In order for modern society to exist, there must be an infrastructure that supports basic requirements. When we speak of this infrastructure, we are talking about roads, power lines, transmission wires, and other basic necessities that support everyday living.

Many of these necessities tend to be undesirable. For example, while every community must dispose of its trash, no one really wants to live near a landfill or an incinerator. And while every modern building has sinks and toilets, most people would just as soon avoid taking up residence next to a sewage treatment facility.

Often Undesirable Aactivites Are Concentrated In Certain Parts Of Town

Did you ever notice that wealthy communities tend not to have sewage treatment facilities, or landfills, or other noxious public operations located within their borders? While this tends to be so for many reasons, at least one is that people with financial wherewithall tend to be able to exclude construction of these kinds of facilities in their surrounding community. It is typically in the poorer parts of town where you find a concentration of the local support operations.

Often, when one noxious use is constructed, others readily follow. The argument that you hear goes something like this, " That part of town already has the landfill, it just makes sense to place the sewer facility there. Why ruin a "good" neighborhood with something like that?"

Poorer people often lack a loud enough political voice to block these projects. It takes money to get elected and to remain in office. People who have the money are the source of the contributions needed to run elections. In turn, when issues arise, the contributors are often heard. Poorer people often simply cannot participate with equal vigor in the political process. Therefore, when politically charged land use decisions are up for consideration, the poor often get the short end of the stick.

Courts May Now Be Willing To Consider Disproportionate Impact Arguments

While poorer communities may not have as loud of a legislative voice as they otherwise should, they now may be able to block disproportionately noxious projects using the courts. Recently, the United State Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from a federal appeals court ruling which gave citizen groups the right to challenge certain environmentally degrading projects in the courts. While the ruling on its face only applies to the Third Circuit (New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware), it may be followed by other courts as well.

The case is called Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living v. Seif. In Chester Residents, a local citizens group opposing the siting of a solid waste facility in its neighborhood, was permitted to sue Pennsylvania in federal court and allege that there would be a "discriminatory effect" created by the siting and operation of the facility in its neighborhood..

The community group challenged a permit issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for the construction of the proposed solid waste facility. The group asserted that it had a right to maintain a lawsuit in federal court and to assert there was a discriminatory effect in the manner in which the siting decision was made. While the federal trial court found no basis for the lawsuit, the appeals court reversed, finding that federal law supports the right to maintain this kind of lawsuit.

In Chester Residents, the Court observed that the City of Chester is located in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and has a population of approximately 42,000, of which 65% is black and 32% is white. Delaware County, excluding Chester, has a population of approximately 502,000, of which 6.2% is black and 91% is white. The community group alleged that Pennsylvania granted five waste facility permits for locations in the City of Chester since 1987, while only granting two permits for sites in the rest of Delaware County. It further alleged that the Chester facilities have a total permit capacity of 2.1 million tons of waste per year, while the non-Chester facilities have a total permit capacity of only 1,400 tons of waste per year.

In other words, what the group was alleging is that because its members are generally financially poor and members of a racial minority, noxious operations were, more often than not, being unfairly placed in its community. The group's argument was that since the entire County benefitted from these facilities, the entire County should share in whatever detriments might be associated with them.

Throughout the County, people who were previously silent are unifying to protect and preserve their neighborhoods from toxins and other hazards sometimes associated with noxious operations. Offending operations vary, from industrial landfills, to large incinerators, to poorly operated industrial facilities. Even highways have been the focus of this new movement, which has come to be known as the environmental justice movement.

What does all of this mean? It means that no one neighborhood should have to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the burden caused by polluting businesses and operations. Everyone who benefits should suffer some of the detriment associated with these enterprises. Now, the environmental justice movement, coupled with the recent Chester Residents decision, creates more of an equal playing field and no one should be forced to suffer in silence.

Published: November 5, 1998

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.