Hurricane Katrina and Environmental Justice

Hurricane Katrina first made land fall over 15 years ago in August of 2005. The storm devastated a large part of New Orleans and had an especially large impact on many communities of color and poor communities. It has since become an infamous and tragic story of environmental injustice. This project explores the Environmental Justice movement using Katrina and the City of New Orleans as an example.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations or policies."

Scholars articulate that environmental justice is a collection of multiple studies and how they overlap. In the introduction of her book Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger Julie Sze describes environmental justice as "how race indigeneity, poverty and environmental inequality are linked in toxic brew. Environmental justice is focus on intersectionality (race, class, gender, immigration/refugees, indigenous land claims/ territorial sovereignty) and organized around expanding social and racial justice in environmental terms." (Sze, 5)

In his book Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States Carl Zimring explains the many processes that pushed oppressed groups and people of color into cities and areas with poor infrastructure. He argues that after slaves were emancipated in the United States, "native" white Americans used "cleanliness" as a justification for pushing people of color as well as immigrants coming from Europe into cities. Immigrants coming from Europe (the book specifically mentioning Irish, Italian, Polish and Russian people as well as Jewish people from a variety of different countries.) were, technically speaking, “white” but they were not afforded the same privileges that white people born in the United States were. Therefore immigrants and people of color were pushed into bad neighborhoods, that were poorly built and unhygienic to begin with and then blamed for the filth that riddled them.

As racial tensions began to grow and immigrants began to create communities in the United States, the many people who thought of themselves as an Italian living in America, started to identify as Italian American or rather just American for example. However, in order to gain the many privileges that "native" white Americans had they had to involve themselves with racial violence that was occurring.

In many cases European immigrants felt the only way to escape oppression was to become oppressors themselves, causing riots or other racial violence "The Italo Americans stopped being Italo and started becoming Americans. We joined the group. Now we’re like you guys, right?” (189)

Because urban areas had been deemed undesirable by just about everyone else at this point, black people were forced to stay there, and new systems were created to ensure that they were not able to leave areas with poor infrastructure. One such system is known as redlining. The term came from when the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) would outline neighborhoods they deemed undesirable in red and would make it nearly impossible for those living in those neighborhoods to receive a loan to get a home elsewhere. While the process of physically Redlining does not still exist, its effects are very much still present today

The map above is one of New Orleans in 1939, the areas in red are "Hazardous", yellow is "Definitely Declining", blue "Still Desirable" and green "Best". Only the red Hazardous areas had any population of color, the rest of the other colors were all white.

A side note: An AMAZING source to explore redlining maps in the United States is Mapping Inequality. The site includes an interactive map of the U.S. that allows the user to zoom in on cities and click on each district to see a description made by the HOLC. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=5/39.1/-94.58

Louisiana History and Cancer Alley

Besides the negative impacts of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana is well known its many problems with environmental health in its poor and minority communities. Cancer Alley is a strip of land that stretches from Baton Rouge down to New Orleans. This area is home to nearly 150 factories from a multitude of different industries, from plastic production factories to oil refineries. The risk of contracting a number of health issues in this corridor is far higher than anywhere else in the state or the country. According to one article originally published in the Huffington Post said: "The area is also home to the descendants of those enslaved workers, who studies show have suffered and died from cancer, diabetes, and respiratory diseases at higher rates than most of the country, and higher than Louisiana as a whole. " (Kaufman)

Prior to 2005 there were tensions in the area related to flooding and environmental issues .

Both local and federal governments were highly criticized for their reaction to this disaster. In his paper Environmental Justice Through the Eye of Katrina, Reilly Morse describes some background as well as common criticisms surrounding environmental racism during the time of Katrina. He says "Before the storms arrival Mississippi and Louisiana ranked first and second in state poverty rates and had the second and fifth lowest state median household incomes respectively." (2) he further points out that the percentage of victims who were "African American, renters, poor, and/or unemployed were larger than the representation of these groups nationwide" (2). The amount of damage that was done in these poor black communities was clearly not coincidental and can be linked back to the long history of systemic racism especially in southern parts of the United States.

Of the many criticisms of government response some of the most prevalent were:

• Lack of Supplies: FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) had supplied food for 15,000 people for 3 days (the estimated waiting time for FEMA to come give assistance) but there were far more people who were using the Superdome for support than anticipated. By low balling the amount of supplies needed and properly calculating the number of people who would be needing to seek refuge, many people of color, poor or elderly citizens were trapped without sufficient food or drinking water
• The Evacuation Process: the process was very slow and the public transportation systems that large amounts of people relied on especially in poor neighborhoods that got hit the hardest were not properly equipped for a mandatory evacuation.No provisions made for homeless or low-income citizens, sick citizens or the elderly. Lack of good infrastructure in black communities, underserved neighborhoods.
• Federal Politicians: Many federal officials, including then President George Bush, were criticized for not taking the situation seriously. President Bush was on vacation in Texas when the storm made landfall in Louisiana and did not return to the White House until August 31st. There was a lot of criticism that the Bush administration was ignorant of the issues presenting themselves throughout the country in communities similar to those in Louisiana. One article from right after the disaster said:

• While this was a "natural" disaster there were a number of measures that simply weren't being taken to protect minorities and poor groups.
• Lack of Preparedness: While politicians and agencies were all well aware of the threat that was posed to Louisiana by a storm such as Katrina it was frequently brushed under the rug or worse purposefully acted against in the hopes of economic benefit for those in charge.
• FEMAs Response: There was a clear lack of organization within the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA was also highly criticized for making things worse rather than better because of their lack of efficiency in dispatching help.
• Discrepancies in Neighborhoods: While just about every neighborhood in the city of New Orleans experienced some sort of damage the damage done to poor, black communities was clearly disproportionate to that of wealthier neighborhoods

Over 15 years later the city of New Orleans has started to grow again, but not necessarily in a way that restores justice to the minorities who live there. The city is now the 5th most gentrified in the United States and they have struggled to restore the once very large black community.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, while the black population had started to bounce back, the numbers have never returned to pre-storm highs. The black population has in fact started to plateau after a period of growth.

Many of the people of color who fled to cities such as Houston directly after the storm, never returned to their homes. Beyond the population totals never coming back, the black middle class has been virtually washed away by the storm, even 15 years later.

Now we can see the ways in which history repeats itself, before the generation of people who survived Katrina are even gone. The city of Houston has become the target of many natural disasters, and is also one city that many refugees flooded to after Katrina.

While many of the resources referenced above are from up to 15 years old, much of what they talk about is still applicable to current events. For this reason it is clear that advocates are necessary to ensuring environmental justice is secured

In 1992 the Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) was established under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. While the system is very much still flawed, this department seeks to create localized action plans for communities experiencing unjust environmental impacts.

The OEJ has an action plan specifically for the state of Louisiana that details improvements that should be made in order to reduce impacts of environmental damage. Some of the mentioned focus areas for this action plan are as follows:

1. Climate, Coastal Erosion Policy: this includes trying to rebuild costal infrastructure, developing a viable costal erosion strategy and improving community involvement in policy making.
2. Disaster Response and Recovery: The key goals of this focus area are again community engagement, development of a notification system and overall education.
3. New Energy and Industrial Development: This involves examining "adequacy of existing regulations to protect the communities" and restricting permits to industry. This would be closely related to the damages done by Cancer Alley that was spoken about earlier.

While this is a good start and at least acknowledges the many issues that face the state of Louisiana, the action plan is very broad and has lofty goals that are hard to feasibly achieve.

While many people turn to the local government to support them, the people of New Orleans living in poor, black neighborhoods have felt a disconnect from their local representatives and a culture of distrust has been created over many years of discrimination. This has caused many citizens to turn elsewhere for advocates.

One important group is the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. They have a number of goals from increasing community engagement to conducting and evaluating research, in order to achieve environmental justice in the deep south.

Another group that has been advocating for environmental justice in Louisiana is the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. They are a grassroots organization that seeks action to hold industries causing harmful pollution throughout Cancer Alley accountable, and trying to create a healthier black population in LA.