The environmental justice movement began in Warren County, North Carolina, following the publication of Toxic Wastes and Race, a study that found race was the most potent variable in predicting hazardous waste facility locations. Over the past two decades, environmental justice and environmental racism have become a unifying theme across race, class, gender, age, and geographic lines. Despite two decades of study, some communities remain dumping grounds for toxins, with low-income and people of color populations still left behind before and after natural and man-made disasters. The 20th anniversary of Toxic Wastes and Race in 1987 marked a significant milestone in the fight for environmental justice. The environmental and economic justice movement has evolved into a multi-issue, multi-ethnic, and multi-regional movement, with the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991 being the most important single event in the movement’s history. Despite progress in research, planning, and policy, low-income and people of color neighborhoods and their residents suffer from greater environmental risks than the larger society (Bullard, 2007).

Environmental laws and regulations in the US are not applied uniformly, exposing certain communities to elevated health risks. In 1992, the National Law Journal found inequities in the federal EPA’s enforcement of laws, with white communities receiving faster action and better results than those of minorities. This unequal protection often affects communities of color, putting them at special risk. The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates that there are up to 450,000 brownfields in urban areas, with low-income, working-class, and people of color communities at risk. The EPA was not designed to address unfair, unjust, and inequitable outcomes, and vulnerable communities often fall between regulatory cracks. Environmental justice advocates have created the Office of Environmental Justice to address environmental racism, unequal protection, and health disparities. However, environmental justice has stalled since 2000 and faces resistance within the EPA through proposed budget and program cuts. The EPA’s Interim Guidance for Investigating Title VI Civil Rights Complaints in 1998 provided a framework for processing environmental discrimination complaints, but it has yet to develop legally binding standards for adverse disparate impact and continues to abrogate its enforcement responsibility to oversee discriminatory environmental agencies in a credible manner(Bullard (2007).

Although I’m focusing on New York a study, focusing on post-Katrina New Orleans rebuilding efforts, reveals a complex web of challenges, including wasteful spending, unethical profiteering, and insensitive plannings due to Hurricane Katrina. The city’s historical planning has been influenced by the racial landscape, leading to efforts to rebuild and imagine a “New” New Orleans. FEMA focused on flattened properties between 2006 and 2007, leaving many people with generations of family living in the city with little option but to remain in FEMA trailers or build lives elsewhere. The Bring New Orleans Back commission aimed to rebuild with a smaller footprint, but did not support those in flood zones. The Lambert Plan, a city council-led initiative, favored rebuilding on higher ground owned by wealthier white New Orleansians, leaving poor and black neighborhoods to recover on their own. The Unified New Orleans Plan (UNOP) of 2007 attempted to provide a concrete vision for the entire city, but it was vague and had no timelines, priorities, or budget. Post-Katrina, economic neediness and income disparity have become even larger problems, with housing prices skyrocketing and unemployment rates changing by neighborhood(Deitz,2015).

In summary, these studies collectively underscore the persistent challenges of environmental injustice, ranging from historical struggles in urban communities like New York to the aftermath of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The fight for environmental justice is interconnected with broader social, economic, and political issues, requiring sustained efforts to dismantle deeply embedded institutional discrimination.