Your Zip Code Should Not Mean Your Destiny

Experiences as a youth can shape one’s life. Try to imagine waking up one morning to find one’s home full of a foul smell with no explainable source. In my case, our family was troubled whenever we tried to eat or even breathe. As this continued and the years passed, there were losses in my town’s home values, increased unemployment, unexplained illnesses, and increased early death rates. Many of the young, including myself, moved away. Others stayed and watched the town descend.

All this happened without our knowledge or consent. As our town became ill and started dying, we were not prepared to save it. For my part, I became compelled to eradicate such environmental injustice.

Decades later, in communities of color, history continuously repeats itself. Environmental justice communities know that everything bad associated with the environment disproportionately affects their neighborhoods. Without any knowledge of, or say in, the decisions to build industrial plants, discard hazardous waste, or generally destroy the local environment, communities across America are continually faced with environmental problems beyond their ability to understand or to address. Studies prove that we are in an ever-evolving revolution of disparities.

The living conditions in today’s environment for Black and Brown communities — associated with systemic racism and violence, COVID-19, pollution, unemployment, poverty, and lack of health insurance — will linger where we live forever until we take action ourselves. We cannot, we must not, and we will not allow the historical legacies of our ancestors to be no more than our past, but rather, the foundation of our future — to achieve equality for all people. Every day matters; Black and Brown lives matter; all lives matter; and each life lost to racism and injustice is a cost none of us should warrant.

To address the impacts of these issues and to correct this imbalance is not an easy task. This journey can begin by promoting enforcement of all health and environmental statutes in areas with minority populations, low-income populations, American Indian tribes, Alaskan Natives, Latin American populations, and Asian populations. Thus the need for greater public participation and improved research and data collection related to the health among minority populations, and increased collaboration among federal, state, and local government to strengthen existing laws and regulations.

Experience has shown that meaningful and informed participation by all elements of the community, all concerned parties of interest, tends to produce resolutions that are accepted by all parties, easier to implement, sustainable, and more economic than contested resolutions conceived by just some stakeholders. Existing legislation can be the tool that provides the source and support that leads to resolution of these ongoing issues that need to be addressed immediately. To achieve our goal of equality, however, we need better federal policies implementing those laws.

There is no one environmental law that can resolve the discrimination targeting people of color where they live and work. However, collaborative problem solving means that all stakeholders agree to work together with the intent of resolving a particular issue or to solve a particular problem affecting a community.

Marginalized communities are likely to be impacted more severely by climate change, by a poorer location and ability to recover from shocks and less opportunity for mitigation. For example, higher electricity rates in Black and Brown neighborhoods cannot be countered by better insulation or other efficiency measures or installing solar units because these same communities have a preponderance of homes that are rented rather than owned.

The measures to aid EJ communities and equip them with the tools and resources to experience the quality of life that every American citizen has the right to enjoy today are simple: empowerment; education; information sharing; and capacity building through technology, workshops, partnerships, and collaboration.

There are a number of other steps that make sense. This includes investing in science and workforce training at historically Black colleges and universities, educational institutions that serve the Latinx community, and tribal colleges and universities. We need to believe in and invest in our young leaders of the next generation.

Communities can also participate in the National Environmental Justice Conference and Training Program and the National Conference on Health Disparities, opportunities for organizing, learning, and networking.

In the 21st century, we must recognize the unique relationship between the quality of our environment, the health of our citizens, and the economic well-being of our nation. We must recognize environmental justice as a concept central to our national environmental policy.

Your zip code should not dictate your environment. Inequality matters. Our actions to eradicate it matter. All our lives matter.

Melinda Downing is the environmental justice program manager at the Department of Energy.