What is Environmental Justice?
Environmental justice is the “fair treatment of people of all races, income, and cultures with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies, and their meaningful involvement in the decision-making processes of the government.”[1] The first environmental justice cases were brought in 1979 in Texas and in 1982 in North Carolina. In 1979, residents of Northwood Manor in East Houston alleged that the decision to place a garbage dump in their neighborhood was racially motivated in violation of their civil rights under § 1983 of the Civil Rights Act.[2] The district court in Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management Corporation found that the placement of the dump would irreparably harm the community. The court specifically found that the landfill would “affect the entire nature of the community, its land values, its tax base, its aesthetics, the health and safety of its inhabitants, and the operation of Smiley High School, located only 1700 feet from the site.”[3] Unable to establish intentional discrimination with sufficiently particularized statistical data showing a pattern or practice of placing waste facilities in communities of color, and unable to provide the court sufficiently detailed factual information on the siting decision, the residents were not granted relief and the plant was built.[4] The case, however, launched the use of the courts as a tool for the new movement and highlighted the need for data collection and access to information by communities challenging environmental decisions.
