Alabama: New Bill Requires Industry to gauge pollution in minority areas
Sunday, March 20, 2005 at 12:47PM
TheSpook
The most
outrageous pollution problems that environmental justice advocates
point out, such as PCB contamination invariably are in poor,
working-class or black neighborhoods.
''. . . environmental issues like
dumping toxic wastes on poor and black communities are going on
unchecked and unmonitored. There's an encroaching danger to quality of
life in these communities. Dumps are rarely in upper-class
communities.''Rep. Joseph Mitchell, D-Mobile House sponsor of the bill
A Senate committee unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would
require the state to measure pollution affecting minority populations
before considering permits for industries. The bill, approved 5-0 by
the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is one of three
''environmental justice'' proposals that were introduced in the
Legislature this session. Supporters lauded the passage as a step
forward in the effort to ensure that poor and minority populations get
equal protection from industries' pollution. ''There's a position taken
by some of us that environmental issues like dumping toxic wastes on
poor and black communities are going on unchecked and unmonitored,''
said House sponsor Rep. Joseph Mitchell, D-Mobile. ''There's an
encroaching danger to quality of life in these communities. Dumps are
rarely in upper-class communities.'' [more]
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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