EPA Weighs Waste Plants’ Impact on the Poor

Posted on Jul 27, 2009

Flickr / baekken

The EPA will be closely examining the effects of hazardous waste recycling plants on low-income and minority communities. Poorer people disproportionately live in areas where such plants exist and suffer from health-related illnesses caused by the sites. The move reinstates a law dating back to the Clinton era that was largely ignored by the Bush administration.

The Los Angeles Times:

Under the Bush administration, hazardous waste recycling plants had a free pass to process more than 1 million pounds of toxic material without federal oversight. In Los Angeles and other areas, such plants are disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities largely populated by non-whites, maps created by Earthjustice show.

Hundreds of hazardous waste recycling facilities in the United States, including 29 in California, have been classified as “damage cases” based on factors such as soil and water contamination that cause lasting health and environmental effects on the areas that surround them.

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