Chapter 5 Process of Struggle

Grassroots environmental justice struggles build community organizations and regional networks, that at the time are only fighting for their community and the injustice that is involved in their central location. However, the key to grassroots environmental justice struggles, is how these minority groups and communities become involved in the decision making process, that directly affects their lives. All of the cases in the book show how a system has been established in which economy and politics, outweigh environment and society. It wasn't until people in small communities stood up and made a change in their area, which lead to another group organizing and making a change, which lead to all members of the system(minorities, politicians, and businesses) getting a say in decision making, that we got to an environmental justice movement. Today environmental justice is at the forefront of a system that once devalued human interests for profits and political power. By reading these precedent cases and learning how groups and organizations have made a change in the past, other communities can learn what to do in the case of an environmental hazard.

Chapter 4 Buttonwillow

The Buttonwillow case was a good example of the ongoing struggle to stop environmental racism. This case showed how a community who was once getting stepped on and was not part of the decision making that directly affects them, can come together and begin questioning the status quo and create a voice for themselves. One of the major lessons from this case was to recognize how much power large companies like Laidlaw have because of they have more economic resources than the people of the small rural communities. This case also showed that although the LAC was not able to stop the expansion of the dump it was not a complete failure because the people of Buttonwillow came together to realize and then exercise their collective power, giving the Latino's a say in what was going on.. Many people, before this struggle began, had no idea of the expansion plan let alone any say in what or what not to be implemented in their community. Through this struggle they also built new friendships, new coalitions, and have gained new skills that they will be able to use again in the next struggle.

Chapter 3 Environmental Racism

National patterns of siting waste facilities and other harmful facilities in low-income areas has given the claim for environmental racism some substance. Even here on the north shore of Lake Tahoe, we have seen how economic factors and race have played huge roles in decisions to jeopardize the environment and the residents. In Kings Beach there are sewage pipes that have broken in the past and leaked human waste into lake water. They built these sewage lines in Kings Beach because there are more low income residents and a majority hispanic demographic compared to the high-income, white majority towns that border Kings Beach on the west(Tahoe City) and Eastern side (Incline Village). Another example from Kings Beach, was when Waste Management was going to build a facility on a plot of land that is currently a wetland. The local governments saw an economic benefit from allowing thousands of pounds of garbage to be processed and moved and thought Kings Beach would not fight this idea. Luckily for our sake and the extremely fragile environment of Lake Tahoe there are people in this area that fought them off ensuring this facility was not approved, but again this provides evidence of how environmental racism can be occurring in your back yard and even in places like Lake Tahoe where the environment is so pristine, political forces and economic gains can out weigh the harms to society and the environment.

Ch. 2 The Political Economy of Environmental Racism

Chapter 2 explained how communities that become vulnerable to environmental racism tend to have a particular social, economic, and political history that leads to their situations. Chapter 2 gave an example of a small town in Pennsylvania called Chester. Chester was a small town with a population of 39,000. Though only 6.2% of Delaware County, where Chester is located, is African American 65% of Chester is African American. Chester was historically an industrial town, and today is one of the most economically depressed communities in Pennsylvania. The social conditions in Chester are also very poor, it has one of the worst school districts in the state, and crime rates are the highest in the state.

Due to its lack of jobs and poor living situations the government was looking for anything to come to Chester to provide jobs. Their desperate situation lead the Political powers in Chester to allow the area to become a toxic wasteland. Political and economic investment in waste management can explain why many decisions have been made that in turn have harmful effects on social and environmental factors. This was the case in Chester, a Republican powerhouse had control over almost all decision making in Chester and his irresponsible social responsibility eventually lead to uprise, formation of organizations, and a legal matter.

Identifying the causes of environmental hazards and reasons for neglecting potential issues, mainly economic factors or political influence, can help us to prevent profits from getting in the way of progress towards sustainable societies.