Chemicals

PART I: ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Introduction

Chemicals

Land Use

Rural Environmental Justice: Summary

Solutions

A Brief History of Environmental Justice

Examples

Resources

PART II: HOW CAN RESEARCH HELP?

Participatory Research and Environmental Justice



Microsite Credits

Rural and urban communities share a common environment, and the linkages between industrial contamination and rural health issues are becoming apparent. One clue has been the presence of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including dioxins and other chemicals that bioaccumulate in animal fat and travel through the food chain. These substances have been found in the bodies of arctic fish and caribou, and in mothers milk among Native populations in Canada and in the United States in the Great Lakes region. Native people in Prince William Sound have stopped eating traditional foods because of an oil spill in the area. This impacts not only our physical well-being but our emotional and spiritual lives as well, said Patricia Cochran, director of the Alaska Native Science Commission, a group funded by the National Science Foundation to help incorporate traditional knowledge into scientific research. According to Cochran, Natives from every region of Alaska have been noticing more tumors, lesions, spots and sores on land and sea animals. Their concerns are being documented in a multi-year report funded by the US EPA, compiled by the Alaska Native Science Commission, and entitled the Traditional Knowledge and Contaminant Project. The persistence of these organic pollutants impacts all hunting and fishing populations, including non-Native tourist groups and commercial harvesters, as well as rural farmers and any individuals that gather herbs or wild foods for either consumption or crafts.

Chemical contamination also begins in rural areas through abandoned mine and mill site pollution discharges, illegal toxic dumping, herbicide and pesticide spraying, brownfields, and inadequate water treatment. In the Pacific Northwest, populations that stand to be particularly affected include Latino farmworkers, brush harvesters, and forest workers, Native Americans, and Southeast Asian mushroom harvesters. Through a range of participatory research projects, and by granting small amounts of funds that groups can then leverage for greater support, the Pacific West Community Forestry Center works to help these communities identify and access the information they need to participate in the decisions that affect them. Inadequate attention to rural pollution by distant agencies, lack of information to the local population, and traditional rural lifestyles that include close contact with natural resources through ranching, fishing, hunting, gathering, farm labor, family forestry, family farming, and wild foods and crafts subsistence are particularly vulnerable to pollution. Future interventions will require:

• quantitative research into the location, frequency, and discharge of toxic sites, air and water quality measurements, and health surveys
• qualitative work in community organizing, linking with urban organizations and/or regional networks familiar with the types of discrimination (towards disempowered or dispersed affected communities), and the channels to achieving environmental remediation.