A study by Associated Press finds that black and poor Americans are 79 percent more prone to residing in polluted neighborhoods where industrial emissions pose the greatest risks to their health. Also these populations tend to be less educated and endure greater periods of unemployment than those in less polluted neighborhoods.
Obtaining data from a federal environmental health database using the Freedom of Information Act, the Associated Press mapped each 2000 Census' neighborhood's risk scores. The resulting analysis in a three-part series presents a snapshot of the legacy of American industrialization in terms of social, racial and economic inequities as far as exposure to pollution. The data was analyzed with assistance from government scientists an overwhelmingly shows that social and economic inequities also lend to endangering health.
Carol Browner, the erstwhile head of Environmental Protection Agency when the system of scoring was developed opines, ''Poor communities, frequently communities of color but not exclusively, suffer disproportionately". She points, “If you look at where our industrialized facilities tend to be located, they're not in the upper-middle-class neighborhoods". Many suffer asthma, rashes, allergies and general ill health in fume-prone neighborhoods but until the study it was believed that in recent times there were little racial disparities to such risks.
50-year-old Robert Writters, who is a black American believes he and others in his neighborhood are dying and “no one is doing anything about it”. His neighborhood is possibly one of several awfully polluted areas in America and it is only a little-known government study that has found this in terms of high health risk scores. That such neighborhoods are more likely to be home to blacks is a surprise in an era when discrimination is a thing of the past. Yet it appears that recent changes to state legislations may have a role in creating this situation. Blacks are likely to have migrated closer to factories to be nearer the more paying jobs.
According to the study's findings the worst states as far as industrial pollutions affecting health are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Texas and Michigan. Jim Pugh, a spokesman for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce notes, “So you largely saw African Americans moving to where the jobs were and not vice versa”. Several '80s and '90s studies found the blacks and the poor to be more likely to reside in the proximity of sites used for hazardous waste disposal, locating polluting power plants or industrial parks. At that time it was believed that the lack of political clout of the black minorities made it difficult to influence land use, forcing the Clinton administration to issue an "environmental justice" order to protect their interests.
But the Associated Press findings are proof that little if anything has changed in the decade since. Henry Hamilton III, who co-chairs the environmental justice task force in Milwaukee notes, "In poorer areas the lobby to fight industrial polluters ... is going to be much weaker than the lobby to fight industrial pollution in suburban areas". At least in 19 states the reality is that blacks are twice as likely to live in areas where the health risk on account of air pollution is unduly high. The mean income in these areas are at least $3,000 lesser than the national average, with one in six residents living in poverty as against one in eight elsewhere.
While the Bush administration has made effort to ease some Clean Air Act regulations, little has been done as far as targeting poorer neighborhoods or populations. While the Associated Press study finds risk scores for neighborhoods, the scores do not really measure the likelihood of sickness or exposure to various chemicals. Though additional studies may identify the portent health problems this study gives sufficient impetus for measures that focus on poorer and minority dominated neighborhoods as far as reducing exposure to pollution.
