Different Voices, Different Venues: Environmental Racism Claims by Activists, Researchers, and Lawyers

Research in Human Ecology Different Voices, Different Venues: Environmental Racism Claims by Activists, Researchers, and Lawyers Sherry Cable and Donald W. Hastings Department of Sociology University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37996-0490 USA1 Tamara L. Mix Department of Sociology University of Alaska–Fairbanks Fairbanks, AK 99775 USA Abstract mobilized to ameliorate them using political and legal tactics. Social science researchers have documented inequalities in Environmental Justice Movement activists have mobi- risk exposure under the rubric of environmental racism (ER). lized on the basis of grievances involving the disproportion- Lawyers argue before courts and administrative agencies on ate exposure of working class and minority subgroups to var- behalf of their activist plaintiffs for relief from environmen- ious environmental risks. Academics have frequently offered tal insults. Despite such prodigious efforts by so many peo- empirical documentation of such exposure. Public interest ple, environmental injustices persist. Why? lawyers have sought legal remediation for injustice claims. We hypothesize that activists, researchers, and lawyers But substantial structural changes to ameliorate dispropor- speak with different voices and operate in different venues.2 tionate exposure have not occurred. Why? We argue that The consequence is that they often talk past one another, cre- activists, researchers, and lawyers speak with different voic- ating “noise” rather than a unified voice. Our purpose in this es in different venues, with the consequence of creating paper is to identify and analyze those different voices. After “noise,” instead of uniting to speak in one voice. We review a review of the emergence of the EJM to establish its distinc- the sociological literature to identify the separate voices of tion from other environmental movements and to identify the activists, researchers, and lawyers, analyzing each one’s different voices raised in the demand for greater environmen- focus, target audience, and types of evidence offered. Then we tal equity, we describe the characteristics of each voice and discuss the consequent noise and conclude with some sug- analyze its operation in its own venue. We then discuss the gestions for uniting the voices in a cooperative, coherent outcomes of each voice in its own venues and the “noise” that argument for amelioration of the unequal distribution of it may produce in the other venues. We conclude with sug- environmental risks. gestions for uniting the voices and developing a working coalition with the potential to generate substantial structural Keywords: environmental justice, environmental changes that may ameliorate the unequal distribution of envi- activism ronmental risks. We live in a risk society with pressures from population The Environmental Justice Movement growth, resource depletion, and increased levels of exposure and Academic Research to environmental hazards as byproducts of the economic growth machine. But these risks are not equally distributed. Evidence abounds that humans have been concerned Working class and minority groups suffer greater risks of about environmental quality for nearly as long as written exposure to environmental risks than do whites and the more records are available. Ancient Roman laws and codes evolved affluent. in response to the increasing social, economic, and political Since the 1980s, activists in the Environmental Justice demands of an expanding urban population (Johnston 1999; Movement (EJM) have identified various kinds of risks and Robinson 1992; Wolff 1951). For example, laws banned cart 26 Human Ecology Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2002 © Society for Human Ecology Cable, Hastings and Mix and horse traffic at certain hours for the safety of residents males. It received support from corporations that benefited walking and conducting business, laws stipulated particular from government policies permitting exploitation of times for dumping offal and sewage into the rivers and resources on public lands. Movement grievances focused on streams to assure that the pollution did not coincide with fam- the scientific management of resources for maximum eco- ilies’ washing clothes in the rivers, codes even mandated nomic benefit without destruction of the resource base urban garden spaces for recreational use. Local medieval (Andrews 1999; Cable and Cable 1995; Humphrey and Buttel statutes regulated the number of animals in the community to 1982; McCormick 1989). These elites were little concerned control the amount of waste left in the streets and legislated with environmental equity. water and sewer systems aimed at safe drinking water and The contemporary environmental movement emerged in public sanitation (Zupko and Laures 1996). Concerns about the mid-1960s, catalyzed by the appearance of Rachel urban filth derived from the belief that stench alone could Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), the flowering of the decade’s cause illness. Some codes recognized that environmental counterculture, and the proliferation of a variety of other quality was distributed on the basis of status, as slaves and social movements. Conservationism was fused with values the poor lived in more degraded environments than the elites. stressing communalism over individualism and emphasizing But, in societies relying on the extensive use of peasant or steady-state economics over ever-expanding economic slave labor, environmental inequalities were not the basis for growth. The result was a youth-centered, “hippie” movement protest mobilization. that culminated with Earth Day 1970. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, environ- After Earth Day and the passage of significant environmental conditions further deteriorated, and concern for envi- mental legislation, general public concern for the environ- ronmental quality increased commensurately. In the United ment increased in the 1970s, as measured in numerous States, the environmental effects of industrialization and national surveys (Dunlap and Scarce 1991). The movement urbanization in the late 19th century spawned two forms of became less counter cultural and more mainstream; it was elite-sponsored movements, the sanitation movement and the nationalized and institutionalized through the combined conservation movement. The sanitation movement derived efforts of established conservation organizations, such as the from concerns with urban crowding and the associated spread Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society, and several of diseases such as typhoid, typhus, smallpox, diphtheria, and new organizations, such as the Environmental Defense Fund tuberculosis (Andrews 1999). Although the poor were dis- and the Natural Resources Defense Council (Brulle 1996; proportionately burdened, they did not mobilize on the basis Cable and Cable 1995). Currently, the majority of the nation- of environmental inequalities. Instead, reform-oriented elites al environmental groups focus on reform policies, engaging lobbied for public health regulations and achieved significant in congressional lobbying and electoral campaigns. Analysts improvements in environmental quality (Andrews 1999). assert the elitist character of this movement: leaders and The conservation movement evolved from the larger members of these professionalized organizations typically Progressive movement. The conservation movement com- are white males of middle or higher social status. Movement bined Progressivist views of excessive capitalist exploitation grievances emphasize the preservation of lands, water of the environment with the formal closing of the frontier to resources, and wildlife and regulation of air and water quali- generate activism among affluent whites who lobbied for ty (Andrews 1999; Cable and Cable 1995; Cable and Shriver resource management and the protection of public lands 1995; Mitchell, Mertig and Dunlap 1992). (Brulle 1996; Cable and Cable 1995; Cole and Foster 2001; In the 1980s, a new, grassroots wing of the contemporary Hays 1959; Humphrey and Buttel 1982; McCormick 1989; environmental movement emerged in the wake of the 1978 Nash 1967; Oelschlaeger 1991). Andrews refers to the New Love Canal revelations and the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear Deal as the successor of Progressivism (1999), and it similar- accident (Cable and Shriver 1995). The constituency and aims ly impacted the conservation movement. Conservationism of the grassroots wing significantly differ from the national emphasized production processes that served the interests of wing of the movement (Freudenberg and Steinsapir 1992). The the public; that is, economically efficient production process- grassroots wing is primarily comprised of working class indi- es, based on the wise use of resources and on waste preven- viduals without prior movement experience who organize tion that promoted middle-class economic progress. The when their communities are faced with environmental conta- movement “was led and implemented from the top down, by mination (Boyte, Booth and Max 1986). They seek avoidance what might be called enlightened and pragmatic paternalism of environmental threats, remediation of environmental dam- rather than by citizen activism” (Andrews 1999, 177). Con- ages, and compensation for the adverse health effects from servationism waxed and waned during the 20th century, its contamination. They use direct action tactics to pressure gov- membership dominated by middle and upper class white ernment agencies to enforce existing environmental regula- Human

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