Attorney General Bonta Announces Settlement to Protect Environmental Justice Communities in West Oakland.

https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-announces-settlement-protect-environmental-justice

Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the planned construction of a 18 acre marine terminal in Oakland. This is what is being known as the Eagle Rock Aggregates Terminal Project, aggregates being raw material used for construction. The settlement has negotiated commitments to mitigate the projects air quality impacts on the community less than a mile away. Bonta states that he will “continue fighting for the West Oakland community…going forward”. Because the area is low income, not much has been done about pollution in the area, especially from port projects. Requirements such as watering systems for aggregate stockpiles and protocols to use water to control fugitive dust” have been much more clear than the original vague and “limited watering requirements”. Another main source of pollution from the project is equipment and vehicle trips, so another agreement is that the project will switch to fully electric or zero emission vehicles to account for this. The last settlement agreement is that the project must stop using outdated air quality analysis for future projects and will be more transparent about their environmental impact. 

California Environmental Justice Organizers Are Writing the Future of Climate Plans

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/california-environmental-justice-organizers-are-writing-the-future-of-climate-plans/

The article begins with the author saying that they “don’t believe white people are going to save us” due to past issues such as colonizers that “decimated” people from Asia and the americas. While I don’t agree with this argument (it is not logically sound) I do agree that no matter your ethnic background, things need to be done to save our environment. There are more doors open for people with european descent than people of color, but stating that white people are never going to “save us” is talking in a lot of generalities and doesn’t really add much to the argument of the article, which is supposedly on environmental justice. The author claims that “real climate solutions had to come from Black people, Indigenous people, people of color on the ground who had firsthand experience with climate impacts and could propose solutions that would meet this existential challenge.”. Already in these first two paragraphs, there seems to be a lot of racial bias. While I agree that it is important to have people who have had experience with climate impacts, not all of these people are going to be black or indigenous. I understand that this article is about environmental justice, but the way the author is stating all of this seems to be blaming white people(i get it, they started industrialization which inherently led to all of this) but there is a lot of underlying hatred(?) That seems unneeded and i just wanted to bring that up. Not all people living in bad areas and bad climate conditions are people of color. There are a lot of these so-called “white people ” living in these areas, and just because someone is a person of color also doesn’t mean that they have had experience with that. Getting back to the article, it talks mainly about how climate efforts in the past have been met with a lot of derision and skepticism and how BIPOC organizers have envisioned how the environment could be so much better. These are efforts and ideas like the Fossil Fuel Phased Out(stop using fossil fuels), clean mass transportation(hopefully electric vehicles), and the grid of the future(electric bills, pollution control laws). 

California Water Agency Under Investigation For Discriminating Against Tribes, People of Color

https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2023/08/california-water-agency-investigation-discrimination/

One of the main issues this article covers is the failure to protect water quality in San Francisco bay and the San Joaquin delta. The Biden administration’s environmental justice office is “investigating whether California’s water agency has discriminated against Native Americans and other people of color”. They state that the state water agency has left the waters to basically deplete and go into an “ecological crisis”, and this has affected Native groups the most. Along with affecting the people, the rivers are also home to the Delta Smelt, an endangered species that has dwindled into a miniscule size. The fish show whether an ecosystem is healthy, and in this case, it is insanely unhealthy. Fishing is very important for certain tribes, so along with messing up the water, this ecological crisis has also put a damper on the amount of fish in the water, and therefore messes with the diet of these tribes. 

Earlier this year, we talked about the Delta Smelt and how it was basically extinct already and there wasn’t much we could do to save it because by the time the environment was stabler, they would already be long gone, and the ones kept in labs were different from the original fish. However, I still think that we should focus on the health of the delta and bay because there are still other species of fish and organisms that live there and call the area their home. If we don’t do anything about it, the condition will just worsen. The San Joaquin river also supplies water to 27 million californians. This is the water we are drinking. We as Californians are even advised not to drink the water from the tap because its so nasty. Why are we letting this continue? Why has it gotten to this point before people started actually caring? If it’s not even safe for human consumption, just think of the things living in it, or rather, no longer living in it. 

Seeking Environmental Justice in California’s “Lithium Valley”

https://earthworks.org/blog/seeking-environmental-justice-in-californias-lithium-valley/

Lithium extraction has started picking up steam in Southern California’s Imperial Valley. Companies here are trying to extract the lithium below the Salton Sea. Lithium extraction would be fine in and of itself, but these companies are using Direct Lithium Extraction which uses “chemical and physical processes that have never been used before” to get this lithium out of the geothermal power plants. While they have promised that the extraction will be environmentally friendly, when questioned, the companies have given vague answers that make people question their legitimacy. 

There are 5 areas of environmental impacts the author has highlighted. Air quality, freshwater consumption, Salton Sea degradation, hazardous waste and materials and seismic activity. They go on to say that communities should be aware of the impacts and the processes going on as this is their home. 

While I can understand the need for lithium – it’s used in batteries, and also for mental health(bipolar) medication – I think it is important to look at the pros and cons of extracting it. The companies in charge don’t seem to care about the environment and aren’t really communicating with the residents. Ultimately, it should be the residents decision to go through with this because they are the ones affected in the long term. For the longest time, the Salton Sea has been pushed aside and seen as a sacrifice that needs to be made, but I think that if companies are going to mess with the area, then they need to take more initiative and figure out ways to extract the lithium with the least damage done. So far, it doesn’t seem like they have much concern at all. 

Tigue, K. (2023, January 19). Six Environmental Justice Policy Fights to Watch in 2023. Inside Climate News. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19012023/environmental-justice-policy-2023/

This source illustrates how the US government has dedicated their spending, which is some 47-60 billion dollars, into the “nation’s communities hardest hit by climate change, industrial pollution and racist practices like redlining”. It explains how most of the money will go to families in need in the USA. The Environmental Protection Agency also stated that the first $100 million in grants would be for the community and local governments.

This is related to environmental justice because it is talking about the grants that the US government is giving to more disparate communities that are in need, because of climate change or other environmental factors as well as environmental racism.

Nilsen, E. (2023, April 21). Biden announces new environmental justice initiatives. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/21/politics/environmental-justice-biden/index.html

This source states that President Biden announced that environmental justice would be a part of every federal agency, and they must all take into account the environmental health impacts on communities and try to decrease the negative effects. The source also states that the Biden administration plans to decrease pollution from natural gas power plants, which decreases some of the greenhouse gas emissions.

This source really helped me see how the government is trying to decrease more greenhouse gas emissions and try to make communities with more environmental issues better. It’s interesting how some of the republican senators try to vote against these kinds of things because 1) they’re pretty wealthy people, they aren’t living in hovels or in really bad environmental areas like a lot of people are so they don’t really know what it’s like, so heck are they speaking out against it. Yes it does cost a lot of money, but then again, they’re probably getting their money from oil companies that they have stock in. I agree that it does cost a lot of money to do this, but it’s better to live in a good environment than have a flourishing economy where the environment has gone to hell.

Lindwall, C. (2023, August 22). The Environmental Justice Movement. Natural Resources Defence Council. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/environmental-justice-movement

This article is stating how environmental justice is the idea that people of all colors should have the same environmental rights and environmental benefits. Because of people with low incomes (usually people of color), these people are living in worse environmental areas( for example; pollution) than the more wealthy, and this it has been shaped by hundreds of years of racism in the Americas. The source also states that people living in lower income areas are more effected by multiple environmental issues at once, leading the people living there to have higher environmental and monetary risks. The source talks about the Warren County protests, where the North Carolina government sorted oil laced with PCBs in a low income relatively black community. The public were outraged and this resulted in protests with people lying down on the ground to stop the trucks from moving. These nonviolent protests resulted in more than 500 arrests and laid the groundwork for more environmental protests in the future.

This is a helpful article because it explains first of all what environmental racism really is and how it’s been used throughout history. I think this article was well written and a pretty easy read. It is especially good for someone who is just starting to look into environmental justice because it explains it in simple terms and then gets progressively more complicated, which is much easier to understand than simply reading an article and not knowing what is going on. My two big takeaways was that environmental racism affects more than just people living in worse environments, but people who are living somewhere and people decide to try and ruin their environment as well, through malicious intent or not.

Donoghoe, M. (2023, June 1). US can’t achieve environmental justice through one size fits all policy. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-us-cant-achieve-environmental-justice-through-one-size-fits-all-climate-policy/

The source talks about how the US governments efforts for environmental pollution reduction in the past haven’t always been the most equitable, with lower income communities having rates of 10-15% higher pollution than other communities. It also talks about how people with lower incomes are more likely to live by areas with more pollution and higher risks of environmental hazard. It states how the US government needs to be more equitable instead of equal because not all commmunities need the same things. Because states and local governments could make these efforts more equitable, it is important to have these smaller governments actually focus on this and not brush it off.

This source was nice because it talked more about how the laws being passed this year still have some downsides, which is not really mentioned in any of the other articles, so it’s nice to have a differing opinion.

Alston, P. (Host). (2023, April 13). How environmental racism is hurting communities of color in Boston [Audio podcast interview]. In How environmental racism is hurting communities of color in Boston. WGBH. https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2023-04-13/how-environmental-racism-is-hurting-communities-of-color-in-boston

This source is an interview By Paris Alston, interviewing Professor Lacee Satcher, who first explains what environmental racism is, then mentions places in Massachusetts where there is more risk for environmental hazards and places where income disparity is an issue that ties in with environmental justice. She says that many of these places are getting hotter due to asphalt heating up as well as the buildings, and then releasing the heat. These environmental issues aren’t on the community to fix, but the policy makes and the government. She adds on that asthma rates are much higher in Boston because of all the pollution, and these things need to be fixed.

This was a really interesting article, mainly because unlike the others, this was an interview and you really got to see the input of another person who was very knowledgeable about these things.