with stakeholders (Rosenfield, 1992). When combining these disciplines, innovative ideas and solutions may emerge—and this is the reason for having a transdisciplinary team. Transdisciplinary investigatory efforts transcend disciplinary boundaries and is driven by the need to solve problems of the life-world and improve the human condition (Rosenfield, 1992). Maintaining effective collaboration with government agencies, community members, and other members of the

participation in the investigatory process to increase the colearning, coproduction of data, and the level of informed decision-making by all involved (public participation in environmental projects) 5. Involves the affected groups in risk communication and places the risk in context (cultural model of risk communication).

public sphere is paramount to translation efforts. There are many stakeholders involved at contaminated sites, and it is crucial to establish transparency and equity between all parties. To do this, a collaborative approach to communication is essential. Collaboration can be defined as constructive, open, civil communication, with emphasis on learning, some degree of power sharing, and leveling of the playing field (Walker, 2004). Collaboration invites all stakeholders to engage in problem-solving discussions rather than advocacy and debate, and community-based collaboration can arise in order to address a specific issue in the local community (Cox and Pezzullo, 2016). It is vital to recognize one’s audience and select the appropriate information transfer mechanism based upon the audience type (e.g., stakeholder, directly affected public) (National Research Council, 2008). In general, a regulatory agency might appreciate an executive summary providing a concise introduction to an environmental issue currently confronting the state, or nation, and possible remediation options. Conversely, a member of the affected

FIG. 31.2 The components of successful Environmental Research Translation programs at contaminated sites. (From Ramirez-Andreotta, et al., 2014. Environmental research translation: enhancing interactions with communities at contaminated sites. Sci. Total Environ. 497–498, 651–664.)

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community may prefer information specific to the chemical of concern, the risks they pose, and possible methods to reduce exposure. To select which information-transfer mechanism to use for affected communities specifically, that is, delineating the place-specific strategy, it is crucial to learn the community’s ecology and the social context in which the environmental contamination and human health risks are embedded (Caron and Serrell, 2009). By understanding the community’s ecology, one is able to establish and ensure a two-way dialog with affected communities. Community members living in contaminated communities often are the first to identify adverse ecological and health outcomes associated with toxic exposures (Brown and Mikkelsen, 1990). Further, citizen-driven data collection pertaining to environmental contamination and disasters is often initiated due to unknown and unassessed risks that lay people see in their daily lives (McCormick, 2012), and this step involves the integration of community members in the project and the coproduction of knowledge (Corburn, 2005). Thus it is important to incorporate participatory data collection processes and the community’s experiences, which allows for new information regarding environmental contaminants or exposure routes to be introduced that may be not be collected or addressed in a typical expert-only-led environmental science or health investigation and/or risk assessment. Furthermore, having an expert-driven only project may, unfortunately, ignore the role of lay knowledge in research, overlook the applicability of the study findings to improve regulation, and may not prioritize the need to transparently communicate the results of the study to the community (Cohen et al., 2012). How to successfully communicate results and risk is another key factor for successful engagement. The method in which the results and risk are communicated should be tailored to the community’s need so they may make more informed decisions. Particularly, it is important to present specific steps the community can take to assert some level of control in their lives and reduce their exposure to potential environmental hazards. To successfully communicate risk, it is important to put the risk in context, make comparisons with other risks, and encourage a dialog. If all or most of the other ERT steps have been met, encouraging a dialog should not be difficult. This step is about communicating and discussing risk assessment and management. For example, community members should be able to witness and perform the calculations used to complete the risk assessment (i.e., daily dose of the contaminant of concern and the excess cancer risk with the community) (Ramirez-Andreotta et al., 2015) and have a discussion regarding the uncertainties associated with the current risk analysis paradigm.

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CONCLUSION

In a recent report prepared by the Lancet Commission on pollution and health, they state: “For decades, pollution and its harmful effects on people’s health, the environment, and the planet have been neglected both by Governments and the international development agenda.” Yet, pollution is a major cause of disease and death in the world today, responsible for an estimated 13 million premature deaths annually (see Chapter 26). The report further explains that 92% of pollution-related deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries and that children face the highest risks because small exposures to chemicals in utero and in early childhood can result in lifelong disease, disability, premature death, as well as reduced learning and earning potential. Unfortunately, health disparities as a result of environmental pollution exist in our society. Environmental injustices are linked to health disparities. These health inequalities are considered unnecessary, avoidable, and unfair/unjust. The factors that perpetuate injustice are resolvable and require understanding, collaboration, and a paradigm shift in the way we approach and engage in the solution-generating dialog. By combining and adopting the principles of environmental justice (Information Box 31.5) along with ERT (Information Box 31.7), one can ethically, collaboratively, and holistically generate novel solutions to environmental health challenges.

QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 1. What are the major differences between environmental racism and environmental justice? 2. What is the definition of health disparities? How does environmental quality impact health outcomes? 3. In this chapter, three types of advocacy groups are mentioned? Define each and provide an example of each type. Explain why these three groups might have competing agendas. 4. Within the context of social justice, we much consider other variables besides race and socioeconomic status that impact and perpetuate environmental injustices. Please list and describe these other factors. 5. As described before, EJSCREEN is an environmental justice mapping and screening tool that provides EPA with a nationally consistent dataset and approach for combining environmental and demographic indicators. For this question: a. Go to the http://www.epa.gov/ejscreen. Learn how to use the mapping tool. b. Once you understand how to use the mapping and screening tool, select a specific neighborhood of your choice. Explore and report the neighborhood’s

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status. Is it above 50th percentile for any of the environmental indicators? For demographic indicators? If so, list which ones? c. Now select the EJ index, which is a combination of environmental and demographic information. Would you call that neighborhood or specific area an EJ community? Why? Thoroughly explain you rationale.

REFERENCES Agyeman, J., Bullard, R.D., Evans, B., 2010. Exploring the nexus: bringing together sustainability, environmental justice and equity. Space Polity 6, 77–90. Brown, P., Mikkelsen, E.J., 1990. No Safe Place: Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. Bullard, R., Johnson, S., 2000. Environmental justice: grassroots activism and its impact on public policy decision making. J. Soc. Issues 56, 555–578. Bullard, R.D., 1990. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Westview, Boulder, CO. Caron, R.M., Serrell, N., 2009. Community ecology and capacity: keys to progressing the environmental communication of wicked problems. Appl. Environ. Educ. Commun. 8, 195–203. Chakraborty, J., Collins, T.W., Grineski, S.E., Montgomery, M.C., Hernandez, M., 2014. Comparing disproportionate exposure to acute and chronic pollution risks: a case study in Houston, Texas. Risk Anal. 34, 2005–2020. Chess, C., Purchell, K., 1999. Public Participation and the environment: do we know what works? Environ. Sci. Technol. 30 (16), 2685–2692. Cohen, A., Lopez, A., Malloy, N., Morello-Frosch, R., 2012. Our environment, our health: a community-based participatory environmental health survey in Richmond. California Health Educ. Behav. 39 (2), 198–209. Commission on Social Determinants of Health, World Health Organization, 2008. Available from http://www.who.int/social_ determinants/thecommission/finalreport/en/. (Accessed 13 October 2017). Corburn, J., 2005. Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice. MIT Press, MA. Cox, R., Pezzullo, P.C., 2016. Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere, fourth ed. Sage Publications, Inc., CA. Das, P., Norton, R., 2017. Pollution, health, and the planet: time for decisive action. Lancet. Available from: http://www.thelancet.com/ journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)32588-6/fulltext. (Accessed 29 January 2018). Emmett, E., Desai, C., 2010. Community first communication: reversing information disparities to achieve environmental justice. Environ. Justice 3, 79–84. Farber, D.A., 2012. Climate justice. Mich. L. Rev. 110, 985. Available from https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol110/iss6/5. (Accessed 29 January 2018). Freudenberg, N., 2004. Community capacity for environmental health promotion: determinants and implications for practice. Health Educ. Behav. 31 (4), 472–490. Frumkin, H., Hess, J., Luber, G., Malilay, J., McGeehin, M., 2008. Climate change: the public health response. Am. J. Public Health 98, 435–445.

Glasmeier, A., Farrigan, T., 2003. Poverty, sustainability, and the culture of despair: can sustainable development strategies support poverty alleviation in America’s most environmentally challenged communities? Ann. Am. Acad. Pol. Soc. Sic. 590, 131–149. Grineski, S.E., 2007. Incorporating health outcomes into environmental justice research: the case of children’s asthma and air pollution in Phoenix, Arizona. Environ. Hazard. 7, 360–371. Hartley, D., 2004. Rural health disparities, population health, and rural culture. Am. J. Public Health 94, 1675–1678. Kozlowski, M., Perkins, H.A., 2015. Environmental justice in Appalachia Ohio? An expanded consideration of privilege and the role it plays in defending the contaminated status quo in a white, working-class community. Local Environ. 1, 1–17. Kraus, M.W., Piff, P.K., Mendoza-Denton, R., Rheinschmidt, M.L., Keltner, D., 2012. Social class, solipsism, and contextualism: how the rich are different from the poor. Psychol. Rev. 119 (3), 546–572. McCormick, S., 2012. After the cap: risk assessment, citizen science and disaster recovery. Ecol. Soc. 17 (4), 31–40. Morrison, D.E., 1986. How and why environmental consciousness has trickled down. In: Schnaiberg, A., Watts, N., Zimmermann, K. (Eds.), Distributional Conflict in Environmental-Resource Policy. St. Martin’s Press, New York, pp. 187–220. National Research Council, 2008. Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. Pachauri, R.K., Allen, M.R., Barros, V.R., Broome, J., Cramer, W., Christ, R., … Dubash, N.K., 2014. Climate Change 2014: synthesis Report (Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, p. 151). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva, Switzerland. Ramirez-Andreotta, M.D., Brody, J.G., Lothrop, N., Loh, M., Beamer, P.I., Brown, P., 2016. Improving environmental health literacy and justice through environmental exposure results communication. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 13 (7), 690–717. 27399755. Ramirez-Andreotta, M.D., Brusseau, M.L., Artiola, J.F., Maier, R.M., Gandolfi, A.J., 2014. Environmental research translation: enhancing interactions with communities at contaminated sites. Sci. Total Environ. 497-498, 651–664. 25173762. Ramirez-Andreotta, M.D., Brusseau, M.L., Artiola, J.F., Maier, R.M., Gandolfi, A.J., 2015. Building a co-created citizen science program with gardeners neighboring a superfund site: the Gardenroots case study. Int. Pub. Health J. 7 (1), 139–153. 25954473. Rosenfield, P.L., 1992. The potential of transdisciplinary research for sustaining and extending linkages between the health and social sciences. Soc. Sci. Med. 35, 1343–1357. Schulz, A., Northridge, M.E., 2004. Social determinants of health: implications for environmental health promotion. Health Educ. Behav. 31 (4), 455–471. Shepard, P., Northridge, M.E., Prakash, S., Stover, G., 2002. Preface: advancing environmental justice through community-based participatory research. Environ. Health Perspect. 110 (2), 139–140. U.S. General Accounting Office, 1983. Siting of Hazardous Waste Landfills and Their Correlation with Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities. Washington, DC, United States General Accounting Office. United Church of Christ, 1987. Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States: A National Report on the Racial and Socio-Economic

Environmental Justice Chapter

Characteristics of Communities Surrounding Hazardous Waste Sites. United Church of Christ, Commission for Racial Justice, New York, NY. U.S. EPA, 2016. Environmental Justice. Available from: https://www.epa. gov/environmentaljustice. (Accessed 29 January 2017). Walker, G.B., 2004. The roadless areas initiative as national policy: is public participation an oxymoron? In: Depoe, S.P., Delicath, J.W., Aepli Elsenbeer, M.-F. (Eds.), Communication and Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making. State University of New York Press, NY.

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FURTHER READING Bullard, R., Wright, B.H., 1987. Environmentalism and the politics of equity: emergent trends in the Black community. Mid-Am. Rev. Soc.7 (2),21–38. Graham, G.N., 2016. Why your zip code matters more than your genetic code: promoting healthy outcomes from mother to child. Breastfeed. Med. 11, 396–397. https://doi.org/10.1089/bfm.2016.0113. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, (2017). EJSCREEN: environmental justice screening and mapping tool. Available from: https:// www.epa.gov/EJSCREEN. (Accessed 29 January 2017).