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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.

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Diego Martin

The participation of the EPA in the improvement of air pollution in Newark has a great relevance because it is an organization that has the ability to invest money in technologies that allow to have a greater knowledge of the levels of air pollution. This allows you to prevent problems and have more information to fight them better.

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Diego Martin

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Lead and Copper Rule regulates the presence of lead in drinking water. Under the rule, if more than 10 percent of samples test above 15 parts per billion, the federal lead “action level” is exceeded. An “action level” exceedance triggers mandatory requirements that a water system must perform. For Newark, these requirements include water quality monitoring, corrosion control treatment, source water monitoring and treatment, public education, and lead service line replacement. Newark must treat its water to guard against corrosion (pipe erosion and damage) to minimize lead “leaching” (when lead is dissolved from pipes or fixtures and transfers into the water) or flaking of small lead particles from pipes or fixtures into tap water.

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Anonymous (not verified)
" Then, after the scale of the disaster had sunk in and victims began to realize they were barred by the local and federal authorities from returning home, another kind of trauma set in. Families had to find a place to live, a way to replace lost income, a place for their children to go to school, a way to obtain their prescription medications and telephones, a way to pay mounting unpaid bills for homes they no longer inhabited. Without their personal documents, they had to try to track insurance policies, if they had them, bank accounts, and health records, to begin the slow process of accessing government or insurance funds to help pay for their displacement and their hoped-for recovery. The reality of how much had been destroyed, not just in personal physical property but in whole communities, whole ways of life, had just begun to be felt" "The ongoing conditions of displacement have prompted some to report that, despite the length of time since the actual disaster, New Orleans is still in a state of “responding” rather than “recovery.”4 This ongoing predicament is key to understanding that what we are calling “chronic disaster syndrome” is different from posttraumatic stress disorder, in which traumatic events are isolated in time and symptoms are related to events in the past. In the case of Katrina displacement, conditions that are traumatic continue; they are ongoing. " " “Cleaning up the mess” in this case included a deliberate effort to get rid of the poorest sectors of the population, who were seen as a drain on public resources— those who lived in public housing. The notion that subverting support for public-sector recovery and using disaster to enrich private contractors by evicting and “erasing” the poor were part of a deliberate plan was affirmed for residents when they heard one of their state lawmakers say, in regard to the loss of public housing from the storms and flooding, that “God did what we could not do.""

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Diego Martin

The object of this study is to demonstrate with objective data that pollution in Newark is causing real damage. Especially for children, because they suffer from respiratory diseases such as asthma; which is more harmful to a developing organism like a child. It is important that we become aware that pollution damage is real, and that a part of the population that is really affected is the youngest.

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Anonymous (not verified)
I further investigated details on the cost of a trailer home, the population changes over the past few years in New Orleans, and images of the city before and after Katrina.

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Diego Martin

I think it is an important step, clearly for presenting complaints, the problem will not be solved; we should all do it if we see something of this kind. In addition to the complaints, there are many steps to follow, such as organizing protests, taking care of daily consumption or becoming aware that a sustainable life is better for everyone.