CHAPTER 1
Issues and Potential Policies and Solutions for Environmental Justice: An Overview
Bunyan Bryant
The control over research becomes manifested by who funds what and for what purposes. Why is more research money spent on nuclear power than on solar and alternative forms of energy? Why is more research money spent on large corporate agribusiness than on improving the economic efficiency of the small family farm? Why is it that more money is spent upon designing highways than mass transit systems? Through the influence of money, powerful corporate interests determine the character of scientific inquiry more so than those without money; powerful interest groups are not only in the position to define the problem to be researched, but they are in a position to benefit directly from its results—results and breakthroughs to help them gain a greater share of the market or in the accumulation of profits. If welfare mothers were given 100 million dollars to spend on university research, the political economy of inquiry would be radically different from that of government and corporate decision-makers.
While money moves upward, pollution moves downward (Odum and Odum, 1976); communities of color and low-income groups get less than their fair share of money and more of their fair share of pollutants. Communities of color and low-income groups not only get more than their fair share of pollutants (Bryant and Mohai, 1992; Bullard, 1983, 1984, 1990, 1993; Bullard and Wright, 1986, 1987a, 1987b, 1991; Burke, 1993; Gelobter, 1986; Goldman, 1991; Higgins, 1993; Lavelle and Coyle, 1992; Mohai and Bryant, 1992a, 1992b, 1992c; United Church of Christ, Commission for Racial Justice, 1987; Goldman and Fitton, 1994; Wernette and Nieves, 1991), but the working poor in particular (the unemployed are often protected by Medicare) are most likely to be unprotected by health care insurance, to suffer more from toxic- induced or-aggravated diseases, and to spend higher proportions of their income on medical health care as compared with more affluent groups. Another way of saying it is that if medical bills were subtracted from the accumulation of wealth, there may be less wealth for the wealthy and potentially better health care for the poor. The accumulation of wealth is thus created at the expense of someone else's health or quality of life, or even death, even though scientists argue that the number of people at risk from toxic exposure is very small. This struggle against toxic exposure resulting from the location of toxic and hazardous waste facilities in communities of color and low-income communities will undoubtedly increase in the future as the economy and by-products of production grow, and as more and more people become aware of the potential health effects of elevated levels of pollutants.
But there are those, mainly scientists and policymakers, who quickly point out that exposures are not necessarily linked to health effects. They maintain that people can be exposed to a variety of hazardous wastes or toxic substances and not suffer dire consequences. Until we can be sure of causality, we will have a difficult time influencing policy; as professionals we would not be believable. The difficulty of proving causation is made clear in the following quote:
The questions of what makes a given chemical dangerous to health and of why, how, and when dangerous chemicals may actually cause human illness are central to the matter of whether toxic waste sites such as Woburn's are the germs of a modern epidemic of environmentally induced disease. The waste sites that are toxic and potentially harmful are indisputable facts; more complicated is the matter of when and how this potential harm is unleashed to manifest itself in humans—whether in the form of rashes, nervousness, headaches, dizziness, nausea, birth defects or cancer. (DiPerna, 1985: 117)
Although we may not be able to prove causality due to confounding variables such as smoking, diet, indoor pollution, and synergistic and repeated effects of multiple exposures, this does not mean that cause and effect does not exist; it may mean only that we failed to prove it. Our inability to show causal relationships, which places us upon weak scientific ground, provides convenient opportunities for the paralysis of analysis; our inability to show causal relationships takes us down the slippery slope into a quagmire of confusion and entanglements and outright disagreements about levels of proof needed. At this point attempting to show causality, or that "A" causes "B," may be a no-win battle for most communities.
Given the complexities of causality, does the degree of risk to human health need to be statistically significant to require political action? Given the low numbers in cluster patterns (an apparent outbreak of disease clumped in time and space or both), do we need to show statistical significance, or should policy be based upon some other criteria? Given the complexities, should a 95 percent confidence level be adhered to for policy decisions? Should we err on the side of human health or on the side of conserving government resources? Given the complexities of causality, consistently debated in the academic community, should we just let people, most of whom are people of color and members of low-income groups, suffer and even die from toxic-induced and -aggravated diseases so that profits can be accumulated? Can we make policy decisions affecting the health of people who are differentially exposed to environmental hazards and toxic substance in the absence of conclusive data? The answer to the last question is yes, we have always done it, but not without being paralyzed in our discussions. How many studies or levels of "proof" do we need before we act in the absence of certainty?
To date, causality arguments or issues of certainty are often used to rationalize inaction, particularly when it has been economically or politically expedient to do so. "To call for absolute certainty and agreement among scientists before taking preventive action is merely a delaying tactic, effective only to the extent that people believe the myth that certainty characterizes science" (Tesh, 1990: 69). It is ironic that lead poisoning, cited by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) as the number one health problem among inner-city children, causes mental retardation or impaired mental abilities. Government policymakers, known to demand causality, have in turn known about the negative effects of lead poisoning on human beings for over fifty years—in fact we have known about the effects of lead since the Roman times—yet the government has basically refused to rectify this situation in any meaningful way, even though millions of inner-city children may suffer from lead poisoning and thus irreversible mental retardation. Despite failed attempts to demonstrate that smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer, we, after a quarter of a century of debate and countless amounts of money spent on research and litigation, were able to enact a policy warning the public that cigarette smoking may be harmful to human health. Meanwhile millions of people had died or became victims of cancer. Why did it take so long for the government to make a policy to protect human health? The issue is not that the cost will not be paid; the issue is who will pay the cost—victims or industry and/or government.
Today countless people across the country live in fear of hazardous waste facilities, polluting industries, and legal and illegal dumpsites. Critical to this issue of hazardous waste is the concept of certainty. Clearly, people of color and low-income communities or more affluent neighborhoods do not want to be the recipients of uncertainty. Because many toxic pollutants are invisible and because the incubation period of toxic-induced disease may extend over a number of years, how can they be certain that they are being exposed to an invisible contaminant? How can they be certain if a contaminant, known to be present, is actually being absorbed by their bodies? How can they be certain about the amount of contaminants absorbed? How can they be certain if the absorbed dosage is dangerous to their health? To evaluate dangers of invisible contaminants may be impossible even if scientific instruments are used to detect their presence (Vyner, 1988). To adapt to uncertainty can cause physical and psychological trauma. The issue of certainty has not only torn communities apart, but it has torn relatives and friends apart; people once in close relationships are no longer speaking to one another, because while some chose to believe the government or the scientific establishment in the face of inclusive data, others chose not to. The enormous psychological impact of uncertainty is indicated by the following statement:
There was a crisis situation with no specific reaction. There was no "grief" ritual. You don't know what to do. There are divergent emotions and reactions needed to cope. People prefer that this didn't happen. They can't see water pollution; they don't feel bad. They believe it, yet they can't cope, so they rationalize it. Even I had a point where I said, "Enough, I can't believe anymore." When the (neighbor's) child died, I reached my breaking point. I couldn't believe that he died from the water because I couldn't live here with the kids if I believed this. Other people shut off at the beginning. One person got an ulcer and the next didn't believe that there was anything wrong.... We didn't know what we were supposed to be doing! Are we paranoid, hypocritical crazies? (Comments from a community leader, Legler section of Jackson, New Jersey [Edelstein, 1982: 132; forwarded from Unger et al., 1992])
When immediate demands for certainty and solution are involved, the social and psychological impacts are not only evident, but so are the economic impacts. Housing stock, which is a life-long investment, begins to depreciate because few people want to buy in a neighborhood marked by conditions of uncertainty. In one working-class white community in Michigan, where a school was built on top of a landfill, a certain group of people chose to believe the school grounds were safe. Public knowledge of school ground contamination would depreciate the value of their land and housing stock, thus resulting in economic ruin.
While immediate demands for certainty and solution are characteristic of issue-oriented research, and while such research provides opportunities for community people to reclaim the democratic process, this has not been the case—i.e., for the most part. As more and more people make immediate demands, they will undoubtedly come in conflict with the well-established scientific community—a scientific community that feels threatened about democratizing scientific decision-making. Such decision-making may encroach upon their scientific domain of power and influence. Over the years, as the military, government, university, industrial, and scientific complex has become more powerful, so too have scientists. As scientists begin to obtain more answers to hypotheses through scientific methodology and the quantification of data, they will also continue to broaden their decision-making power, thus leaving communities of color and low-income groups marginalized with fewer democratic decision-making alternatives. This is clearly indicated in the quote below:
The shift from politics to expertise changes the rules for exercising power, as well as the structure of effective power. The result may entail a cost in equity, since it can well be argued that those most disadvantaged will be the people at the bottom of the system—those who are, through lack of education and of technical sophistication, particularly ill-prepared to deal with the presentation of issues in a technical framework, and still more so when it comes to dealing with those who speak the language of maps, diagrams, and statistical tables. (Peattie, 1968: 81)
This statement was made almost thirty years ago, and we feel today that community people demonstrate not only a greater environmental awareness, but are generally better educated. Also, community people are motivated to learn quickly if a situation is life-threatening to them, their children, and future generations. Nevertheless, even though several national surveys have indicated that the general public has become more environmentally aware, scientists have been unwilling to engage communities in the democratic process to help them make informed decisions. They make assumptions about the "smartness" of community groups, whom they see as too emotional and thus too irrational to understand complex scientific issues. These assumptions provide the rationale for the scientific community to shift more and more of society's decision-making power away from the community to themselves. As more and more community groups demand to be a part of the decision-making process to deal with environmental crises, they will undoubtedly experience resistance from the scientific community, as the following quote indicates:
... many scientists, economists, and government officials have reached the dismaying conclusion that much of America's environmental programs have gone seriously awry ... that in the last fifteen years environmental policy has too often evolved largely in reaction to popular panics, not in response to sound scientific analyses of which environmental hazards present the greatest risks. (Schneider, 1993: 1)
While science has made tremendous contributions to humanity and the world, such as enriched diets, reduced infectious disease, improved transportation, shorter and more efficient work weeks, more leisure time activities, and improved communications, it has not been without blemish. While on the whole science has been better than no science, it has to stand up to criticism. While science has offered us a vision of total control of our environment through the understanding of natural laws, we are finding that such control is impossible. To a large extent the seemingly foreboding social and environmental problems we experience today, either directly or indirectly, are the result of science and technology. What has been thought to be a long-term solution often ends up not being a solution at all, but another long-term problem (Commoner, 1976). We seldom know the true results of the "technological fix" until we have traveled down the road a piece only to find that it may be too late to reverse catastrophic damages. And yet it is often community groups or victims of environmental crises and their ways of knowing who direct scientists in the right direction for testing hypotheses.
To make assumptions about people's "smartness," their ability to deal with scientific certainty, and their ability to become constructive partners in the problem-solving process only adds fuel to the flame of community professional/ technical conflict. The need for certainty may be a motivating factor for people of color and low-income groups to be a part of a democratic problem-solving process. Freudenberg (1984: 446) presents a compelling argument of why community groups should be a part of scientific decision-making processes. He states that "the vast majority of groups (environmental, health, public interests, citizen action groups) interacted regularly with scientists (89 percent) and health professionals (73 percent). Scientific experts were most frequently identified by these groups as the most valuable source of information." In their consultation with professionals, these groups proved their sophisticated understanding of complex scientific issues, such as toxic site remediation and the limits of epidemiological studies, Freudenberg showed. In other instances community or nonprofessional people have shown their capability of participating constructively in research or problem-solving or planning endeavors (Brown, 1992; Brown and Tandon, 1983; Carr and Kemmis, 1983; DiPema; 1985; Gaventa, 1991; Nitcher, 1984; Stapp and Mitchell, 1990). For example, community people in Rocky Flats, Colorado, were able to conduct health surveys which played a role in leading to a campaign against nuclear poisoning, and in Love Canal in Buffalo, New York, such surveys led to the cleanup of toxic waste sites (Gaventa, 1991). In Woburn, Massachusetts, Harvard-trained community people collected information to substantiate the hypothesis of a housewife that childhood leukemia was associated with the city's drinking water (Brown, 1992; DiPerna, 1985). In India, after lay researchers received training, they successfully collected data on health behavior important to health planners, as well as on the health concerns of the community (Nichter, 1984). In Appalachia, people were trained to collect information from county tax rolls to identify under-taxed properties of absentee landlords, which put pressure on the landlords to pay their fair share of the taxes supporting social services and fire and police protection. Stapp and Mitchell (1990) successfully trained students to measure water quality as a step in the long-term process of restoring the health of the Rouge River in the Detroit area. These are only a few examples of nonprofessional people taking charge or being intricately involved in research endeavors across the United States and the world. It by no means diminishes the importance of the role of professional researchers to acknowledge that laypeople have the resources and capability to do a lot more than many professionals admit.
