Ecotopia’s Dirty Secrets and Their Untapped Potential Cure

Dr. Robert Bullard, one of the founders of the environmental justice movement in this country, wrote in his 1990 book, Dumping in Dixie, that “white racism … has made it easier for Black residential areas to become the dumping grounds for all types of life-threatening toxins and industrial pollution.”

This is certainly true throughout the Pacific Northwest, where pollution, poverty, race, tribal land rights and politics regularly collide. Impoverished people and people of color are disproportionately sickened because of environmental neglect. But some experts see a new path toward justice. They are looking to what they view as an underused resource that could remedy some of the egregious environmental disparities: the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Troy Abel, a professor of urban and environmental planning and policy at Western Washington University, told me: “No one is talking about how Washington State, King County and the city of Seattle are violating the Civil Rights Act regularly.”

Abel and a number of experts throughout the country say that Title VI of the act, which says that nobody should face an undue share of harm on account of their race, color or national origin, can and should be used to find justice for communities of color. Title VI requires that any program that receives federal funding ensure their programs operate in a nondiscriminatory manner.

As of September 2022, there is a new federal Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights at the Environmental Protection Agency. The office says that it “enforces federal civil rights laws, including Title VI, that, together, prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin (including on the basis of limited-English proficiency); sex; disability; or age by applicants for and recipients of federal financial assistance from EPA.”

The office emphasizes the EPA’s definition of environmental justice “as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”

And, according to Abel, the corporate law world that deals with environmental suits considers the Civil Rights Act to be “the sleeping giant that is reawakening.” Yale Law School explains that environmental law “offers attorneys a wealth of opportunity to have a positive impact on public interest as we struggle domestically and internationally to find the proper balance between environmental preservation and economic stability.” It’s in that bit about affecting “public interest” that companies may be able to employ Title VI in the pursuit of environmental justice.

One example of an environmental disaster that could benefit from the use of the Civil Rights Act is the fact that Washington has allowed for the devastation of the salmon population, which American Indian tribes have historically been given legal access to — the decimation is a violation of people’s civil rights to customary fishing and hunting grounds, Abel says. Another example is that the Duwamish people in Seattle claim the rights to the heavily contaminated Duwamish River and surrounding lands, while people who live along the river suffer inordinately poor health — those in the Duwamish Valley live 13 years fewer on average than residents of North Seattle, the nonprofit Seattle Foundation reports.

In a region that values its waterways and intact environmental beauty, those who fight for environmental justice appear to have a new weapon in their quiver.