Justice movement addresses equality issues

Environmental activism is often seen as a movement geared toward defending plants and animals from unwanted human interference. But a less-publicized sphere of the ecological debate addresses the effects of environmental hazards on a different kind of animal: people.

Environmental justice is a facet of the discussion that explores the effects of pollutants, farming and forest preservation on human communities-particularly those of minorities and lower socioeconomic classes. The national movement-which has deep roots in North Carolina-gained momentum in the early 1980s when a trucking company dumped over 30,000 gallons of oil laced with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls onto 210 miles of North Carolina roads. Using federal funds, the state decided to dispose of the oil in a landfill in Warren County.

Marie Miranda, an assistant professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment, said that at the time, Warren County was a largely black and Native American community with a high unemployment rate. "Residents argued that the reason [for the landfill being built there] was political," she said. "That was the catalyzing event for the movement."

Obvious issues like the PCB landfill concern-an issue that continues as people debate how the government should go about purifying the soil-are only one aspect of the issue, said Associate Dean of NSOE John Sigmon. Environmental justice also addresses policies that are generally considered beneficial to all communities. Even efforts to preserve forests for future generations can pose problems for poor and minority communities, he said.

"It's a different twist to environmental justice," he said, pointing to low-income communities who have been living in rural areas for decades. "All of a sudden the government decides they'll move them to preserve the land for future generations." Sigmon said that the people who will eventually inhabit the confiscated land will most likely be of a higher socioeconomic status.

In response to the Warren County incident, the United States General Accounting Office did a study of four toxic waste sites; the study concluded that "blacks were disproportionally represented," in each of the four areas, Miranda said.

The environmental justice movement gained more credibility as additional studies uncovered similar results; in 1994, President Bill Clinton issued an executive order requiring federal agencies to make environmental justice a "critical component" of all activities. The order still stands, and all program offices within the Environmental Protection Agency are required to consider environmental justice in their work, Miranda said.

"The big thing it did was to raise the level of consciousness about the importance of thinking about issues of race, income and empowerment as part of the policy process," she said.