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Expanding the Dialogue

has been expanded, and a new

graduate fellowship program has been
added for students from HBCUs and
HACUS pursuing advanced degrees in
environmental fields. The first of these
multi-year, $20,000-a-year fellowships
is being awarded in the spring of 1992.
In the current fiscal year, EPA has
allocated $1.4 million-$1 million
more than was available last year-to
provide 40 new minority graduate
fellowships each year, starting with the
school year that begins next
September, and to encourage
employment at EPA after graduation.

Another effort that warrants
attention is our new Environmental
Science and Management Fellows
Program. In 1990, EPA awarded
National Urban Fellows a planning
grant to establish a mid-career program
for a Masters of Environmental Science
Management degree that includes a
year at Tufts University in
Massachusetts and a 12-month
mentorship at either EPA or another
environmental organization. In
addition to fully paid tuition, students
receive stipends during the two years
of the program. EPA will spend
approximately $80,000 for each fellow.
Already enrolled are the first eight
students at Tufts; this year, another 10
start the program, with 15 more joining
the team next year. In another
program, an Environmental Science
Scholarship of $120,000 was granted to
the American Indian Science and
Engineering Society for awarding
competitive scholarships to Native
Americans interested in following
studies in the environmental sciences.
The interest is strong: Over 450
students attended the first conference
on career opportunities for minority
students that EPA co-sponsored at
Howard University in 1990. Last year,
a second conference in Oakland,
California, attracted 300 participants;
this year, another was held in March
in Atlanta, Georgia.

Meanwhile, we are trying to improve the opportunities for those already in the workforce. Since 1986, EPA has awarded almost $3 million in grants to the National Association of Minority Contractors to train firms run by minorities and women in the fields of hazardous waste removal and

management, asbestos abatement,

removal of leaky underground tanks,
and radon mitigation and remediation.
This year, the Agency will start a new
training program in the removal of
lead-based paints. And, acting through
its small and disadvantaged business
office over the past two years, EPA has
awarded more than $915 million in
contracts, grants, and cooperative
agreements to companies owned by
minorities. This program provides jobs
in minority-owned firms to help clean
up the environment, and it constitutes.
a singularly effective, practical, and
tangible way to broaden the
constituency for environmental
improvement.

substantial sewer and water projects (see article on page 61), will invest over $200 million implementing the border plan.

The whole country, meanwhile, stands to reap enormous health benefits from the historic Clean Air Act of 1990, which promises cleaner, clearer skies for all Americans-and especially for those who live in our largest and smoggiest cities. According to the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Los Angeles, California, children in the smoggiest areas suffer a 10- to 15-percent reduction in lung function compared with those in less polluted areas. Some 15 million African Americans (50 percent of the total) will be winners because of EPA's efforts to bring the most severely affected areas into compliance. Over 8.5 million Hispanics (60 percent of the total) will similarly gain from a vigorously implemented Clean Air Act.

It is also undeniable that minorities usually benefit from-are, indeed, sometimes the chief beneficiaries of-more general efforts to protect the environment. New pesticide regulations, for example, will soon be in effect to protect farm workers and others exposed to these compounds from unsafe uses and storage practices. In 1991, we issued a final rule reducing the amount of lead in drinking water, with the highest risks being targeted for treatment first. We expect that neurological threats to over 20 million children will be reduced and that about 100,000 additional children will avoid detrimental effects. This year, EPA will propose banning lead solder and limiting lead in plumbing fixtures. We also expect to propose tightening the national ambient air quality standard for lead in affect larger cultural and social trends. the atmosphere.

The border zone between the United
States and Mexico is an environmental
hot spot, and the inevitable result is a
rather severe set of environmental
threats to the Hispanic populations
there. Dysentery and hepatitis levels
are high. In fact, these areas may be
among the highest risk environments
in the country. According to a new
bilateral plan for the area, EPA and its
Mexican counterpart are jointly
expanding efforts to ensure adequate
wastewater treatment and drinking
water facilities where none now exist
in poor border settlements, commonly
called "colonias." Mexico is committed
to providing $460 million over the
next three years to environmental
improvements in the region. In the
next fiscal year, EPA, in addition to its

Failures to achieve perfect equity in environmental matters are woven, along with other threads of triumph and defeat, into the full tapestry of American history. They are, in fact symptomatic of larger patterns of industrial growth and neglect and of sad legacies of inherited poverty and discrimination. It will take time and hard work to mend the fabric. Restrained by resources, jurisdiction, and knowledge, a government agency is necessarily limited in its capacity to

Yet, within its domain, an agency of
the United States
government-situated as it is in long
traditions of governance that compel
close attention to questions of
equity-must make every possible
effort to redress obvious wrongs. At
EPA, although we have just begun, we
are well begun.

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Expanding the Dialogue

workshops on the issue of environmental and social justice

• A redefinition of what issues were considered "environmental"

• The linkage of civil rights issues with environmental issues

• The emergence of committed activists and leaders.

As many communities woke up to the reality that they were contaminated or had hazardous facilities in them, some organized to prevent further exposures and sitings. About the same time, research revealed that black, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian communities not only were more likely to have hazardous facilities, but that the facilities were deliberately sited in these communities because they were seen as "paths of least resistance." As minorities began paying increased attention to health risks and disproportionate exposure, environmental activism intensified.

This increased activism manifested itself in the call for environmental and social justice for people of color and the poor. It linked civil rights with environmental rights and re-introduced civil rights campaign strategies into environmental campaigns. So, although many researchers have argued that minorities are too busy struggling to meet basic needs to be concerned with environmental issues, minorities have redefined

environmental issues as survival issues and have been organizing around them at unprecedented rates.

The environmental justice movement is a sector in which blacks, whites, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians from various social classes and ethnic groups unite to fight a wide array of issues that affect humans, flora, fauna, and the physical environment locally, nationally, and internationally. It is a movement which recognizes that injustices have occurred in the past that stem from racism and discrimination. Such practices have put communities of color at risk. The movement seeks remedies for these past injustices and

seeks to promote fairness in future environmental actions.

In contrast to the traditional and well-established environmental groups, environmental justice groups rely

People of color feel comfortable participating in the environmental justice movement because it is a movement founded on the principles of fairness and justice.

heavily on volunteer support to carry out daily operations. They have few, if any, paid staff. They are kept going by the strong moral and political commitments of their members and by the personal zeal that volunteers bring to the cause. They tend to be informal and to have a limited hierarchical structure. These groups, which are often small in size, rely heavily on membership donations and on contributions of time and other nonmonetary resources like phone lines, space to store materials, food, housing for visiting organizers, and supplies. They run highly symbolic campaigns in which members and supporters participate in demonstrations, picketing, petition drives, boycotts, and nonviolent obstructions. Recruiting is not done from national mailing lists; people, on the spur of the moment, recruit friends, families, or coworkers to participate.

People of color feel comfortable participating in the environmental justice movement because it is a movement founded on the principles of fairness and justice. It is a movement committed to building race and class coalitions. It is driven by grass-roots activism, and there is a strong articulation of civil rights and social justice. The movement provides the political space to articulate and work on issues relevant to minority communities in ways that encourage

and respect minority participation. In the environmental justice movement, minorities can take a leadership role or they can be equals with whites interested in the same issues.

Minority participation has had a profound effect on the whole environmental movement. It has provided the environmental justice sector with the best and brightest minority environmental activists, leaders, scholars, and policy makers. It has provided the race, class, and ethnic diversity so sadly lacking in other sectors of the movement, and it has provided a platform from which to articulate the goals and concerns of a broad-based grass-roots movement. In the larger environmental movement, minority participation has broadened the debate to include many issues which were being ignored. Minority participation has also forced a dialogue about race, class, discrimination, and equity. Because of minority participation, the plight of minority communities has been brought to the forefront. Minorities have also brought a new perspective to the movement and will be a part of any future environmental agenda that is being charted. By participating, minorities have also been able to show how distanced most traditional and well-established environmental organizations have become from the grass roots and the environmental concerns they have.

I predict that large numbers of minorities will continue to join the environmental justice sector because those who already belong are committed to mobilizing more minorities around environmental issues. I also predict that very few minorities will join the other sectors of the environmental movement. Unless the traditional and well-established sectors make radical changes to their agenda, their attitudes towards minorities, their coverage and support of issues affecting minority communities, their hiring policies, their analysis of how and which communities are impacted by environmental hazards, then few

minorities will find these organizations attractive enough to join.

A few predominantly white environmental organizations, like Greenpeace and the Center for Environmental Intern Programs (CEIP Fund, Inc.), have taken up the challenge from minority environmental activists and have collaborated on

many projects with minority groups or have worked on the issue of job preparation and placement. For the most part, however, most

environmental organizations not a part of the environmental justice sector are devoid of minority members, staff, or board members. They complain that they can't find "qualified" minorities to fill positions in their organizations. However, such claims have to be questioned because there seems to be no shortage of such minorities in the environmental justice sector.

Although there has been some unease between minorities and the traditional and well-established sectors of the movement, there are signs that both groups might be able to work together in the future. Many nonminority environmental groups sent observers to the First National People of Color Leadership Summit last October, and the number of collaborative projects is growing. Both minority and nonminority environmental groups have strengths that each can benefit from, but if these two different groups are to develop a meaningful relationship, many radical changes are required.

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The

he statistics are plentiful and they are frightening. Three out of four toxic waste dumps are sited in predominantly African American or Latino communities. Two million tons of radioactive uranium tailings have been dumped on Native American lands. Three hundred thousand Latino farm laborers suffer from pesticide-related illnesses. This is a national disgrace.

Statistics like these reflect a nationwide pattern of disproportionate environmental impact on people of color and the poor. This pattern stems from a profound flaw in the structure of the U.S. economy: Polluters do not absorb the costs of the environmental degradation they create, and society as a whole does not confront the problems and solve them. Instead, the problems are displaced. It is easier for a company to locate its factory or waste facility in eastern St. Louis than in the Upper East Side of Manhattan; it is cheaper for state governments to disregard the lead poisoning of poor children than to test and treat them as federal law requires. What this means

(Adams is Executive Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, headquartered in New York City.)

is that we are building our economy on the backs of people of color and the poor.

Not to recognize this syndrome is to ignore one of the driving forces of environmental degradation in this country. The fact of disproportionate impact demands a disproportionate effort. Federal and state governments must direct a disproportionate share of clean-up funds and other environmental funding to these communities. The national environmental organizations must devote a disproportionate share of their resources to the public health problems affecting them.

But this alone is not enough. The environmental justice movement that has arisen to address the concerns of these communities is one of the strongest new forces for environmental reform to emerge in years. If we are to remain truly effective, the national environmental groups must strive to become allies of this movement and of the communities it represents.

This alliance will not take place overnight. It will require a great deal of work on the part of the national groups. We have been criticized by environmental justice activists, and there is much to criticize the predominantly white staffs, the cultural barriers that have damaged and impeded joint efforts with activists.

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of color. The history is well documented: The mainstream environmental movement grew out of a white, middle-class effort to preserve the world's natural wonders. It is still true that the staffs of the major national organizations are disproportionately white and middle class, and it is not defensible.

Fighting back.

The

environmental justice movement is one of the

strongest new

forces for reform.

Kurt Rogers photo. San Francisco Examiner.

It is critical that the national environmental groups listen to people of color on their

own terms.

Environmental justice activists have also criticized the priorities of the mainstream environmental movement. The movement began with wilderness conservation, and there is no question that, in its early life, its work and vision only rarely encompassed the protection of human beings. But there is also no question that this is a movement that has matured far beyond its origins. I speak for NRDC, and I know I speak for many others, when I say that for mainstream

environmentalists today the two critical issues-environmental violation of the Earth and

environmental violation of its human inhabitants are inextricably intertwined.

The record speaks for itself. It is a record of commitment to clean air, clean water, land that is safe to live on and work on. These are not abstract values or values limited to national parks and wildlife preserves. They are values that have led NRDC to dedicate the bulk of our resources to the very public health problems that impact communities of color disproportionately.

For two decades, we have been working to clean up the smog that concentrates in the inner city and that can cause long-term lung damage. We have been striving to end toxic pollution of drinking water supplies. Our efforts helped lead to the phaseout of leaded gasoline, which was

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