Unfair Location of A Toxic Waste Landfill in an Underprivileged, Black Neighborhood

Unfair Location of A Toxic Waste Landfill in an Underprivileged, Black Neighborhood
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Unfair Location of A Toxic Waste Landfill in an Underprivileged, Black Neighborhood
Introduction
In most instances, hazardous coal ash, which is a major byproduct of coal-fired power, is dumped in minority, poor communities. The identified problem is one in which toxic waste is shipped from a wealthy neighborhood in Tennessee and dumped in a landfill in a low-income, African-American neighborhood in Alabama. The toxic waste is impacting the health of the local populations who are falling sick thanks to this environmental injustice (Sturgis, 2009). This problem is particularly important given that the decision to move the hazardous coal ash from Tennessee to a location in Alabama that is mainly populated by low-income, black residents brings up concerns about environmental justice owing to the social vulnerability of the poor minority populations that are targeted.
The case is based in Uniontown, Perry County, Alabama, where Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) dumped poisonous coal ash shipped from Roane County in neighboring Tennessee. In essence, the site in which the poisonous coal ash is being taken has high rates of poverty and large populations of African-Americans, which raises questions regarding environmental justice (Sturgis, 2009). Two theoretical frameworks would be applied to the case. These are distributive justice, and recognition and procedural justice. These two frameworks are crucial components of environmental justice.
To manage the environmental justice problem, it is recommended that there should be equitable distribution of the burden of the environmental hazard so that the environmental and public health risk is not disproportionately borne by the poor, African-American residents of Uniontown. In addition, there should be effective participation of the locals in processes of decision-making. They should also be adequate recognition of their socio-cultural differences.
Case Study Institutional Analysis
The key stakeholders in the identified case include the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) which permitted the dumping of toxic waste in a landfill in Uniontown, local leaders of Perry County who voted in the year 2004 to approve the facility/landfill, the local underprivileged residents who are against the landfill located in their county, Tennessee Valley Authority which is dumping the toxic waste, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights which is looking into the problem (Goodman, 2009). The identified problem is targeting low-income, minority neighborhoods for toxic waste sites. The specific site is the Arrowhead Landfill in Uniontown, Alabama. This landfill does not just take in the garbage from a number of states across the United States, but it is also the site in which piles of coal ash from the 2008 ash spill in Kingston, Tennessee is dumped. It is of note that Uniontown, Alabama is about 90% African American and the average medium income of households here is 74% lower than America’s average. The toxic coal ash was shipped from Roane County in Tennessee where only 13.9% of the population is poor and 95% of the people are white (Sturgis, 2009).
Coal ash is a poisonous waste product of burning coal and has a number of harmful metals including cadmium, chromium, mercury, and lead. These pollutants, depending on a person’s exposure, could harm most body organs, bring about cancer, and even sicken or kill wildlife. Ailments ranging from respiratory problems to skin conditions, nosebleeds, and nausea have become widespread in Uniontown (Moskowitz, 2014). Because of the dumping of toxic waste in the Arrowhead landfill, coal ash pollution in the nearby town of Uniontown has become extensive. Citizens in Perry County have all sorts of health problems which they never had earlier (Bienkowski, 2016). According to various scholars, solid waste landfills are inclined to be situated disproportionately within low-wealth communities and communities of color (Camacho, 2012). A research study carried out in North Carolina demonstrated that the likelihood of a landfill or solid waste facility was nearly three times greater for neighborhoods in which at least half of the people are minorities in comparison to communities in which minorities make up less than ten percent (Schlosberg, 2014). In addition, communities with lower housing values have a higher chance of having landfills (Wenz, 2010).
Institutions have worsened the problem. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has allowed the federal corporation Tennessee Valley Authority to continue shipping the waste from Tennessee and dumping it at the Arrowhead Landfill in Alabama’s Perry County in close proximity to the community of Uniontown, which is one of Alabama’s poorest. At the moment, the problem is being investigated by United States Commission on Civil Rights which is holding a hearing on environmental justice, focusing on the impact of coal ash. The Commission intends to illuminate the civil rights implication for hazardous coal ash and other environmental conditions on the minorities (Bienkowski, 2016).
Theoretical Analysis 1
The first applicable theoretical framework is distributive justice. In an environmental context, distributive justice is understood as the equitable distribution of a society’s environmental as well as technological benefits, risks, and burdens. Examples of these burdens are industrial factories, landfills, air pollution, in addition to other environmental burdens (Maiese, 2012). It is of note that distributive justice is a vital component of environmental justice since researchers have found that these burdens drive down the value of property, affect quality of life in a negative way, and bring about health problems (Camacho, 2012).
This framework explains how injustice has occurred in the case study by showing how the environmental burden falls on a poor, low-income community in Uniontown, Alabama which is largely black. In the case study, the fundamental principles of distributive justice are infringed. Distributing the environmental burdens onto the poor and minority populations is clearly in violation of the principle of commensurable burdens and benefits, which states that unless there are reasons that are morally justifiable, people who obtain the benefits of modern industrial technology must be given the commensurable burdens as well (Lind & Tyler, 2011). Dobson (2013) noted that the people who get plenty of consumer goods have to be the targets of polluting industries and toxic waste facilities, while the people who get markedly fewer benefits, namely the poor people; have to be relieved of this incommensurable burden. In essence, the poor and the marginalized people as depicted in the case study are the ones who bear the burdens of pollution only because they found themselves vulnerable and without any options.
Given this framework, the recommended approach for managing the environmental justice problem is to ensure equitable distribution of the burden of the environmental hazard, namely the coal ash toxic waste, so that the environmental and public health risk is not disproportionately borne by the low-income, African American populations of Uniontown, Alabama. The coal ash is from a coal-powered plant that produces energy which is consumed by everyone, which is a benefit. The burden is the toxic waste. According to distributive justice, both benefits and burdens should be distributed equitably hence the coal ash landfills should not be located only in poor, minority communities but also in high-income, white neighborhoods. The principle of equity denotes the equal distribution of landfills across the territory (Walker, 2012). Everyone should bear the burden of the toxic coal ash notwithstanding their income, national origin, color, or race. In addition, inequality should be removed and a standard of environmental quality should be ensured for everybody, particularly a basic standard of air quality.
Theoretical Analysis 2
The second applicable theoretical framework is recognition and procedural justice. Recognition and procedural justice is concerned with formulating and implementing decisions basing upon fair processes which result in fair treatment. It makes sure that the people who formulate the procedures uphold aspects of neutrality and the populations or communities affected by those decisions are well represented in the decision-making processes (Hampton, 2009). It supports the notion that when people see fairness or evenhandedness in a particular procedure, they are more probable to acknowledge the outcomes. All in all, proced...