EPA smog proposal sparks debate over environmental justice
Posted on September 6th, 2007By Daniel Cusick
Greenwire: ATLANTA — A rift between black mayors and public health experts over long-held notions about the racial dimension of environmental problems took center stage yesterday at a hearing here on a U.S. EPA proposal for tightening air pollution standards for ground-level ozone.
Experts on public health in minority communities argued at the Atlanta Federal Center that poor air quality takes a disproportionate toll on blacks, and urged EPA to tighten the standard.
But the National Conference of Black Mayors — representing more than 600 officials — strongly endorsed continuation of the current standard, set in 1997, which limits ozone concentrations to 80 parts per billion over an 8-hour period.
“Cleaner air is important to our communities, but it is not the only thing that affects the health of our people,” said Vanessa Williams, the conference’s executive director. “The health and welfare of our communities is also dependent on having good jobs, economic growth and the quality of life that goes with it.”
In proposing a tighter ozone standard last June, EPA said the current health standard is not adequate to protect public health. While the agency has proposed tightening the ozone health standard to between 70 and 75 parts per billion over an 8-hour period, advocacy groups and many medical experts have called for an even tighter standard, to as low as 60 parts per billion.
Williams added that a tightening of the ozone standard would cause many cities and counties in the Deep South to violate federal mandates for reducing smog, making it more difficult to attract new industry and allow established businesses to expand.
The “stigma of being designated nonattainment,” she said, would have “a disparate impact on communities undertaking economic revitalization efforts and rebuilding, like those in the Gulf Coast [region] after [Hurricane] Katrina.”
‘Abominable’
But scholars from Clark Atlanta University, Dillard University and the Morehouse School of Medicine disagreed.
Beverly Wright, director of Dillard’s Deep South Center for Environmental Justice in New Orleans, called the National Conference of Black Mayor’s view “abominable” and accused the organization of kowtowing to industrial interests that would face tougher pollution control requirements under a new ozone health standard.
“The National Conference of Black Mayors evidently is not speaking for the people they represent,” Dillard said. “The only stigma we’re concerned about is that African-Americans are at a higher risk for getting sick and even dying from ozone pollution.”
Clark Atlanta sociologist Robert Bullard, who has done extensive surveys on pollution’s impact on minority communities, said the group of mayors’ position did not reflect broad public opinion in the black community, where asthma and other pollution-related respiratory diseases are a chronic problem, resulting annually in thousands of deaths, hospitalizations and lost work days among minorities.
“This hearing is about public health. It’s about life and death and saving lives,” Bullard told the EPA panel assembled here. “It is not about compromise, economic tradeoffs, or a balancing act that subjects millions of Americans to unnecessary health threats — in this case ground-level ozone.
“When we’re talking about our right to breathe, we’re talking about a basic human right,” Bullard added.
Bullard cited statistics showing 36 percent higher asthma prevalence rates among blacks over whites, and he said emergency room visits and hospitalizations for respiratory distress are three times higher for black than whites.
Geography is also a key factor, he said, noting that more than 60 percent of U.S. minority children live in areas exceeding the current ozone health standard, compared to 51 percent of white children.
Health worries
Other experts noted that ozone, even at lower concentrations, can cause health damage.
Richard Bright, associate director of the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Prevention Research Center, said his own studies of pollution concentrations along metro Atlanta’s traffic-choked highways suggest ozone could be having a significant health effect on people who live near such corridors.
He called on EPA scientists to look carefully at ozone’s effects on both plant and animal systems, including the mechanism by which ozone damages human lung tissue. “Ozone at any concentration is harmful,” Bright said, “and you cannot easily reverse the impacts of ozone on the body.”
Flora Tommy, a longtime resident and community leader in southwest Atlanta, discounted much of the debate over the scientific research undergirding EPA’s proposal to tighten the health standard.
She cited years of anecdotal evidence suggesting that urban air pollution is taking a toll on her own health and that of her neighbors. “We need to stop with this argument that everything is OK,” Tommy said. “The human data show the high cost that people are suffering.
“As a citizen, I demand the right to clean air,” she added. “That is quality of life for us.”
