Environmental Health Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the and Racial Equity in the

U.S.U.S.Strategies for Building Environmentally Strategies for Building Environmentally

Just Sustainable and Livable Just Sustainable and Livable CommunitiesCommunities

July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D.Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D.

School of Public AffairsSchool of Public Affairs

Texas Southern UniversityTexas Southern University

Houston, Texas USAHouston, Texas USA

Books That I have Written: It’s Just One Book, But Don’t Tell Anybody• Invisible Houston• Dumping in Dixie• In Search of the New

South• Growth and Decline of

a Sunbelt Boomtown• Confronting

Environmental Racism• Residential Apartheid• Unequal Protection• Just Transportation• Sprawl City

• Just Sustainabilities• Highway Robbery• The Quest for

Environmental Justice• Growing Smarter • The Black Metropolis in

the Twenty-First Century

• Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina

• The Wrong Complexion for Protection

IT’S ALL ABOUT HEALTH

                                                                            

Dr. King Speaks in Support of Garbage Workers - 1968

Environmental Justice -Memphis Garbage Strike

The Houston Backdrop - 1978

• Houston Protests against the Whispering Pines Sanitary landfill (1978)

• Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management (1979)

• Houston Waste Sites and Black Community Study (1979)

Bean v. Southwestern Waste

• The 1979 Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management Corp. case was the nation’s first lawsuit to challenge environmental discrimination using civil rights law

• Northeast Community Action Group (NECAG) hired Linda McKeever Bullard to represent them in the class action law suit

• BFI hired the Fulbright and Jaworski law firm to defend it in the case

Warren County, NC - 1982

• The environmental justice movement was born in rural Warren County, NC

• Triple “whammy” of rural, poor, and mostly black

• Over 500 demonstrators were arrested protesting the siting of a hazardous PCB landfill

Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States - 1987

• The United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice produced the first national study linking race and the location of hazardous waste sites

Legacy of “Jim Crow” - 1990 • The “Deep South” is

stuck with a unique legacy of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and resistance to equal justice for all

• The South is the most environmentally befouled region of the United States

• It is no accident that the modern civil rights movement and the environmental justice movement were born in the South

People of Color SummitWashington, DC, Oct., 1991

Defining the Environment• Where We Live• Where We Work• Where We Play• Where We Learn• Physical and

Natural World

Environmental Justice Principle

• Environmental justice embraces the principle that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection of our environmental, health, employment, education, housing, transportation, and civil rights laws

APPLYING A RACIAL EQUITY LENS

• Race maps closely with the geography of social inequality and ecological vulnerability

• More 100 studies now link racism to worse health

• More than 200 environmental studies have shown race and class disparities

• Discriminatory housing, land use, and development policies have resulted in limited mobility, reduced neighborhood options, and elevated environmental and health risks to poor people and people of color

Government Response

Environmental Justice Executive Order - 1994

• On February 11, 1994, President Clinton signed Executive Order 12898

• After 15 years and more than a half-dozen studies by several federal agencies, Executive Order 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations, has yet to be fully implemented

Response of State Governments

• In 1993, New Hampshire passed its pioneering environmental justice policy

• By 2007, 41 states had a policy or program in place that paid attention to the issue of environmental justice

• In 2009, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had instituted some type of environmental justice law, executive order, or policy

Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the U.S. - 2012 • African Americans are 79

percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution is suspected of posing the greatest health danger

• African Americans in 19 states are more than twice as likely as whites to live in neighborhoods with high pollution and a similar pattern was discovered for Hispanics in 12 states and Asians in 7 states

Healthy People and Healthy Places

• Healthy places and healthy people are highly correlated

• The EPA’s most recent National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment reported that millions of Americans living in nearly 600 neighborhoods are breathing concentrations of toxic air pollutants that put them at a much greater risk of contracting cancer

• The poorest of the poor within the United States have the worst health and live in the most degraded environments

WHY RESEARCH MATTERS

Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States – 1987, 1994

• The 1987 United Church of Christ study Toxic Wastes and Race found race to be the most potent variable in predicting where the location of hazardous waste facilities—more powerful than poverty, land values, and home ownership

• The Toxic Wastes and Race study was revisited in 1994 using 1990 census data study and found that people of color were 47 percent more likely to live near a hazardous waste facility than white Americans

Toxic Wastes and Race - Toxic Wastes and Race - 20072007• Race continues to be a significant independent Race continues to be a significant independent

predictor of commercial hazardous waste facility predictor of commercial hazardous waste facility locations when socioeconomic and other non-racial locations when socioeconomic and other non-racial factors are taken into accountfactors are taken into account

• People of color make up the majority (56%) of those People of color make up the majority (56%) of those living in neighborhoods within two miles of the living in neighborhoods within two miles of the nation’s commercial hazardous waste facilities, nation’s commercial hazardous waste facilities, nearly double the percentage in areas beyond two nearly double the percentage in areas beyond two miles (30%)miles (30%)

• People of color make up a much larger (over two-People of color make up a much larger (over two-thirds) majority (69%) in neighborhoods with thirds) majority (69%) in neighborhoods with clustered facilities clustered facilities

• People of color in 2007 are more concentrated in People of color in 2007 are more concentrated in areas with commercial hazardous sites than in 1987 areas with commercial hazardous sites than in 1987

Disparities by EPA RegionDisparities by EPA Region

• Racial disparities for people Racial disparities for people of color as a whole exist in of color as a whole exist in 9 out of 10 EPA regions (all 9 out of 10 EPA regions (all except Region 3)except Region 3)

• Disparities in people of Disparities in people of color percentages between color percentages between host neighborhoods and host neighborhoods and non-host areas are greatest non-host areas are greatest in: Region 1, the Northeast in: Region 1, the Northeast (36% vs. 15%); Region 4, (36% vs. 15%); Region 4, the southeast (54% vs. the southeast (54% vs. 30%); Region 5, the 30%); Region 5, the Midwest (53% vs. 19%); Midwest (53% vs. 19%); Region 6, the South, (63% Region 6, the South, (63% vs. 42%); and Region 9, the vs. 42%); and Region 9, the southwest (80% vs. 49%) southwest (80% vs. 49%)

Expansion of Research Since 1990

• In 1991, when the First National People of Color Summit was held in Washington, DC there was only one book on environmental justice, Dumping in Dixie (1990)

• The second EJ book, Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards, was published in 1992

• In 2009, there were more than 200 EJ books in print

Living with More Pollution • People of color and poor

people live with more pollution than the rest of the nation

• African Americans are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution is suspected of posing the greatest health danger

• African Americans in 19 states are more than twice as likely as whites to live in neighborhoods with high pollution and a similar pattern was discovered for Hispanics in 12 states and Asians in 7 states

Dumping on the Black Middle Class

• A 2008 study by researchers at the University of Colorado found that “blacks experience such as high pollution burden that black households with incomes between $50,000 and $60,000 live in neighborhoods that are, on average, more polluted than the average neighborhood in which white households with incomes below $10,000 live” (Downey and Hawkins 2008)

• African Americans are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution is suspected of posing the greatest health danger (Associated Press 2005)

Health Benefits of Addressing Health Benefits of Addressing Pollution “Hot-Spot” AreasPollution “Hot-Spot” Areas

• Pollution “hot spots” Pollution “hot spots” pose real environmental, pose real environmental, economic, and health economic, and health threats to the nation’s threats to the nation’s low-income, people of low-income, people of color, and indigenous color, and indigenous communities communities

• Many “fenceline” Many “fenceline” communities are in the communities are in the direct path of accidents, direct path of accidents, spills, explosions, and spills, explosions, and routine toxic emissions routine toxic emissions

Wrong Side of the TracksWrong Side of the Tracks

Toxic Public Housing Toxic Public Housing ThreatsThreats

• A 2000 A 2000 Dallas Dallas Morning NewsMorning News study found that study found that 870,000 of the 870,000 of the 1.9 million (46%) 1.9 million (46%) housing units for housing units for the poor, mostly the poor, mostly minority minority families, sit families, sit within one mile within one mile of TRI reporting of TRI reporting factoriesfactories

ON THE FENCELINE WITH DIRTY POWER

“Dirty Power” and Children

• Over 78% of African Americans live within 30 miles of a power plant—the distance within which the maximum effects of the smokestack plumes are expected to occur, compared with 56% of whites and 39% of Latinos

• Over 35 million American children live within 30 miles of a power plant, of which an estimated two million are asthmatic

It’s Raining Down Mercury

• Coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of mercury air pollution, accounting for roughly 40 percent of all mercury emissions nationwide

• Much of the mercury stays airborne for two years and spreads around the globe

• The Centers for Disease Control has found that roughly 10 percent of American women carry mercury concentrations at levels considered to put a fetus at risk of neurological damage

Selected Health Impacts from Air Pollution from Power Plants in the United States

Health Effect Incidence

Cases Per Year

Mortality 23,600

Hospital Admissions 21,850

Emergency Room Visits for Asthma 26,000

Heart Attacks 38,200

Chronic Bronchitiss 16,200

Asthma Attacks 554,000

Lost Work Days 3,186,000

Source: Conrad G. Schneider, Dirty Air, Dirty Power (Washington, DC: Clear the Air, June 2004), based on Abt Associates Inc., et al., Power Plant Emissions: Particulate Matter-Related Health Damages and the Benefits of Alternative Emission Reduction Scenarios (Boston: June 2004).

 

Cleaner Air Extends Lifespan

• A recent study published in A recent study published in the January 22, 2009 the January 22, 2009 New New England Journal of MedicineEngland Journal of Medicine, , found Americans are living found Americans are living longer because the air they longer because the air they breathe is getting cleanerbreathe is getting cleaner

• The average drop in pollution The average drop in pollution seen across 51 metropolitan seen across 51 metropolitan areas between 1980 and 2000 areas between 1980 and 2000 appears to have added nearly appears to have added nearly fivefive more months to people's more months to people's liveslives

• Residents of cities that did the Residents of cities that did the best job cleaning up air best job cleaning up air pollution showed the biggest pollution showed the biggest jump in life spanjump in life span

Ground Level Ozone and Ground Level Ozone and HealthHealth

• Over 27 millionOver 27 million children children under age 13 live in areas under age 13 live in areas with ozone levels above with ozone levels above the EPA standardthe EPA standard

• Half the pediatric asthma Half the pediatric asthma population, two million population, two million children, live in these children, live in these areasareas

• Ground level ozone sends Ground level ozone sends an estimated 53,000 an estimated 53,000 persons to the hospital, persons to the hospital, 159,000 to the emergency 159,000 to the emergency room and triggers room and triggers 6,200,000 asthma attacks 6,200,000 asthma attacks each summer in the each summer in the eastern half of the United eastern half of the United States.States.

• Ozone pollution is Ozone pollution is responsible for 10 percent responsible for 10 percent to 20 percent, and nearly to 20 percent, and nearly 50 percent on bad days, of 50 percent on bad days, of all hospital admissions for all hospital admissions for respiratory conditionsrespiratory conditions

Geography of Air Pollution• Nationally, 57% of whites,

65% of blacks, and 80% of Hispanics live in counties with substandard air

• Over 61.3% of Black children, 69.2% of Hispanic children and 67.7% of Asian-American children live in areas that exceed the 0.08 ppm ozone standard, while 50.8% of white children live in such areas

• Air pollution costs Americans $10 billion to $200 billion a year

• Air pollution claims 70,000 lives a year, nearly twice the number killed in traffic accidents

VULNERABLE POPULATIONVULNERABLE POPULATION

Rising Health Costs of Asthma

• U.S. asthma cases more than tripled from an estimated 6.7 million in 1980 to 25 million in 2009.

• Asthma costs the US about $56 billion in medical costs, up from $53 billion in 2002.

Asthma Epidemic and Race

• The African American asthma rate is 35 percent higher than whites. The hospitalization rate for African Americans and Latinos is 3 to 4 times the rate for whites.

• African Americans and Puerto Ricans are three times more likely to die from asthma-related causes than whites.

• Although African Americans represent 13 percent of the U.S. population, but account for 26 percent of asthma deaths.

GOVERNMENT REPSONE TO GOVERNMENT REPSONE TO DISASTERS DISASTERS

Levee Breeches Cause Flooding

• Much of the flooding that drowned 80 percent of New Orleans was caused by levee breaches—a man-made disaster

• The Army Corps of Engineers has spent billions for New Orleans levee repairs

• The 200-mile repaired and reinforced levee system is not guaranteed to hold when a Category 4 or 5 hurricane strikes

Rebuilding on Inequity

• It is unlikely that a healthy, sustainable, and “green” New Orleans and Gulf Coast can be achieved without addressing longstanding legacy issues that revolve around racial, economic, social, and environmental justice

• Special care needs to be taken so not to rebuild on past inequities

Unequal Recovery & Reconstruction

• Racial disparities exist in disaster recovery and reconstruction

• Race plays out in disaster survivors’ ability to rebuild, replace infrastructure, obtain loans, and locate temporary and permanent housing

• Generally, low-income and people of color disaster victims spend more time in temporary housing—shelters, trailers, mobile homes, and hotels—and are more vulnerable to permanent displacement

• People of color communities face discrimination in clean-up standards, management of storm debris, siting of disposal facilities, and rebuilding of damaged neighborhoods

Katrina Leaves New Orleans Richer, Whiter, and Emptier

• New Orleans lost 140,845 residents, a 29 percent drop between 2000 and 2010

• The percentage of black population fell to 60.2 percent from 67.3 percent

• The loss in New Orleans translates into one fewer congressional seat for Louisiana, now six instead of seven

• It also means that almost $1 billion in lost federal funds over 10 years to the local government

Unequal Flood Protection

• The Army Corps of Engineers has spent $5.7 billion for New Orleans levee repairs

• Increased levee protection maps closely with race of neighborhoods with black neighborhoods such as the Ninth Ward, Gentilly, and New Orleans East receiving little if any increased flood protection

• These disparities could lead insurers and investors to think twice about supporting the rebuilding efforts in vulnerable black areas

• The Lakeview area resident can expect 5½ feet of increased levee protection

IT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL

• New zoning and building codes in New Orleans (which is below sea level) require some residents to elevate their houses three feet—even though they may have gotten eight feet of water

WHO GETS LEFT BEHIND BEFORE AND AFTER DISASTERS STRIKE?

• People of color

• Poor People

• Elderly

• Disabled

• Sick People

• Children

• People without Cars

• Transit Dependent

• Non-Drivers

• Homeless People

Washed Away by Katrina

Waiting for Government Response

• Long before Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast, African Americans learned the hard way that waiting for government to respond can be hazardous to their health and the health of their communities

NO AUTOMOILE, NO ESCAPE FROM KATRINA

• Two in ten households in the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in Katrina disaster area had no car

• People in the hardest hit areas were twice as likely as most Americans to be poor and without a car

• Over one-third of New Orleans’ African Americans do not own an automobile

• Over 15 percent of New Orleans residents rely on public transportation as their primary mode of travel

• Between 100,000 to 134,000 New Orleans citizens do not have means of personal transportation to evacuate in case of a major storm

• An estimated 15,000 to 17,000 New Orleanians were homeless

• Another 102,122 disabled persons lived in New Orleans at the time of the hurricane

Failed Emergency Transport Plan

• The New Orleans Rapid Transit Authority (RTA) emergency plan was woefully inadequate to transport an estimated 100,000 to 134,000 transit dependent residents out of harms way

• Given the size of transit-dependent population, some transportation experts estimate that at least 2000 buses would have been needed to evacuate all New Orleans residents who needed transportation

FLOODED TRANSPORTATION

• Most of the city’s 500 transit and school buses were without drivers

• About 190 city transit buses were flooded

• Most of the 1,300 transit employees are dispersed across the country and many are unemployed and homeless

Forced to “Ride Out” Storm

Private Car Ownership

• Car ownership is almost universal in the United States with 91.7 percent of American households owning at least one motor vehicle

• Nationally, 7 percent of white households own no car, compared with 24 percent of black households, 17 percent of Latino households, and 13 percent of Asian-American households

• Blacks with No Car: Pittsburgh (48.6%), Baltimore (44.4%), Washington, DC ( 42.1%), St. Louis (36.2%), New Orleans (34.8%), Atlanta (34.6%), Cleveland (31.7%)

You Can’t Get There from Here

Public Transit in New Orleans

• In August, 2010, the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (NORTA) operated 30 routes, just 43% of its pre-Katrina level

• It had only 69 buses, or just 19% of 368 buses it operated in July 2005

• NORTA carries an average of 28,590 daily riders, down from an average of 71,543 in July 2005

The “Mother of All Toxic Cleanups” in the U.S.

• Katrina floodwaters left miles of sediments laced with cancer-causing chemicals, toxic metals, industrial compounds, petroleum products, and banned insecticides, all at levels that pose potential cancer risk or other long-term hazards

• Government agencies have chosen not to clean up the contaminated topsoil where 80% of New Orleans flooded homes sit

• Since Katrina struck, more than 100 million cubic yards of debris have been removed in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi

Katrina’s “Toxic Soup”• Katrina caused six major oil spills

releasing 7.4 million gallons of oil, or 61 percent as much as the 11 million gallon that leaked into Alaska's Prince William Sound from the Exxon Valdez in 1989   

• The storm hit 60 underground storage tanks, five Superfund sites, 466 industrial facilities that stored highly dangerous chemicals before the storm

• It disabled more than 1,000 drinking-water systems, creating a "toxic soup with e. coli in the floodwaters far exceeding EPA's safe levels.  

Clean Enough for Horses . . . • Although government officials

insist the dirt in New Orleans residents’ yards is safe, Church Hill Downs, Inc., the owners of New Orleans’ Fair Grounds, felt it was not safe for its million dollar thoroughbred horses to race on

• The owners scooped up and hauled off soil tainted by Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters and rebuilt a grandstand roof ripped off by the storm’s wind

• The Fair Grounds opened on Thanksgiving Day 2006

• The Fair Grounds is the nation’s third-oldest track—only Saratoga and Pimlico have been racing longer

Arsenic on School Playgrounds

• In November 2005, EPA found arsenic in 95 percent of the sediment samples it collected in the greater New Orleans area high enough to pose a significant cancer risk under its current guidelines

• Thirty percent of samples could trigger cleanup under the weaker Louisiana guidelines

• Two years after the storm, arsenic levels were still present in the soil at 25 percent of the 35 New Orleans playgrounds and schoolyards tested by NRDC—classified as arsenic “hot spots”

New Orleans Gets Clean Bill of Health

• On August 17, 2006, nearly a year after Katrina struck, the federal EPA gave New Orleans and surrounding communities a clean bill of health, while pledging to monitor a handful of toxic hot spots

• EPA officials concluded that “Katrina did not cause any appreciable contamination that was not already there”

• Although EPA tests confirmed widespread lead in the soil, a pre-storm problem in 40 percent of New Orleans, EPA dismissed residents’ calls to address this problem as outside it’s mission

DEBRIS FROM GUTTED HOMES

Indoor and Outside Mold Threats

• A number of asthma triggers are associated with excess moisture and mold

• Independent tests conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have also found dangerously high airborne mold levels inside and outside of homes, especially in the New Orleans neighborhoods that flooded

• Such high concentration of mold spores is likely to be a significant respiratory hazard

• Unfortunately, federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have not monitored mold levels in areas that flooded, and have done little to assist residents cope with the mold problem

The “Katrina Cough” and Mold

• Health officials saw a large number of evacuees afflicted with "Katrina cough," an illness believed to be linked to mold and dust

• Many individuals returned to their flooded homes without the necessary protective gear and ended up getting sick

• Mold spores can trigger asthma attacks and set up life-threatening infections when normal immune systems are weakened

Living on a Toxic Dump• Residents of New Orleans’

Press Park neighborhood were living on top of the Agricultural Street Landfill Superfund site

• The landfill was reopened in 1965 for the disposal of debris from Hurricane Betsy

• Moton Elementary School was also built on the landfill site

• Before Hurricane Katrina, residents of Agricultural Street had been fighting a legal battle for decades to get relocated from the site

• The lawsuit was finally settled in January 2006 where the judge declared the neighborhood “unreasonably dangerous” and “uninhabitable”

FEMA’s Toxic Travel Trailers • In February 2008, more than

two years after residents of FEMA trailers deployed along the Mississippi Gulf Coast began complaining of breathing difficulties, nosebleeds and  persistent headaches, CDC confirmed that the FEMA trailers pose a serious danger to residents still living in them

• CDC trailer tests revealed average formaldehyde levels of 77 ppb (parts per billions), significantly higher than the 10 to 17 ppb concentration seen in newer homes Levels were as high as 590 ppb

• Levels of formaldehyde gas in 519 trailer and mobile homes tested in Louisiana and Mississippi were about five times what people are exposed to in most modern homes

CDC’s Flawed FEMA Trailer Study

• People exposed to as little as 30 parts of formaldehyde per billion parts of air for more than two weeks can suffer constricted airways, headaches and rashes

• However, instead of 30 parts per billion, CDC said health dangers wouldn’t occur until the substance reached 300 ppb, 10 times greater than the long-term standard

• Exposure to 300 ppb for just a few hours can trigger respiratory problems and other ailments

• More than 38,000 families, or roughly 114,000 individuals, were living in FEMA-provided travel trailers or mobile homes along the Gulf Coast as late as September 2008

THE BP OIL DISASTER

Environmental Minefield in the Gulf

• More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico

• More than 3,500 of these wells are classified by federal regulators as "temporarily abandoned," but some have been left that way since the 1950s, without the full safeguards of permanent abandonment

• The Minerals Management Service (MMS) has 56 inspectors in the Gulf of Mexico to oversee 3,500 production facilities that operate 35,591 wells

BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

• The April 20, 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster killed eleven workers and leaked more than 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico—making it the worst offshore oil disaster in U.S. history

• More than 1.8 million gallons of dispersants were used—whose health and environmental effects are not known

CLEANING UP THE MESS

WHERE DOES BP CLEAN UP WASTE GET DUMPED?

Location of Landfills in Costal Counties

Dumping on People of Color• Although people of color make up

26 percent of the coastal counties in AL, LA, FL, and MS, nearly 60 percent of the BP cleanup waste was disposed in landfills located in people of color communities as of July 2010

• Six of the nine EPA approved landfills are located in areas where the percentage of people of color is larger than the people of color percent in the corresponding county—amounting to more than 80 percent of the total BP waste disposed July 2010

BP Oil Waste Disposal Trends• As of 11/7/2010, all approved landfills have received a total of

82,589 tons of waste from the BP spill.

• As of 11/7/2010, landfills in areas where the minority population is larger than 50% of the total population received 33,259 tons or 40.3% of the waste from the BP spill.

• As of 11/7/2010, landfills in areas where the minority population is larger than the county’s minority population received 62,017 tons or 75.1% of the waste from the BP spill.

• As of January 9, 2011, a total of 93,434 tons of BP waste went to 11 landfills in the five Gulf Coast states, of which 39,608 (42.4 percent) tons went to landfills in minority communities, and 78,732 tons (84.3 percent) went to landfills located in communities whose minority population exceeded the county’s percent minority.

Tar Ball Still Washing Ashore

• On Sept. 6, 2011, tar balls washed up on beaches in Gulf Shores, Alabama after Tropical Storm Lee

• The tar balls are suspected to be from a tar mat left over from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

• The tar balls were likely sent to the Chastang Landfill in Mobile County for disposal

BP Oil Waste Disposal Trends• As of 4/1/2012, all approved landfills have received a total of

110,695 tons of waste from the BP spill.

• As of 4/1/2012, landfills in areas where the minority population is larger than 50% of the total population received 39,399 tons or 35.6% of the waste from the BP spill.

• As of 4/1/2012, landfills in areas where the minority population is larger than the county’s minority population received 94,463 tons or 85.3% of the waste from the BP spill.

• On 7/25/2010 (first fata report), a total of 39,399 tons of BP waste went to 9 landfills in the five Gulf Coast states, of which 18,329 (46.5 percent) tons went to landfills with more than 50 percent minority population, and 30,338 tons (77.0 percent) went to landfills located in communities whose minority population exceeded the county’s percent minority.

Health Impacts of Diesel Trucks

• Truck traffic and diesel engine emissions contribute to serious public health problems, including premature mortality, aggravation of existing asthma, acute respiratory symptoms, chronic bronchitis, and decreased lung function.

• More than 30 health studies have linked diesel engine emissions to increased incidences of various cancers

• Diesel particulate matter alone contributes to 125,000 cancers in the U.S. each year.

Multidisciplinary Movement Building• The number of people of color environmental groups has

grown from 300 groups in 1992 (when the People of Color Environmental Groups Directory was first published) to more than 3,000 groups and a dozen networks in 2012

• In 1990, there was not a single university-based environmental justice center or program that offered a degree in environmental justice

• In 2012, there are 13 university-based environmental justice centers, four of which are located at Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), 22 legal clinics that list environmental justice as a core area, and 6 academic programs that grant degrees in environmental justice, including one legal program

Recognition of the Work

• Environmental justice leaders are beginning to win awards and recognition for their work

• From 1990-2012, more than two-dozen environmental justice leaders were singled out for prestigious national awards that included the Heinz Award, Goldman Prize, MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, Ford Foundation Leadership for a Changing World Award, Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leaders Award, and others

Funding Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Advancement

• Strategic foundation support has enabled the success of the Environmental Justice Movement

• Yet, the movement is still under-funded after three decades of proven work

• The number of foundations that have funded designated environmental justice programs has been shrinking in recent years

• There are hopeful signs, however, from a number of foundations that are funding multidisciplinary work that intersects environment, health, and racial equity

• Government funding has be spotty and highly politicized in last decade

Just and Sustainable Communities for All

• Sustainability must address equity and social inequality, i.e., equitable development, families below poverty, households without livable wage, and widening health and income/wealth gap

• It is unlikely that we can achieve sustainability without addressing these equity issues

For More Information Contact:

Robert D. Bullard, DeanBarbara Jordan-Mickey Leland

School of Public AffairsTexas Southern University

Houston, TX 77004Phone: 713/313-6849

Fax: 713/313-7153E-Mail: Bullardrd@tsu.edu