Environmental Racism and Economic Health Injustice

Exploring the LatinX community in Eugene, Oregon

McKenna Priske

November 17, 2020

Environmental Racism:

Racial discrimination in the development and implementation of environmental policy, especially as manifested in the concentration of hazardous waste disposal sites in or near areas with a relatively large ethnic minority population. (Lexico Dictionary)

Championed primarily by African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans, the environmental justice movement addresses a statistical fact: People who live, work, and play in America's most polluted environments are commonly people of color and the poor. (Palmer)

The Environmental Justice movement emerged in the 1980's as a result after the civil rights movement of the 1970's; a time when years of race based policies were manifesting in the developed environment. The movement took off with real traction with the case of Warren County, North Carolina in 1982.

Residents of Warren County, North Carolina enlisted the support of the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice (CRJ) to engage in a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience

A 1987 study written by Charles Lee, the Rev. Benjamin Chavis, CRJ Executive Director, referred to intentionally selecting communities of color for wastes disposal sites and polluting industrial facilities – essentially condemning them to contamination – as “environmental racism.” He called on the UCC to be a champion working for environmental justice across the nation and across the world.

Reverend Benjamin Chavis, former head of the NAACP, is credited with coining the term "environmental racism" while executive director of the UCC's Center for Racial Justice (CRJ).

Environmental Racism is seen across the whole United States. Three out of five African Americans and/or Hispanics live in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites.

23.1 % of those who live within one kilometer of a hazardous waste facility are Latino. Yet, only 7.8 % of those who live beyond those five kilometers are Hispanic.

1991 Environmental Protection Agency Report: found America's communities faced serious environmental problems:

Lethargic federal clean-up efforts left 88% of the worst 1,200 toxic waste sites and their communities polluted after 12 years of federal efforts. Nearly 40,000 urban industrial sites sat abandoned with no federal strategy to redevelop them. Sixty-two million people lived in areas with drinking water below federal standards; nearly 157 million people — 62% of the country — breathed air that failed to meet federal standards.

President Bill Clinton issued an executive order to avoid this discrimination in the future, but did not require any action or compensation for existing toxic facility placement.

On the West Coast of America, the Latino community of Lane County in Eugene, Oregon are among those suffering from the effects and repercussions of environmental injustice.

The city of Eugene sits along the Willamette River in a beautiful valley. The area around what became Eugene was inhabited for several centuries by Kalapuya Indians. Settled by Eugene Skinner in 1846, the city was laid out on Willamette bottomland. The arrival of the Oregon and California (now Southern Pacific) Railroad in 1871 stimulated Eugene's growth as an agricultural and lumber center.

History of Mexican/Latinos in Oregon

The development of commercial agricultural production in the Northwest facilitated by the completion of the northern transcontinental railroad and the development of public and private irrigation works were instrumental in furthering farm production.

The fertile Willamette Valley in Oregon and the Puyallup and Skagit valleys in Washington as well as the tablelands of eastern Washington and Oregon were able to produce a rich abundance of specialty crops including a wide range of fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, grapes, sugar beets, onions, hops, wheat, and many other crops. All of these crops, however, required an extensive—usually seasonal—labor supply in regions that were often sparsely populated.

The need for labor led Oregon growers to recruit Mexican laborers away from the Southwest and from Mexico to work on area farms.

By 1910, Oregon ranked seventh among states outside the Southwest with Mexican-born residents.

The Latino Community of Eugene

Latinos play a vital role in Oregon’s economy. The modern agricultural industry could not subsist without them. The timber industry, already beleaguered, would be crippled as well. Latinos serve in every sector of the economy, as school superintendents and sheriffs, college professors and county commissioners, physicians and photojournalists, and more.

Do we have Environmental Injustice in Eugene?

Research conducted by Beyond Toxics and Centro Latino Americano shows that West Eugene (sections of Bethel, Trainsong, and RiverRoad neighborhoods) is an environmental justice community. When compared to other Eugene neighborhoods, residents in West Eugene have:

Disproportionate exposure to air toxics
Higher percentage of poverty/low income
Higher percentage of minority residents
Unacceptably high rates of self-reported childhood asthma, often an indicator of an environmental justice community
Less access to educational materials and public decision-making processes.

According to an environmental justice neighborhood canvass conducted in 2010 by Beyond Toxics and Centro, LatinoAmericano residents of West Eugene believe they are disproportionately exposed to contaminated air pollution from nearby energy generation, chemical processing, manufacturing and wood products industries, traffic, and idling trains

Examples of top chemicals emitted from industrial point sources include toluene, naptha solvents, ammonia, acetone, ethylbenzene, sodium hydroxide and methanol.

Pollutants also include the five criteria air pollutants: particle pollution (often referred to as particulate matter), ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, and nitrogen oxides. Heavy metals, such as lead and chromium, are also emitted into the air.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed that these chemicals can pollute local air and are associated with a variety of health risks such as asthma, cardiovascular disease and cancer

The impact of industrial chemicals on community health is born out in the results of Beyond Toxics 2010 environmental health survey: over 60% of the residents who participated in the West Eugene survey reported significant concern about asthma and cardiovascular disease, as well as increased incidence of allergies, headaches and fatigue.

The health risks that result from environmental injustice and disporportionate exposure to toxic air pollution can be seen across all ages and genders of the Latino community in West Eugene. For this presentation, I will be focusing specifically on students in the local education system as indicative of the whole community.

Higher Percentage of Minority Enrollment in the Bethel (West Eugene) School District 2010-2011:

The purple circle encompasses what is considered to be part of West Eugene. Each blue shown on the map represents one of the schools mentioned in the data chart above.

Disproportionately located

Schools in West Eugene are disproportionately located near major sources of industrial polluters.

Many of the point sources of industrial pollution are located at close proximity to each other along the industrial corridor and therefore air pollutants tend to accumulate within the surrounding neighborhoods. That being said, residents are exposed to overlapping and cumulative air pollution zones.

Five schools in the Bethel school district are within 2 miles of nine or more industrial sources of air toxics. (See table to right). The Eugene School District has far fewer schools within a mile of an industrial air pollution source.

Looking more specifically at Fairfield Elementary in the Bethel School District, Fairfield has an enrollment of 280 students. The school is surrounded by at least 14 industries within a two mile radius and 11 within a one mile radius. Serving as a bilingual education center, Fairfield School also has the highest enrollment of Latino children and the highest self-reported asthma rate for an elementary school.

Most of the chemicals released from these major industrial sources are detrimental to health and environment. The people who live in these communities are forced to adapt to a toxic environment and therefore suffer a significant reduction in quality of life. According to the Eugene TRK reporting program, 99% of the air toxic emissions in the city limits are located in West Eugene.

JH Baxter Wood Products Factory located in West Eugene

JH Baxter is a chemical and wood treatment facility that makes creosote-infused telephone poles and railroad ties. The chemical treatment process extends the life of wood for use in bridges, utility poles, and other structures. Noxious fumes have been led to thousands of neighborhood complaints.

The Lane Regional Air Protection Agency in 2004 logged more than 700 complaints from 100 households near the plant alleging that fumes from the company’s chemical applications were making them sick. DEQ also noted arsenic in soil on the property and pentachlorophenol spreading in the aquifer under the neighborhood.

The latest EPA Toxics Release Inventory reported annual releases of 37,000 pounds of air toxics, primarily ammonia and creosote.

The nearest school is Fairfield Elementary School, just 0.6 miles away.

West Eugene Clean Air Meeting

Higher percentage of poverty/ low income

Income is distributed less equitably among US Latinos than among non-Hispanic whites. One way to see the economic divide between non-white Hispanics and Latinos is through the free-lunch program statistics.

Economic Indicators:

To better localize poverty rates, one option is to track the share of students enrolled in the free or reduced-price school lunch program, by school and race/ethnicity, to the best extent possible.

Socio-economic, disease, and school location data was viewed through a statistical analysis performed out by Eric Coker, and volunteer for Beyond Toxics and Ph.D. candidate at Oregon State University in the School of Public Health.

According to the multiple linear regression model, for every 1% increase in lunch school program prevalence there is an increase of 0.115% in the prevalence of asthma. For instance, if there is a 10% increase in the prevalence of school lunch programs, there is an increase of 1.15% in the prevalence of asthma among the student population

Fairfield students are 107% more likely to have asthma compared to Irving students, and this increased likelihood is statistically significant. This would indicate that lower socioeconomic status increases a student’s risk of having asthma, which is consistent with the scientific literature. The scientific literature tells us that children from lower-income families have a higher likelihood of having asthma compared to children from wealthier families, regardless of race or ethnicity.

Percentage of Students on Lunch Program vs. Percentage of Students with Asthma

All charts provided by Beyond Toxics

Comparing Elementary Schools and Students on Lunch Program

Industry Sites and Self-Reported

Amongst all Bethel School District Schools

Health Concerns

Percentage of Students with Self Reported Asthma per school in Bethel and Eugene school districts

Data collected by Centro Latino Americano showed asthma prevalence in all Eugene schools was 8.6%, 10.9%, and 10.7% in children enrolled in elementary, middle and high schools, respectively. However, a comparison by school district and by zip code showed that the children in the 97402 zip code (within the Bethel School District in West Eugene) had significantly higher asthma prevalence compared to children enrolled in the other five zip codes combined (14.3% vs. 8.1%). This trend was observed in elementary school students (10.9% vs. 7.6%) and middle/high school students (18.5% vs. 8.5%).

Health Effects Associated with Top 6 Chemicals Emitted by Industries in West Eugene

01 / 06

1. Acetone

Exposure can cause dizziness and sleepiness. Dryness, irritation, and inflammation of the skin can also occur.

2. Ammonia

Repeated exposure may lead to chronic irritation of the respiratory tract. Cough, asthma, lung fibrosis, chronic eye and skin irritation, and breathing difficulty on exertion are symptoms of repeated exposures. Headache and drowsiness also have been reported

Creosote

Probable carcinogen in humans; some evidence that it causes skin cancer; contains many of the same compounds present in other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) mixtures known to be human carcinogens. Creosote is a neurotoxicant. Breathing creosote vapors may cause a burning in the mouth/throat and stomach pain. Long-term exposure to creosote and creosote-charged smoke can cause difficulty in breathing & asthma.

Formaldehyde

Respiratory symptoms and eye, nose, and throat irritation. Epidemiological studies have shown formaldehyde exposure to be significantly associated with cancer at sites in the respiratory tract in workers and in the general population.

Manganese

Primary effects are on the nervous system. Chronic exposure may result in manganism which typically begins with feelings of weakness and lethargy and progresses to other symptoms such as gait disturbances, clumsiness, tremors, speech disturbances, a mask-like facial expression, and psychological disturbances.

Methanol

Chronic inhalation or oral exposure to methanol may result in headache, dizziness, giddiness, insomnia, nausea, gastric disturbances, blurred vision) in humans. Exposure to a mixture of methanol and other solvents has been associated with central nervous system birth defects in humans.

So What Now?

February 2018: EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment Concludes:

People of color are more likely to live near polluters and to breathe polluted air.

"Results at national, state, and county scales all indicate that non-Whites tend to be burdened disproportionately to Whites." -EPA National Center

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969:

The National Environmental Policy Act is one of the most important national environmental policies of the 20th century that holds federal agencies accountable in considering the environmental impacts of their actions and decisions.

Under Section 101 it states that it is the continuing responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means to assure all Americans are safe, healthful, productive, and aesthetically and culturally pleased with their surroundings.

Environmental Health and Equity

The City of Eugene Human Rights Commission and Sustainability Commission are participating in discussions to ensure that the City’s "Triple-Bottom-Line Assessment Tool" will better incorporate environmental justice concerns into city planning and management.

Environmental Justice Training:

Local and regional agencies and groups are in full support of hosting a workshop on Environmental Justice Training for city staff, followed by discussions on practical implementations into city policy. The Oregon Environmental Justice Task Force has expressed a willingness to play a role in providing these trainings.

COVID-19, which is killing Black Americans at twice the rate of their white counterparts in large part because of environmental issues like pollution-caused asthma and heart disease, has only advanced the urgency for climate backers.

Democratic Leadership

Future President Biden has spoken about racial disparities as a top concern for climate policy and appointed longtime environmental-justice leaders like Martinez to help. He framed the climate plank of his platform during the primary campaign, a $1.7 trillion spending proposal, as a plan for a “clean-energy revolution and environmental justice.” (New York Times)

Representative Donald McEachin, a Virginia Democrat, described his proposed Environmental Justice for All Act as a collection of solutions–from amending the Civil Rights Act to allow people who face disproportionate pollution to sue, to requiring federal employees to receive environmental-justice training, suggested by those affected by environmental injustice.

In late June, the House Committee on the Climate Crisis, formed in early 2019 by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, released a 500+ page report outlining a path forward on climate change. The opening of the report references the police killing of George Floyd, and the document incorporates a slew of policies to address environmental racism from the Environmental Justice for All Act.