DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE
WHERE/WHEN APPLICABLE
RESPONSES
TESTIMONIES

DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines environmental justice as the "fair treatment for people of all races, cultures, and incomes, regarding the development of environmental laws, regulations, and policies." Environmental racism refers to policies or practices that differentially disadvantage people of color and/or low-income people. The environmental justice, or "EJ" movement, typically comes from the grass-roots level. The rhetoric of this movement defines the environment as the places where people live, work, play, and go to school (Environmental Justice Resource Center).

Environmental justice issues are widely construed, and include toxics issues, equal land use, transit justice, safe housing, industrial pollution, and general poverty. In Boston's neighborhoods, the majority of high-profile environmental justice issues have related to human health.

Alternatives for Community and Development (ACE), the leading Environmental Justice organization working in the Heart of the City and Dudley Square in Roxbury, says on its website: "Low-income communities and communities of color are historically the hardest hit by environmental and public health problems. Residents must deal daily with hazards from midnight dumping on vacant lots, lead contamination in building materials, and toxics in air and groundwater, to lack of greenspace, polluting facilities, and decrepit housing and schools. Yet, these neighborhoods have had the fewest resources -- whether legal, medical, educational, financial, or political -- to confront these threats. Making these environmental problems even more difficult to solve are the associated economic injustices which have left older urban neighborhoods with a dearth of economic opportunities" (www.ace-ej.org).

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WHERE/ WHEN APPLICABLE:
Indoor and outdoor asthma is perhaps the environmental justice issue that receives the most attention in the Heart of the City. Transit justice has also been a hot topic for area community groups. In Roxbury, 94.2% of residents are minorities and more than 50% of households do not have an automobile. Both asthma and transit justice have been covered in separate entries on this site.

In addition to transit and asthma-related environmental justice issues, other issues that have emerged through interviews include:

-- Resistance to ethnic festivals in Franklin Park from government and community groups.

-- Neglect of Franklin Park in the 1970s and 1980s because whites perceived it as a "black park."

-- Illegal dumping on vacant lots and abandoned buildings both in residential neighborhoods and large swaths of open land such as the Canterbury II Urban Wild and the Boston State Hospital site.

-- An old and inadequate sewer system in the Archdale section of Roslindale leading to millions of dollars in damage of homes and businesses and displacement of residents during the flood of 1996.

-- Lead-contaminated vacant yards and lots, particularly in Dorchester and Mattapan.

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RESPONSES:
-- Grassroots organizations such as ACE, the Washington Street Corridor Coalition, Archdale/Roslindale Coalition, the Greater Boston Transportation Justice Coalition, and Clean Buses for Boston Coalition/ T Riders Union constantly demand justice in the Heart of the City. Groups such as the Jamaica Plain Asthma Initiative work to increase awareness of -- and effective responses to -- health issues associated with environmental justice.

-- In 1994, Region I of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiated the Urban Environment Initiative (UEI).  The UEI works to promote environmental justice in low-income Boston neighborhoods, including Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roxbury, by partnering with and empowering grassroots organizations already at work in the neighborhoods.

-- Massachusetts Senator and presidential hopeful John Kerry has made environmental justice an important part of his agenda. In a speech in Roxbury in 2003, Kerry called for "environmental empowerment zones" to be established by the federal government in urban areas such as the Heart of the City where people suffer disproportionately from environmental problems such as air pollution and high asthma rates (Glen Johnson, "Kerry to press 'environmental justice' seeks federal scrutiny and more oversight in minority communities," The Boston Globe, April 22, 2003).

-- The Roxbury Strategic Master Plan published in January 2004 calls for increased usage of low-emission MBTA buses and the use of this same technology in school buses. The Plan also recommends that traffic signal operation be synchronized on selected major streets, giving preferential treatment to buses.

-- On January 11, 2005, Mayor Menino announced his plans to make Boston a "more beautiful and safer city" by putting the money left over from the 2004 Democratic National Convention back into the neighborhoods. The surplus from the convention amounts to about $1 million and will be used for sidewalk repairs, artwork, and flower displays (Andrea Estes, "Mayor Vows More Beautiful, Safer City," The Boston Globe, January 12, 2005).

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TESTIMONIES:
"You can't understand this area unless you understand the geography of racism and classism" (Penn Loh, Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE)).

"Environmental justice means action to repair the environment in all communities wherever they may be. It means an end to playing favorites when it comes to Americans' health and their very lives. All Americans, regardless of their color or income, deserve clean air, pure water, land that is safe to live on, food that is safe to eat." (From a speech by John Kerry in Concord, N.H. in April 2003).

"Many people blamed Franklin Park's deterioration on the new Black residents. The great influx of Black residents opened a Pandora's Box of fear and hate that has often popped open in Boston's long history. Racism has played an awful role in people's perception of Franklin Park but it also hides an alienation from the city by older residents who simply cannot understand why their city has fallen so low. Franklin Park, the place of such fond childhood and schoolboy memories which even today are repeated over and over, had been "taken away" from the older Bostonian, and he had to blame somebody... So great is the racial tension in Boston that although only two sides of the Park are made up of Black and Hispanic residents, Whites refer to it as a "Black Park" (Heath, R,. Franklin Park: A Century's Appraisal, 1980, p28).

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