{"id":17972,"date":"2016-01-31T15:22:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-31T22:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/?p=17972"},"modified":"2016-02-09T01:29:13","modified_gmt":"2016-02-09T08:29:13","slug":"as-in-flint-sheltons-poor-you-get-polluted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/as-in-flint-sheltons-poor-you-get-polluted\/","title":{"rendered":"As in Flint, Shelton’s poor (you) get Polluted"},"content":{"rendered":"

That’s right, Shelton’s mayor wants you to eat, drink, and breath sh*t!
\n(See: Shelton sued for turning blind eye to Dioxin contamination<\/a>)<\/h3>\n

Shelton may be the cancer capital of Washington State, but Mayor Cronce hasn’t noticed.<\/p>\n

\"\"

In this Jan. 21, 2016 photo, the Flint River is shown near downtown Flint, Mich. Flint\u2019s water became contaminated with lead when the city switched from the Detroit municipal system and began drawing from the Flint River in April 2014 to save the financially struggling city a relatively trivial sum of money.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0See:\u00a0<\/em>Coverage by King 5 & documentation of Shelton officials dissembling<\/a><\/p>\n

by Chris Mooney<\/em><\/p>\n

As\u00a0national attention focuses on Flint, Mich.<\/a> \u2014 where lead-contaminated water flowed for over a year to a\u00a0relatively poor, minority community<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 new research suggests\u00a0that across the U.S., communities like these are more likely to be exposed to\u00a0some of the most intense\u00a0pollution.<\/p>\n

In a new paper\u00a0just out<\/a>\u00a0in the open-access journal Environmental Research Letters, sociologist Mary Collins of the State University of New York\u00a0College of Environmental Science and Forestry and two colleagues from the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center and the University of Maryland examined what they term \u201chyper-polluters\u201d: Industrial facilities that, based on EPA data, generate disproportionately large amounts of air pollution. Then, they cross-referenced the location of these facilities with socio-demographic data from the 2000 census.<\/p>\n

The result? \u201cWe find striking evidence that extreme emitters are likely impacting EJ [environmental justice] communities even more significantly than typical EJ scholarship might predict,\u201d the study said.<\/p>\n

The study adds to a\u00a0body of evidence<\/a>\u00a0showing that the U.S. continues to struggle when it comes to \u201cenvironmental justice,\u201d a concept advanced by advocates and researchers to describe the reality that poor and minority communities tend to have disproportionate exposures to environmental hazards.<\/p>\n

[How cases like Flint destroy public trust in science<\/a>]<\/i><\/p>\n

The industrial emissions examined in the new study were reported by close to 16,000 industrial facilities in the continental U.S. as part of the EPA\u2019s toxics release inventory program. The facilities were across a variety of sectors, ranging from mining to manufacturing, according to Collins. They did not include large power plants.<\/p>\n

Examining this EPA data, the study found a significant disparity\u00a0when it comes to how much different facilities pollute. \u201c90% of toxic concentration present in the study area is generated by only 809 (about 5%) of facilities,\u201d the paper reported.<\/p>\n

But what was particularly striking was cross-referencing this information with socio-economic data on the people living around the facilities, based on a nationally representative sampling of Census information. The highest polluting facilities were also more likely to be located in proximity to poor and minority neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s certainly not news that minority and low income communities face more than what some would say is their fair share of pollution from industrial sources,\u201d says Collins. \u201cWe found that actually, the burden they face from these superpolluters was even more extreme than you would think.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work is an advance in the environmental justice field, using big data approaches to underscore a familiar conclusion in a new way,\u00a0says\u00a0Andrew Jorgenson, an environmental sociology professor at Boston College\u00a0who was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe substantive argument is something that\u2019s been around a long time, but this is a very sort of sophisticated, methodologically rigorous, and far reaching analysis that provides some generalizable analysis of this occurring across different regions,\u201d Jorgenson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis study is different because it\u2019s looking at the largest polluters, and really focusing in on sort of the most egregious releases of chemical pollution,\u201d says Sacoby Wilson, an environmental health professor at\u00a0the University of Maryland-College Park who was familiar with the study. \u201cAnd so what it basically is saying is, you don\u2019t have to look at all the different facilities, if you just look at the superpolluters, the ones that release the most chemical emissions, we see that those facilities are also located in communities of color and poor communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson said that because of this, the new research could help EPA engage in targeted, voluntary programs to help these facilities lessen their emissions, and get a bigger impact than might happen by trying to work industry-wide or nationwide.<\/p>\n

The immediate problem in Flint wasn\u2019t about air pollution of the type involved in this study. Rather, it turned on a decision to switch the city\u2019s water supply from Detroit\u2019s to the Flint River to reduce costs. Still, it\u2019s relevant, say Wilson and Jorgenson. \u201cFlint falls into this broad category, a community that is sort of structurally disadvantaged,\u201d Jorgenson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what you see in Flint is really going to raise attention around environmental justice issues around the country, and also how you have these other environmental justice disasters that are looming out there,\u201d adds Wilson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s right, Shelton’s mayor wants you to eat, drink, and breath sh*t! (See: Shelton sued for turning blind eye to Dioxin contamination) Shelton may be the cancer capital of Washington State, but Mayor Cronce hasn’t noticed. \u00a0See:\u00a0Coverage by King 5 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17972"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17982,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17972\/revisions\/17982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}