Resilience In Mossville

On chapter 1 Melissa Checker’s “Polluted Promises”. She focusses on the research of Hyde Park, Georgia, and the tenacious activism of its two hundred African American people, how the community was struggling for environmental justice through mobilization and grassroots movements. The Residents are suffering with concerns in their community. She wants to know how environment movement organization has damage African and Urban activist. This community is at one time surrounded by nine polluting industries. The community was struggling to have their voice heard again and also to make their community safe. She also argues on how the Hyde Park stands for many other African American and other poor and minority communities. Hyde Park shows the post-civil

The African American community, in contrast to the rest of Norco and Louisiana, is historically afflicted with higher rates of cancer and asthma related deaths (Margie 01:19:29:20 ), and more prone to birth defects (Wilma Subra 01:18:09:03 ). Closely related and contrastingly to this, the white community of Norco tends to have longer lifespans, and are apparently less affected by cancer and asthma (Sal 01:21:11:29 ). The film directly compares these two perspectives, layering them side by side chronologically. The film uses this comparison as evidence that the African American community’s close proximity to the Shell refinery is an environmental determinant to health. Furthermore, that geographic location and environment are factors directly affecting health.

I searched high and low to find a social situation that is important not only to my family but to my community. Areas like politics, and religion are a large aspect of my family but I decided to go in a different direction and speak on behalf of the environmental issues that plague my community, but one federal program in particular; the superfund program. In this essay I will present

The homes in the area were built very close to an old canal that had been used a landfill for hazardous waste. Over time the hazardous waste leached into the surrounding soil and city water, causing birth defects, death of pets, and injuries to those in contact with the soil and water. With that, the Superfund legislation was created. “Mr. Carter asked Congress for legislation that would establish a $1.6 billion fund to enable the Government to respond to the Love Canal and similar hazards, and that the financial burden should fall on those chiefly responsible for generating toxic

Love Canal, a Niagra Falls, New York neighborhood, drew headline attention after newspaper sources revealed that the land had been used to bury excessive amounts of toxic waste, in the form of lye and chlorinated limestone by the landowners, Hooker Chemical Company, in the 1920s.

Many minorities’ communities and low income communities in the United States have an unequal distribution of toxic contamination, either by the release of hazardous chemicals on their neighborhood or by allocating waste management facilities. This is an outcome that the landmark 1987 United Church of Christ (UCC) report on toxic waste and race claimed was not the result of mere coincidence. Evidence of disproportionate economic impact from environmental mismanagement, as well as through the regulatory response to air pollution, was already considered a decade earlier by geographers and economists, though without the suggestion of discriminatory intent (e.g., Berry, et. al., 1977; and Harrison, 1975). Ultimately, the conclusion was that race

The complex issues surrounding the Agriculture Street Landfill are part of a much larger story about environmental justice and public housing that, while an entrenched part of the city’s history, came to the forefront post-Katrina. According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., “a powerfully discriminatory tendency in planning is for environmentally vulnerable low-income neighborhoods to be deemed disposable, whereas equally vulnerable high-income neighborhoods are deemed indispensable because they are more valuable (Morse 2008).” Nowhere has this been more evident than in these poor, black New Orleans neighborhoods, historically dominated by public housing.

In other words: That the community’s children could be sickened, and their grandchildren too” (Greene, “From Homemaker to Hell-raiser in Love Canal”). At this point the community members were furious, and Gibbs and a few other community members, held two EPA officers captive to get President Carter’s attention, and it worked (Greene, “From Homemaker to Hell-raiser in Love Canal”)! In May 1980, President Carter “issued an emergency disaster declaration” and agreed to relocate all of the families in the areas that surrounded the Love Canal temporarily. President visited October 1, 1980, enforce a permanent relocation process for the families affected by the Love Canal Tragedy (Greene, "From Homemaker to Hell-raiser in Love Canal). However, the president’s speech to the community did not impress Mrs. Gibbs and the other members of the Homeowners Association. The interest rates on houses had risen a large percentage that the “homeowners worried they’d be underwater in their new homes” (Greene, "From Homemaker to Hell-raiser in Love Canal). Gibbs made her way to President Carter on stage and voiced her concerns to the president. He in turned explained to her about the EPA’s newly created Superfund Program for the Love Canal. In the Superfund Program, the EPA proposed

While the flurry of cases caused a bottleneck effect in the midst of the Judicial system, a turning point was still present within the American government. This idea being reinforced by the EPA 's Deputy Administrator at the time of Love Canal, Barbara Blum, who stated the suits should serve notice to those who generate or handle hazardous pollutants?, that dangers no longer will be tolerated by the American public and the day of discarding hazardous materials indiscriminately and haphazardly is over (E.P.A). While action was swiftly taken in order to address the change that pollution would be dealt with, it was not until fourteen years later that a final decision

Krajicek, David J. "ENVIRONMENT 7 Toxic Assaults on Communities of Color Besides Flint: The Dirty Racial Politics of Pollution." alternet.org, 23 Jan. 2016, www.alternet.org/environment/7-toxic-assaults-communities-color-besides-flint-dirty-racial-politics-pollution.

It shows the fundamental socio-political factors that calculate which group of people get exposed to the hazardous man made environmental pollutants. Pellow uses a combination of ethnographic and historical research to show that it is not an accident or a coincidence that garbage automatically finds its way to regions inhabited by African Americans, Hispanics, immigrants and other defenseless communities. The book, thus, addresses with what the author calls, environmental racism; The book also shares the stories of people who have to struggle with these environmental problems and their search for environmental

Emelle, Alabama not only holds one of the biggest commercial hazardous-waste landfill in America, but African-Americans make up 90% of the population of the town. A Choctaw Native American reservation in Philadelphia, Mississippi holds a 466-acre hazardous landfill (Wright 532). These statistics have revealed the sensitive boundary between racial and social classes. Specific human factors have driven the need for change in environmental practices, such as growing human population, increased natural resource consumption, and the effluent discharges of manufacturing. This situation has resulted in a significant negative impact on world ecosystems (Dietz, Ostrom, and Stern 1907). What ties both of these critical concerns

Environmental disasters are often pushed into regions with a higher rate of marginalized groups; relating to class, gender, and race. The dangerous environmental issues that these groups face hinder their process in the fight for equality, oppressing them and hurting the environment even more. Areas with a higher black population are forced into poverty for various reasons that

It is important that achieving environmental justice becomes an aim that is universal. This is because minorities and those with a lower socioeconomic status bear the burden of environmental hazards. Environmental hazards can impact the quality of the air, water, and land. Exposure to these environmental hazards can occur through inhalation, ingestion, and absorption. Thus adverse health outcomes may result. Because minorities and those of a lower socioeconomic status typically bear the burden of environmental hazards, they are at an increased risk of adverse health outcomes. This is especially harmful to vulnerable populations including children and the elderly. This is seen in the environmental justice case, Maynas Carijana vs.

One of the worse natural disasters to ever impact the Earth was undoubtedly Hurricane Katrina. It impacted New Orleans causing many casualties. This lead to psychological pain as the city tried to regain its prior image. Also, leading to environmental racism, which is a form of discrimination against minority groups and individuals from less unfortunate countries who are exposed to environmental hazards (Ravelli & Webber, 2013). Individuals in New Orleans had been endangered to discrimination due to being left in areas exposed to disasters. Furthermore, how New Orleans coped with the situation, comes from Bullard’s ideas of ecological righteousness, changing the burden of proof to polluters also equalizing current inequalities. The city faced