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Formosa Plastics and Whitney Plantation: EPA

Essay details the EPA's role in compliance with Formosa's attempt to build the proposed facility. Articles detail community meetings with EPA members, and an EIS investigation of Formosa.

Plantations History Whitney

This collection offers detailed history and personal accounts of Whitney plantation, giving context to Formosa's attempts to purchase the land as well as providing critical commentary to these atte

Formosa Plastics and Whitney: Fraud

This collection of news articles details the fraudulent activity of local officials in connection to Formosa, detailing the trial proceedings and findings. 

Main argument

Anonymous (not verified)
Lee argues that EJ practice has long stagnated over an inability to properly define the concept of disproportionate (environmental and public health) impacts, but that national conversations on system racism and the development of EJ mapping tools have improved his outlook on the potential for better application of the concept of disproportionate impact. Lee identifies mapping tools (e.g. CalEnviroScreen) as a pathway for empirically based and analytically rigorous articulation and analysis of disproportionate impacts that are linked to systemic racism. In describing the scope and nature of application of mapping tools, Baker highlights the concept of cumulative impacts (the concentration of multiple environmental, public health, and social stressors), the importance of public participation (e.g. Hoffman’s community science model), the role of redlining in creating disproportionate vulnerabilities, and the importance of integrating research into decision making processes. Baker ultimately argues that mapping tools offer a promising opportunity for integrating research into policy decision making as part of a second generation of EJ practice. Key areas that Lee identifies as important to the continued development of more effective EJ practice include: identifying good models for quantitative studies and analysis, assembling a spectrum of different integrative approaches (to fit different contexts), connecting EJ research to policy implications, and being attentive to historical contexts and processes that produce/reproduce structural inequities.