For going on four decades, the environmental justice movement has focused on unequal protection at all levels of government — federal, state, county, and municipal. We have pointed out in research, advocacy, and activism that communities of color are exposed to disproportionate levels of pollution over the course of our lives. We even raised with EPA the need to identify the cumulative and synergistic burden of exposure to multiple sources of pollution.
While most Americans are confronting the coronavirus pandemic, communities of color are confronting something worse, the Syndemic of Coronavirus and Environmental Injustice. A syndemic is a synergistic epidemic. It is a set of linked health problems contributing to excess disease. To prevent a syndemic, one must control not only each affliction in a population but also the forces that tie those burdens together.
Constant exposure to high levels of air toxics in communities of color has already resulted in explosive levels of respiratory disease, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and emphysema, as well as heart disease. These pre-existing conditions have compounded the devastating impact of this pandemic; communities of color are now experiencing the highest rates of infection and death from COVID-19 in the United States. Lax attention to poor air quality has provided the perfect conditions for coronavirus to ravage the neighborhoods of people of color.
In April, the Harvard School of Public Health published a study that shows that COVID-19 is travelingthrough the air by attaching itself to fine particulate matter. They found that living in a county that experiences a slightly elevated level of PM2.5 results in a higher likelihood of developing coronavirus and dying from it. Only 22 percent of all counties in the United States are majority African American, yet 57 percent of COVID-19 deaths are coming from these jurisdictions. The Navajo Nation has been devastated by the pandemic and has a higher per capita rate of death from the virus than do seven states.
Latino and other immigrant workers in meatpacking plants are particularly vulnerable to virus exposure. These workers toil in conditions that rapidly spread COVID-19, making them especially vulnerable. With little concern for the well-being of employees, their jobs have been designated as essential so that the rest of us can have an uninterrupted supply of meat.
In an article published in the British newspaper The Guardian, reporter Emily Holden writes, "The Trump administration has said it will not tighten rules for soot pollution (PM2.5), despite research showing that doing so could save thousands of lives each year." Fine particles from the burning of wood and fossil fuels "penetrate the respiratory system and are linked with heart and lung diseases, higher rates of asthma, bronchitis, and cancer."
Holden explains that under the existing standard, "Polluters can emit enough soot to measure 12 micrograms per cubic meter. Strengthening the standards to 11 micrograms could save about 12,000 lives per year." The writer observes that "other research, noted in the government's own analysis, found that maintaining the soot standard at its current level could allow as many as 52,000 deaths a year in just 47 urban areas."
The Trump EPA "is now proposing to freeze the standards. The move comes as experts warn the coronavirus pandemic is unequally devastating communities of color that have been disproportionately burdened by pollution." The agency is also retaining its current standard for coarse particle pollution (PM10).Rob Brenner was deputy assistant administrator of EPA's air office and director of its policy shop. He says, "The science (based on thousands of high-quality studies) is clear: even a modest increase in the stringency of the standard would prevent thousands of premature deaths per year. . . . We need to continue to highlight the disproportionate effects of air pollution on already over-burdened communities and urge a tighter standard."
The current administration has withdrawn several environmental regulations under the guise of expediting economic development and business interests. In this particularly difficult and unprecedented public health crisis, one where communities of color are already paying an extraordinarily high price, the federal agency needs to lean into stringently regulating air pollution. Instead, what we have seen is the administration giving many industries a free hand to pollute while relaxing enforcement, all in aid of supposedly fighting the coronavirus. This is exactly the opposite of what is needed.
These measures also reinforce the sense that all communities are not, in fact, equal before the law. Even when the evidence clearly demonstrates that communities of color are more in need of environmental protection than ever before, they can't expect their government to focus attention or resources on those most impacted and most in need of assistance.
These communities are on their own and their government is not coming to their aide. This is unacceptable though not unfamiliar.
Vernice Miller-Travis is executive vice president for environment and sustainability of the Metropolitan Group.
Copyright ©2020, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington D.C. www.eli.org. Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, September-October .