12 Articles

Saturday, October 24, 2009
Poisoned Communities Put Spotlight on EPA Region 4
On Tuesday morning at 10:30am, October 27, environmental justice leaders representing more than dozen poisoned communities from six southern states will meet in Atlanta with EPA Regional acting administrator A. Stanley Meiberg and senior staff to present documentation of unequal protection and failures on the part of the EPA and state environmental agencies to protect low-income and people of color communities.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009
New York Times Study Points to Failed EPA Regional Model
The recent New York Times headline “Toxic Waters - Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering” is clear evidence that the traditional enforcement role of U.S. EPA ten regions has been a dismal failure. Today, ten percent of Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals. Fundamental change is needed in the regions to protect public health and the environment.

Thursday, September 3, 2009
Time for New Type of EPA Regional Administrators
President Barack Obama made a bold move this year by selecting Lisa P. Jackson to head the EPA. Now he is set to select EPA regional administrators—ten important and powerful posts where fundamental change is needed, especially in regions where states have a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and resistance to civil rights and equal environmental protection under the law.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Sept. 5 Labor Day “Call to End Toxic Racism” Rally in Dickson, Tennessee
To highlight the continuing toxic dumping problem in Black communities, national civil rights, faith based, and environmental justice leaders from around the country are planning a rally in Dickson, Tennessee on Saturday, September 5, 2009. Dickson is located about 35 miles west of Nashville. The Holt family's 150-acre farm and wells were poisoned and their wealth stolen by the leaky Dickson County Landfill.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Dumping in Dixie: TVA Toxic Spill Cleaned Up and Shipped to Alabama Blackbelt
(1 comments) A major environmental injustice was perpetrated recently by the federal EPA's approval of plans to ship 3 million cubic yards of toxic coal fly ash from ostly white East Tennessee to a landfill in Perry County, Alabama, the heart of the Alabama "Black Belt." Millions of Americans have expectations that the Obama administration will change this unjust and immoral "Dumping in Dixie" waste disposal pattern.

Sunday, July 5, 2009
Environmental Justice Leaders Call on Obama Administration to Roll Back Bush-Era Wastes Rule
Environmental justice leaders are calling on the Obama administration to withdraw a rule finalized during the waning days of the Bush administration to revise the definition of solid waste. Under the new rule, unlicensed and barely supervised companies will handle hazardous industrial wastes,some of which are highly flammable, explosive and corrosive, that contain chemicals known to cause cancer and other health problems.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Dr. King's Legacy Four Decades After His Death in Memphis
This April 4th marks the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. Dr. King was called to the city in 1968 on behalf of striking garbage. Although Memphis was Dr. King's last campaign, his legacy lives on today in contemporary struggles to make African American and other communities of color healthier, greener, safer, more sustainable and more just.

Saturday, November 24, 2007
Toxics Tour Planned to Highlight Environmental Racism
On Thursday, November 29, a coalition of national leaders from around the country will meet at Nashville's Fisk University and board a bus for Dickson, Tennessee, a small town located about 35 miles to the west. The leaders will participate in the "Take Back Black Health Toxics Tour" of the Harry Holt family homestead that was poisoned by toxic racism and the deadly TCE contamination from the Dickson County Landfill.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007
EPA Urged to Strengthen Ozone Standards to Protect the Most Vulnerable
Air pollution threatens the health of millions of Americans, especially those who live in urban areas. EPA's current ozone standard is not adequate to protect human health. The agency should come clean and set tougher new ozone standards at the lowest level to protect the most vulnerable in our society, including children and the elderly.

Saturday, July 14, 2007
Groups Seek NAACP Help in "Burying" Toxic Racism
Representatives from the National Black Environmental Justice Network traveled to Detroit as part of a delegation calling on NAACP leaders attending the 2007 convention to take on environmental racism as a national campaign. The group conducted a "toxics tour" that took delegates past chemical plants, steel mills, automotive factories, abandoned industrial sites, and waste incinerators.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Burning Deadly Military Waste in Blacks Backyard
The incineration of the deadly nerve agent VX waste water in Port Arthur, Texas typifies the environmental justice challenges facing African Americans and other people of color communities detailed in the new "Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty" report, released in March 2007. More than 1.8 million gallons of caustic VX hydrolysate waste water will be incinerated near the mostly black Carver Terrace housing project.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007
More Minorities Near Polluting Facilities Than Twenty Years Ago
A new study shows that people of color make up the majority of those living within spitting distance of the nation's commercial hazardous waste facilities.