Call to Action: End environmental racism now

New bill would help clean up legacy pollution which disproportionately harms Black, Indigenous, and Latinx children & communities.

Pollution is not evenly distributed in the United States. Communities of color, indigenous communities, and low-income communities are significantly more likely to live and work in areas poisoned with toxins, suffocated by air pollution, and choked with undrinkable water. In 2018, five EPA scientists published a paper showing that African Americans are 54% more likely to live in areas of heavy air pollution, and poor communities are 35% more likely.[1]

On top of this, three out of five Black Americans live in close proximity to toxic waste sites [2], leading to higher rates of cancer, greater likelihoods of birth defects and autism, and countless other avoidable illnesses.[3] Adding insult to injury, many environmental justice communities lack the basic resources most Americans take for granted: one in eight Native Americans lacks reliable access to water,[4] and Black families are twice as likely as white families to live without modern plumbing.[5]

Senator Cory Booker has just introduced a new bill that would help clean up legacy pollution and limit new sources of pollution disproportionately affecting these communities.


Air pollution, especially PM 2.5, is compounding environmental racism

PM 2.5 refers to particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers and smaller. Because they are so small, PM 2.5 particles can get through the lungs’ defense systems, making PM 2.5 one of the most dangerous air pollutants for human health. Exposure to PM 2.5 can cause a host of health problems, including asthma, heart disease, decreased lung function, heart attacks, and premature death.[6] Lifetime exposure also leaves people, especially children, more vulnerable to respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19.[7,8] Communities of color are being poisoned by this pollution, leaving them with chronic illnesses and leading to premature death.

The current EPA threshold is 12 micrograms per cubic meter, 20% higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended limit of 10 micrograms per cubic meter. Researchers have found that PM 2.5 is harmful at any concentration, and that lowering thresholds even below 10 micrograms per cubic meter could save thousands of lives.[9,10]

PM 2.5 is just one of the environmental stresses that is compounding environmental racism. We have a lack of data on other air pollutants, as well as sewage issues, and others. Some communities are very physically experiencing the effects of these environmental stresses.


Black Americans are disproportionately burdened

Black people experience higher levels of PM 2.5 than white people within the same state

Percent of population exposed to 8 or more micrograms per cubic meter of PM 2.5, 2016-2018

Esri analysis of U.S. census tracts. Note: USA does not include Alaska (0.2 percent of the US population) as Alaska did not have PM 2.5 data.

Across the country, Black people share the disproportionate burden of PM 2.5 air pollution. Black Americans are three times more likely to die prematurely from exposure to fine particulate matter air pollution.[11]

Overall, air pollution in the United States has decreased dramatically. The percentage of the population exposed to PM 2.5 levels higher than the EPA's threshold of 12 micrograms per cubic meter decreased from 62.8% in 2000 to only 0.23% in 2016. Despite a growing body of evidence of deleterious health effects from levels below 12 micrograms per cubic meter, the EPA has not lowered this threshold.

Nationally, the average tract-level PM 2.5 concentration is 8 micrograms per cubic meter. From 2010 to 2016 inequalities in exposure to PM 2.5 levels above 8 micrograms per cubic meter across racial/ethnic groups by a factor of 1.6. The inequalities by income groups increased substantially more, by a factor of 4.0.

The maps below show where there are high levels of PM 2.5, & a high percent of Black people:

Census tract-level data from 2016-2018.

Combining the two maps together allows us to really see the relationship between the two:

But for some communities, PM 2.5 isn’t the only environmental hazard which make people sick and die. The cumulative impacts of multiple toxins can have especially dire consequences for human health. Researchers have pointed to the importance of considering these cumulative impacts when making policy decisions in order to understand the full context of environmental harm.

While we focus on three communities, there are many more across the country with similar experiences. Newark, Lowndes County, and Cancer Alley are only a small portion of what is happening nation-wide.

Newark, New Jersey

A stone’s throw away from New York City, Newark has been a locus for industrial and manufacturing activity. It also has large populations of color and low-income populations compared with the rest of the state. Although New Jersey is 59% white, Newark sits at 8%. This is largely a product of white flight—as the city grew more toxic, wealthier white people were able to move, whereas poorer residents, often Black and other communities of color, did not have the luxury to do so. They were left to breathe, drink, and touch the myriad toxins spewed from the city’s industries.[12]

Click on tracts within the map to get specific values.

While Senator Booker is familiar with the situation in his home state of New Jersey, he has traveled to other parts of the country to meet with those affected by air pollution and learn from their experiences.

Many communities in Alabama are facing cumulative effects of air pollution on top of many other elements of environmental stress such as wastewater pollution. Here, Senator Booker looks at a pit of raw sewage with Catherine Flowers, an environmental justice advocate in Alabama.

Lowndes County, Alabama

Lowdnes County, AL

Environmental racism is so rampant in parts of the country that conditions resemble those of developing countries. Despite being the richest country in the world, the US has allowed swathes of southern Alabama to remain without modern plumbing and wastewater systems. In Lowndes County, Alabama, many households have no choice but to straight-pipe human feces and waste out to their backyards. Untreated, this waste ends up back in water pipes leading to kitchen sinks and bathtubs. Children often play close to where the waste is piped. As a result, this part of Alabama is the last holdout for a tropical disease previously thought to have been eradicated in the US: hookworm. A UN Rapporteur who toured the area in 2017 said he hadn’t seen conditions like these in developed countries.[13] In 2017, 34% of the residents in Lowndes County tested positive for the genetic tracers of hookworm.[14]

Click on tracts within the map to get specific values.

From Lowndes County to Africatown, Alabama is home to many communities that have endured decades of cumulative effects of environmental stress such as air pollution, toxic chemicals from factories, and poor wastewater systems.

Senator Booker meeting with residents of Lowndes County, Alabama

Louisiana's Cancer Alley

The River Parishes of southern Louisiana know pollution’s deadly effects all too well. In addition to heightened levels of particulate matter, this region is crowded with hazardous petrochemical and biochemical plants. Nationally, it is known as “Cancer Alley.” Lifetime cancer risk of cancers caused by toxic pollutants in these disproportionately Black, poor communities is up to 800 times the national average.[15]

Click on tracts within the map to get specific values.


We're working on solutions

Senator Cory Booker has seen the immense harms of legacy pollution with his own eyes—as mayor of Newark, NJ, and on his visits to Louisiana's Cancer Alley and communities in Alabama to hear residents’ painful stories. The Senator's Environmental Justice Legacy Pollution Cleanup Act of 2020 will help hundreds of environmental justice communities across the United States. We will immediately invest over $65 billion dollars to clean up legacy pollution, and would prohibit granting major source air pollution permits in communities already suffering harm from high levels of pollution.

The Environmental Justice Legacy Pollution Cleanup Act will:

  • Invest $35 billion to clean up the most dangerous toxic sites in the country, including orphaned Superfund sites, Brownfields, and former military operation sites. As we continue to tighten restrictions on pollutive industries, Congress should help states and Indian Tribes with the sites they can’t afford to clean up.
  • Invest $30 billion to help states and Tribes build and improve wastewater systems, as well as increase reliable access to water. This includes replacing lead drinking water service lines and providing grants to low-income homeowners to install or repair disposal systems and drinking water wells. Clean water is a human right; it should be a policy priority.
  • Place a moratorium on new air pollution permits in Cancer Alley and the other most polluted communities in the country, including all census tracts with PM 2.5 concentrations above 8 micrograms per cubic meter. This will make sure polluting industries can't continue to set up shop where they know their activities will kill people.


Voice your support

Contact your senators and representatives and urge them to support this bill. Look up who your representative is in the lookup app on congress.gov by typing in your address or zip code:

Alternatively, you can call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.


Senator Booker meets with residents of Lowndes County, Alabama.

Esri analysis of U.S. census tracts. Note: USA does not include Alaska (0.2 percent of the US population) as Alaska did not have PM 2.5 data.

Census tract-level data from 2016-2018.

Senator Booker meets with residents of Lowndes County, Alabama.

Click on tracts within the map to get specific values.

Click on tracts within the map to get specific values.

Senator Booker meeting with residents of Lowndes County, Alabama

Click on tracts within the map to get specific values.