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Environmental Justice in |
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Environmental Justice
Washington State
In 1994,
the Department of Ecology was appropriated $29,000 to conduct a study on Environmental
Equity in Washington State.
The study addressed the distribution of environmental facilities in
relation to communities of low-income and/or communities of color to see if
in fact there are disproportionate distributions of environmental facilities
relative to low-income and minority communities. According
to the study, environmental facilities were contaminated sites; businesses or
public entities that generated regulated hazardous wastes, or; solid waste
landfills and incinerators. The types
of facilities in the study included: contaminated sites, hazardous waste
treatment, storage, or disposal facilities, major (high-volume) waste water
releases, major (high-volume) air releases, solid waste landfills, solid
waste incinerators, and toxic waste inventory reporters. (DOE, 1995) Table 1:
Relationship of Facilities and Toxic Releases to Block Group Demographics
Washington State Totals
(Source: A Study on Environmental Equity
in Washington State, DOE, 1995, 11) *Columns are non-additive; only data in
the Non Minority/Non Low-Income column are exclusive. **Although
some individual facilities fall into more than one category type, the values
in this row are non-duplicative. The
distribution of environmental facilities relative to demographics statewide
showed that minority block groups, which make up 33% of all block groups,
house 36% of the facilities.
Low-income block groups house a disproportionately high amount of
facilities. They encompass 39% of the
state’s block groups and house 47% of the state’s environmental
facilities. Block groups containing
both low-income and minorities include 21% of the population and have 24% of
the facilities in Washington, a disproportionately low amount. In the top 8 counties by number of block
groups, 6, King, Pierce, Spokane, Clark, Yakima, and Thurston, have
disproportionately high percentages of environmental facilities. Table 2: Summary of State’s Facility/Block Group Analysis
(Source: A Study on Environmental Equity
in Washington State, DOE, 1995, 12) Data
suggests that the distribution of facilities and toxic releases are not
proportional to Washington’s demographics.
A greater proportion of facilities exist in low-income block groups
statewide, while a proportionally smaller numbers of facilities are in
non-minority/non-low-income block groups.
TRI data shows that the greatest disproportions are between minority
block groups and block groups that are both minority and low-income. Pierce,
Spokane, Clark, and Thurston counties all had at least 15-percentage point
disproportionately high value of facility distributions within their
low-income block groups. Pierce,
Spokane, Clark, and Yakima counties all had at least 30 percentage point
disproportionately high values of TRI releases within their low-income block
groups. Minority block groups in
Snohomish and Yakima counties had over a 45-percentage point disproportionately
high value. The state’s largest county by number of block groups is King
County. It contains the largest
number of facilities (24%) and the second largest number of TRI releases
(14%). (DOE, 1995) The study
concluded that environmental equity is a local issue and that study
results are limited because they are derived from state and county data. The statewide data tend to average out
local problem areas. Since the
study’s publication in 1995, the Department of Ecology has dedicated 1
full-time employee to environmental justice issues. The State
Board of Health identified environmental justice as a top priority for
2000-2001, seeking connections between the disproportionate burden of
environmental pollution and adverse health outcomes. In the 2001 Final Report State Board of Health Priority: Environmental Justice, the
Committee on Environmental Justice found that in Washington State, minorities
have higher rates of HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, tuberculosis, cancer,
diabetes, and asthma (DOH, 2001).
Disparities affecting minorities are observed in 18 of 24 diseases in
the 1996 Department of Health Report, “Health of Washington State”. African-Americans have a disproportionate
burden of disease for 18 conditions, Native Americans, 16 conditions,
Hispanics, 11, and Asians, 3 (p. 16).
Low-income minority communities have a number of variables such as
poverty, nutrition, and poor access to health care, that contribute to higher
morbidity and mortality rates, but according to the Health Department, there
are methods to evaluate environmental contributions to health status (DOH,
2001). |
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Contact the researcher at: ambrown2@u.washington.edu |