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Environmental Justice Communities are too often targeted for unhealthy land uses by business and government. Oil refineries, prisons, dairies, large distribution centers, landfills, and chrome plating facilities are just a few of the toxic facilities that low-income communities and communities of color are asked to live next to.
EJ communities are targeted for these unhealthy facilities because the project proponent, whether it is a developer or state government, does not believe that communities with low resources will be able to stop them from placing the project in their community. They are banking on the fact that these communities often have many other important issues to address before they can pay attention to future environmental impacts and that when they get wind of a project, it will be to late participate. They are also betting that they will not have time to actively participate and they will not have the time or experience to become actively involved in the available public participation avenues. They count on people not having time to go to work hour meetings, not being able to decipher intensely technical project information, and the process of public participation being too cumbersome for a community that has a myriad of other concerns.
Project proponents often use deceptive messaging to tempt EJ communities to welcome unhealthy land uses into their community. In the Southern California community of Southside, a power company that wanted to build a power plant in an EJ community sent the residents of the community candles. The candles were to represent what the community could hope to light their homes with and cook their food with if they rejected the new power plant. Another example would be new unhealthy facilities promising jobs to the local community. More often than not those jobs go to people who live in other communities.
The Environmental Justice Land Use Project is aimed at addressing the problem of unhealthy land uses from this perspective. The goal of the project is to give more communities a voice when it comes to what goes into their community. Why should low-income and people of color communities be forced to bear the burden of California’s infrastructure needs? We may not be able to stop California’s most polluting industries to stop targeting EJ communities, however we can make sure that EJ communities have the capacity to participate in the public processes afforded to them so that they can have a voice in the process.
To this end, PCLF is offering the environmental justice land use workshop to any community that wants to learn more about how to voice their opinion on what goes into their community. The workshop provides a sound introduction to how land use decision-making works and how to navigate California’s most powerful public participation process, the environmental review process mandated by California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
A series of workshops in 2004 and 2005 were funded by the Great Valley
Center, the U.S. EPA, the Wellness Foundation, and Ben Hammett. The
Sacramento County Alliance of Neighborhoods has been our principal
project partner.
If you are interested in hosting an Environmental Justice Land Use
Workshop in your area please contact René Guererro.
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