ML20045G416

Newspaper Article, Pollution as Racial Insult

ML20045G416
Person / Time
Site:	Claiborne
Issue date:	06/27/1993
From:	PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, PHILADELPHIA, PA
To:
References
PR-930627, NUDOCS 9307130323
Download: ML20045G416 (3)

Text

s

~jic3'sftilabelpflin3ttgttirer o

y 0

79 91 e +tpaQ h

k f~h !

)

b 1

m a

Sunday, June 27,1993

-m+

9 1 0

0 9

e

']) n

%l m e

l

+

1 Un! mLad-c S 1g8La182.1q8,d1 L

T QR6 MWP

$$%(ThW Afteryears of talk h

~

of ' environ >nental 25 t

[f$jf i

racism,' minorities g are gamg to court.

g4

.: +

a

. h 'b O

d

^

lh John J. Fried N

t'

,. 6" tw uo+ s i m sum a M WM y i pS b, s bh" Close to Esme Youn gblood's N

~ '

@A' L

i

[

Y,. Ye

~

house, the one her parents built w

k*~

about 76 years ago in northern 7pr/M '

^,

• f '

D@fr h.

Loutstat.a. lies Illueell Pond M"%

m And this worries the retired

+4 t{

u '

[N'

^ ~ ^,e teacher.

l The pord, which is part of an g

p,,,

intricate strtam and take system g&.

7 y,p g

m N <

f,1.

gI k

l-s

'e feeding the 587 acres her family h.7

, t t -:.' 34 n.

[

owns around her house, would

~-

f '? ;

D p

get treated waste wa1er if a uranF

'y d

um processing plant were built FR v& t$

in Claiborne Partsh b) lautstana Ij

- 2Lhjd @N p,

i p

i 77 Energy Services.

1. m s-*

o s

+%-

i !

"T hey say they came here be

%%4

{ l cause there are just a few f am-t s

lines, but that's tiot true," Young

(,.j @

k,7 ^.~

j '

h blood said wi reepic own 9307130323 930627

+

their own homes. and have been PDR ADOCK 07003070

~

r m,m_ - s m suru son I'

owning them f or years and ) cars C

PDR i

W hy would they have to brine' Essie Youngbk,cd at the gate of her haro in Chrborne Parish. La. Her property is across the

[p Itbe pland to us?"

Youngblood, with scores of ttreet hcan tte proposed ' t of a uransm-processing plant. She fears waste-water pOMution.

netghbors in the African ArnerE p; 1 can communit.es of Cedar Springs ard Fonst ltattles such as canis consutute an They allege among other things that the l l Gros e, has organized Cit 17 ens Arcitnst Nach ar "em rgmg area of law" whose adsocates are incidence of asthma is 17 times greatcr in I, l Waste Trash (CANT) to persuade the l i 's uuta civil rights and ensironraental laws tu Inkster than elsewhere because of emissions il Nuclear Pegulatory Comminton nst to crant prm tde pruNction for mmority communities. from the facility.

the proposed plant an operatmg permit sma Alice Brown, awstant wunsti for the

• Several cases in which the N AACP, the CANTS argument The location ot the plant N AACP 1.cgal Ddense and Educanonal Fund NRDC and the National Law lhalth Project h

would be a rac:al mjustice, impmu1 an un.

In addition to the L ouisiana f mht, the legal seek to force states to screen all innercity fair environmental butden on the M r:ea n t Iforts base included children for lead potsoning with tests capable American commumties About 1300 people

. Atuon by the N AACP i eg il Defense Fund of detectim; low lead levels in blood.

h\\e withm fne nules of the propo ed plant and the Natural Paources Defer se Council Until recently, activists challem;ed pollut.

I, toutsiana Energ) schementh denh < the (NRDO ta try to present a lhegelwood. N C ets dainh busmess in minority areas on the alleganons hm optranon t rorn allegedly ducha rgm g grounds that their locations discriminated

)

These days. CANT has company rna m e amoi nt i of lect s and urtne into a agamst the communities in violation of the Af ter years of discus.sions about ' t ns uon-Inhmg stream The urtam ab upphes water Constnution's equabprotection clause.

mental racam" -- the notion that m uu >rity to a small Af rican Amcrican < umur n).

But the Su;3reme Court has censistently i

communttus get a dnproportionate number e A sun m k mg bettc r control of emusio ', rultd that the tqual protection clause could

{

of PohtlIltig buMnebe< and Ic% than talt tDim a hMardulh 4 Ck laJiW. m ln k stt r. O be inkohed only % hen thCTc was proof the share of enforcement aettvity - tL w c-m-largely h:a3 coramunity nur Detron Desi dberunmanon w as mientional d Richard 9 e RACISM on C' Qirtd a law n i and.: ;ne ta wurt Inunttles have turned to legal attion

l THE PHd.ADtVHI A INQUlH W s

. M m.orities caallenge j

po11utlon as racism i

"You can lobby,you can have pew RACllhl kom C1 1 Lazarus, a professor at th Wash *,

tions, write letters and nothing bap-pens, but file a 644ay notice of intent ington Universuy !.aw Schoil to sue," pad things change, said Debo-

"Unless you were lucliy enough to rah Van Dyken, the lawyer, hit the smoking gun where you found Many civil Hghts advocates insist a merso that said,'We are puttir.g this that the locanon of environmentally

~

here because there are black people dangerous facilities in minority areas here,' you couldn't show intant," he sad.

should be recognized as a very spe-cific act of racism, said Lazarus.

The failures gave rise to an aware-During an October 1991 seminar on ness among civil rights groups that minoriues and the environment. one they needed environtr. ental lawyers.

lawyer argued that orJy lawsuits Moreover. Icgal aid groups that filed under clean-water and clean-air nnce coocentrated largely on the eco*

legislanon were likely to help minor.

nomic rights of minorities and poor ity communities, Lazarus said, people have also begun to pay atten-But many of those assembled said tion to environmental issues awa don't want to make this an envi-The result has been a "mushroor.b fonmental issue, we want the courts ing" of the number of lawyers now to recogfil2e this as a questson of civil primed to battle for environmental righur. that we are beleg discriminet-jusuce, said Matthew Chacbere, staff lawyer for the Center for Consntu-ed against because we are black," he said.

tional Rights in New York.

As a result, the battle for " environ-When civil rtshts advocates first mental justice," also has spawned po-organized a meeting in the late 1980s

" !alcal efforts to focus more on the to discuss environmental justice, civil rights aspects of the issue.

• there were only "a handful of attor*

There is growing pressure on EPA neys" present, Chachere said. "At the to enforce regulauons in minority most recent meeting in March, there areas as aggressively as it does in were at least 100 attorneys."

more affluent, white communlues.

Businesses targeted in the suits de-In March, tbe U1 Civil Rights Com-nied that race had played any role in mission submined 1% quesuons, ask-their decisions to place facilities la ing the EPA what it was doing to minority areas.

pursue "environmente.1 equity" Clalborne Parish was chosen be-Earlier, the EPA submitted a 15-cause it met a long list of criteria.

page, document detaihng the pro-Including access to major roads, and grams and mocey it had set aside to because the parish, population about help nunority communities.

15.000, had made an effort to become "The lack of substance in the re-an enterprise zone for new bust-sponse points up the problem,.that nesses, the company said-there is interest expressed in moving The decision process that led to the forward, but no substantive plan on selection of the site foc the 5800 mfl-how to do it," said Deecha Ferris, a lion uranium processing plant was former EPA official now with the

" color bimd," and CANT, in making I.awycts' Committee for Civil Rights J3 occusations, " Ignores" the "affir-unqu uw, mattve-action" record of the compa-Such skeptic!sm has spawned ef-nies that created 1.ouisians Energy.

forts on Capitol Hill to extend the said Mary Boyd, a vice president.

reach of Tnie VI of the 1964 Civil The Sierra Club legal Defense Rights Act to the EPA. Under Title VI, Fund lawyer handl!rg the case re-a federal grant to any local program jected the company's reasoning.

can be stopped af f t is tainted by racial "The feed material the uranium,is discrimination, even if that wasn't coming from Oklahoma and Illinois intentional So, for example, federal-and the destination for the enriched funds aiding construction of a bulld-urantum is Connecticut, the state of ing can be cut off tf the contractor Washington. North and South Caro-lina." Nathabe Walker said.

"Dut where do they put a facihty that will have radioact;ve twastest for has discriminated against minorities years and years? A poor African in hiring.

American community in Loutstana" Under legtsistion being prepared TF CANT's objectJoris have struck a tie VI would 1:e extended for the first chord at the Nuclear Regulatory Com-time to environmental programs ad-inission. In late 1991, in one of the ministered by the EPA Thus,if a state first instances in which a regulatory were to fail in, say, controliitig tos.lc agency has considered allegattons of emissions from an incinerator in a environmental racism, the NRC al-minority community, the EPA would lowed CANT to press its points at a have to stop any grants helping the 1994 hearing on whether to license state administer its clearHilt programa the plant.

A broader Title VI would be "enot-Like toutstane Energy. Prestage Farms, which suppues the hog farm mously effectise in getting the EPA" to that is aggravating Riegelwood, de-consider the discriminatory effects of nied that race had bad anything to do. environmentally dar:gerous bush with where H put its operation.

nesses in minority areas. said Ferrts To cite the bog farm as an example And it would belp a minortry com.

of cevironmental racism is unfair I-H W pren to chaL because the community is racially lenge permits to operate a polluhg mixed, saed Deborah Johnson, a rep, industry in that communtry li there reser tative of Prestage Forms.

were any hint of dmcrimination in the And tests have shown that the hog permit proces,s, environmental law-operation did not d scharge wastes yers say.

Into Allen Branch. the stream that passes the community as it flows to the Cape Fear River, Johnson said, i

But the local lawyer for the com mu-nity insisted that there had been a i

change in the pig operatton as a re-ault of legat pressure She said that, since notice of a sult was filed in February, the farm had shut off a pipe through which wastes allegedly were running into the stream.

l

s F

t t

i I

l l

i.

/ gy- -

f-Qu,- -~,+

.c

}.

,7 o.

y,

\\

U i

b-3 px

,,2 i

t' f

,-ev t

.-*7

" ' ~ -

-'*w-

.l

+

- --, -,_.7.m _.

[

L i

.f n

-