Environmental Racism

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US Garbage Incinerators Are Failing to Eliminate “Forever Chemical” Air Pollution, Experts Warn

| Tom Perkins | The Guardian | May 30, 2026

This article reports that U.S. garbage incinerators are failing to safely eliminate PFAS “forever chemical” air pollution. It explains that these incinerators are often located in low-income neighborhoods and that advocates describe the pollution burden as environmental injustice affecting marginalized communities.

Community Air Monitoring Project Finds South Memphis Is Regularly Exposed to Unsafe Air Pollution

| Tennessee Lookout | Tennessee Lookout | May 29, 2026

This article reports on community air monitoring in South Memphis, where residents and environmental justice advocates have raised concerns about air pollution near xAI’s Colossus data center and the gas turbines that power it. It is useful for documenting current pollution concerns in a predominantly Black area already burdened by industrial emissions.

Profit Over People: The Garden Grove Chemical Crisis Disproportionately Harms Working Class Communities of Color

| Christina T. Nguyen | Voice of OC | May 25, 2026

This article argues that the Garden Grove chemical crisis at GKN Aerospace disproportionately harmed working-class Vietnamese, Latinx, immigrant, refugee, and limited-English communities. It describes Garden Grove as a “sacrifice zone” and chemically polluted hotspot shaped by environmental racism, discriminatory zoning, and unequal exposure to industrial hazards.

Elon Musk Expands AI Plant Accused of Polluting Black Areas

| Willy Blackmore | Word In Black | May 21, 2026

This article reports that xAI added six more gas turbines after environmental and civil-rights groups challenged the company over alleged Clean Air Act violations. It explains that Black communities near Memphis and North Mississippi may bear the health costs of unpermitted gas-turbine pollution used to power AI data centers.

NAACP Lawyer Links Data Center Fight to Civil Rights Legacy

| Taylor Mills | Bloomberg Law | May 20, 2026

This article profiles the NAACP’s legal work against polluting industries and connects the data-center pollution fight to a broader civil-rights legacy. It is useful for documenting how advocates frame pollution in Black communities as an environmental justice and civil-rights issue.

EIP and Allies Sue Zeldin’s EPA for Excessive Trash Incinerator Pollution

| Environmental Integrity Project | Environmental Integrity Project | May 11, 2026

This article reports that environmental and community groups sued the EPA over weak municipal waste incinerator rules. The lawsuit argues that incinerators release mercury, lead, dioxins, and other cancer-causing pollutants into neighborhoods, with communities of color among those harmed by inadequate regulation.

Community Groups Sue EPA to Tighten Its Incinerator Rules

| Cole Rosengren | Waste Dive | May 2026

This article reports on community groups challenging EPA incinerator rules, including East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and Ironbound Community Corporation. It notes that many covered incinerators are located in environmental justice communities, making the rule especially important for fenceline residents.

Inside Memphis’ Fight Against xAI

| Eric Hilt and Samantha Baars | Southern Environmental Law Center | May 8, 2026

This article discusses the legal and community fight against xAI’s polluting data-center power operation in the Greater Memphis area. It is useful for documenting how environmental justice groups are challenging gas-turbine emissions that threaten nearby communities.

Elon Musk’s xAI Is Poisoning Black Communities. The NAACP Is Taking Him to Court.

| NAACP AOWSAC | NAACP Alaska Oregon Washington State-Area Conference | May 8, 2026

This article describes the NAACP’s federal lawsuit against xAI over alleged unpermitted gas-turbine pollution from its data-center power plant. It frames the case as environmental racism because the pollution source affects a disproportionately Black and low-income community while bypassing the permitting process meant to protect residents.

NAACP Asks Court for Emergency Action to Stop Illegal Air Pollution from xAI’s Data Center Power Plant

| Earthjustice | Earthjustice | May 6, 2026

This press release reports that the NAACP sought a preliminary injunction against xAI’s unpermitted gas-turbine power plant in Southaven, Mississippi, which powers data centers near Memphis. It says the turbines emit pollutants linked to asthma, respiratory disease, heart problems, and cancer, while nearby communities bear the consequences.

Environmental Justice Groups Respond to the California Energy Commission’s Senate Bill 237 Assessment: Supporting the Transition Away from Petroleum Fuels

| Communities for a Better Environment | Communities for a Better Environment | May 5, 2026

This article reports responses from California environmental justice groups to the state’s petroleum transition assessment. It emphasizes that refinery and oil-extraction communities have carried public-health burdens for generations and calls for a managed fossil-fuel phaseout that protects fenceline communities, workers, and cleanup obligations.

Green Light to Pollute in Texas

| Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice | Bullard Center | May 4, 2026

This report page discusses petrochemical and refining expansion in Texas, especially around the Greater Houston area. It states that this industrial concentration disproportionately affects fenceline communities, often low-income communities of color, and argues that Texas lacks adequate environmental justice tools to prevent these inequities.

Congress Urged to Reject Fast-Tracking of Harmful Data Centers

| WE ACT for Environmental Justice and partner organizations | WE ACT for Environmental Justice | April 29, 2026

This release reports that nearly 120 community, labor, climate, and environmental justice organizations urged Congress not to fast-track AI and data centers. It argues that data-center expansion can worsen air pollution, strain water and energy systems, and deepen environmental injustice by concentrating facilities in low-income communities and communities of color.

The Poison Next Door: Measuring Risk in Cancer Alley

| Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health | Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Magazine | April 23, 2026

This article discusses air-pollution risk in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley and the work of researchers and community advocates to measure exposure in fenceline communities. It is useful for documenting how petrochemical pollution risks in Black communities may be underestimated by conventional monitoring and regulatory systems.

THRIVEair: A Community-Based Air Monitoring Network Design in a Pollution-Burdened Philadelphia Neighborhood to Advance Environmental Justice

| Sheila Tripathy et al. | Environmental Health Insights | 2026

This peer-reviewed article describes community-based air monitoring near the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery. It is useful for documenting how fenceline communities affected by refinery operations organized with researchers to monitor benzene and other volatile organic compounds during decommissioning and redevelopment.

Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States

| United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice | United Church of Christ | 1987

This landmark report helped define the modern environmental justice movement. It found that race was a major factor associated with the placement of hazardous waste facilities in residential communities, especially communities of color.

Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty: 1987–2007

| Robert D. Bullard et al. | United Church of Christ / Environmental Justice Resource Center | 2007

This follow-up report found that racial disparities around toxic-waste sites remained severe two decades later, with people of color making up a majority of residents living near many hazardous waste facilities.

How Black Communities Become “Sacrifice Zones” for Industrial Air Pollution

| Lisa Song, Lylla Younes and Al Shaw | ProPublica | December 21, 2021

This article explains how Black communities have repeatedly been turned into industrial “sacrifice zones,” connecting modern air-pollution exposure to the history of toxic-waste siting and environmental racism.

Poison in the Air

| Lylla Younes, Al Shaw and Ava Kofman | ProPublica | November 2, 2021

ProPublica’s national investigation mapped toxic industrial air pollution and found that the Clean Air Act often leaves the people living closest to industrial polluters with inadequate protection from cumulative cancer risks.

EPA Calls Out Environmental Racism in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

| Lylla Younes | ProPublica / Grist | October 19, 2022

This article reports on the EPA’s civil-rights concerns in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, where Black residents face disproportionate cancer risk from industrial air pollution, including exposure near a predominantly Black elementary school.

“We’re Dying Here”: The Fight for Life in a Louisiana Fossil Fuel Sacrifice Zone

| Antonia Juhasz | Human Rights Watch | January 25, 2024

This major report focuses on Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, an 85-mile corridor with roughly 200 fossil-fuel and petrochemical operations. Human Rights Watch found that severe health harms from industrial pollution are disproportionately borne by Black residents.

The Fight Over Cancer Alley Pollution Heads to Trial

| Adam Mahoney | Capital B News | February 11, 2026

This article covers litigation arguing that the disproportionate placement of polluting facilities in Black Louisiana communities may be tied to the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination.

Communities of Color Across the US Suffer A Growing Burden from Polluted Air

| George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health | George Washington University | March 6, 2024

This research summary reports that communities of color face a growing burden of air-pollution-linked disease, and notes that redlining and systemic racism placed the least-white areas of the United States near factories, highways, shipping routes, and other polluted corridors.

Study Finds Exposure to Air Pollution Higher for People of Color Regardless of Region or Income

| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA Science Matters | September 20, 2021

The EPA summarizes research showing that people of color experience disproportionate exposure from nearly all major emission sectors, regardless of income or region. The researchers directly connect those disparities to systemic racism and housing patterns.

Empowering Communities of Color for Environmental Health and Justice: The Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling in Los Angeles Case

| Bhavna Shamasunder et al. | CDC Preventing Chronic Disease | February 22, 2024

This peer-reviewed CDC essay discusses oil drilling in Los Angeles and explains how Black and Latiné communities experience persistent exposure to air pollution, oil wells, and other environmental health burdens tied to environmental racism.

Fossil Fuel Racism in the United States: How Phasing Out Coal, Oil, and Gas Can Protect Communities

| Author not listed here | Energy Research & Social Science | 2023

This scholarly article argues that fossil-fuel systems externalize pollution and health costs onto Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor communities, making fossil-fuel pollution a specific form of environmental racism.

Disrupting the System from Plantations to Plastics

| Author not listed here | American Bar Association | October 30, 2024

This article connects petrochemical siting in the South to former plantation lands and argues that modern petrochemical pollution continues a legacy of racialized land use, health disparities, and environmental racism in Black communities.

Petrochemical Expansion in Texas Will Fall Heavily on Communities of Color

| Author not listed here | Inside Climate News | November 30, 2025

This article discusses petrochemical expansion in Texas and cites environmental justice research showing that race and poverty predict where polluting industries place facilities.

The Tragedy of North Birmingham

| Max Blau | ProPublica | September 1, 2022

This investigation covers historic Black communities in North Birmingham, Alabama, where industrial plants have polluted air and land for more than a century, creating a major environmental injustice zone.

HUD Accuses City of Chicago of Environmental Racism by Moving Polluters to Black, Latino Neighborhoods

| Brett Chase | Chicago Sun-Times | July 19, 2022

This article reports on federal civil-rights findings related to Chicago’s handling of polluting industries, including allegations that polluting activities were shifted away from white neighborhoods and toward Black and Latino communities.

A Sacrifice Zone: Why Did a Chicago Community of Color Get Picked for an Industrial Facility?

| María Inés Zamudio | Injustice Watch | January 28, 2021

This article covers an EPA civil-rights investigation into the relocation of a scrapyard to Southeast Chicago, where residents and advocates argued that Latino and Black communities were being burdened with polluting industrial activity.

Black, Latinx Californians Face Highest Exposure to Oil and Gas Wells

| Kara Manke | UC Berkeley | March 23, 2023

This research summary reports that Californians living near active oil and gas wells are disproportionately Black, Latinx, and low-income, with exposure to pollution linked to health risks.

Black Women in South LA Lead the Fight to End Urban Oil Drilling

| Adam Mahoney | Capital B News | November 11, 2025

This article reports on neighborhood oil drilling in South Los Angeles and notes that the communities most affected are overwhelmingly Black or Latino, where drilling, freeways, and industrial zoning converge.

Solid Waste Sites and the Black Houston Community

| Robert D. Bullard | Sociological Inquiry | 1983

This landmark study examined the siting of solid waste facilities in Houston and found that waste sites were not randomly distributed across the city, but were disproportionately located in Black communities. It is one of the foundational academic works in the field of environmental justice.

Siting of Hazardous Waste Landfills and Their Correlation with Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities

| U.S. General Accounting Office | GAO | June 1, 1983

This federal report examined hazardous waste landfill locations in eight southeastern states and found that Black residents made up the majority of the population in three of the four communities where the region’s offsite hazardous waste landfills were located. It became a key early government source documenting racial disparities in toxic facility siting.

Unequal Protection: The Racial Divide in Environmental Law

| Marianne Lavelle and Marcia Coyle | National Law Journal | September 21, 1992

This major investigative report found racial disparities in the way toxic waste sites were cleaned up and polluters were punished. It reported that communities of color often received slower cleanup, weaker enforcement, and lower penalties than white communities facing comparable environmental hazards.

Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Residential Proximity to Polluting Industrial Facilities

| Paul Mohai and Robin Saha | American Journal of Public Health | 2009

This peer-reviewed study examined whether polluting facilities were sited in minority and low-income communities or whether demographic shifts happened after siting. The authors found evidence supporting the conclusion that environmental inequality is strongly connected to facility siting patterns, not only later population movement.

Which Came First, People or Pollution? Assessing the Disparate Siting and Post-Siting Demographic Change Hypotheses of Environmental Injustice

| University of Michigan | University of Michigan Record | January 20, 2016

This article summarizes research by Paul Mohai and Robin Saha finding that hazardous waste facilities were more likely to be placed in neighborhoods already containing higher concentrations of minority and low-income residents. The research challenges arguments that communities of color merely moved near existing polluters.

Toxic Waste and Race in Twenty-First Century America

| Michael Mascarenhas | Environment and Society | 2021

This scholarly article revisits the long history of environmental justice research and argues that toxic exposure in the United States continues to be shaped by race, class, and institutional power. It is useful as a modern academic overview of how the “toxic waste and race” framework has evolved.

Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility

| Dorceta E. Taylor | NYU Press | June 2014

This book examines why poor and minority communities often remain trapped near industrial pollution and hazardous facilities. It is especially useful for explaining how housing markets, racism, political power, and residential mobility shape who lives near polluting industries.

Environmental Racism and Invisible Communities

| Robert D. Bullard | West Virginia Law Review | 1994

This legal article discusses environmental racism through the experience of communities whose exposure to pollution is often ignored by mainstream environmental policy. Bullard emphasizes that Black communities did not simply move toward hazards; rather, waste facilities and industrial polluters were frequently placed in Black neighborhoods.

Chapter 2: What Is Environmental Justice?

| U.S. Commission on Civil Rights | U.S. Commission on Civil Rights | 2003

This government chapter describes environmental justice and provides examples of communities of color facing concentrated environmental hazards, including Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas, where mostly minority cities hosted many chemical plants and refineries compared with nearby mostly white communities.

‘We Want to Live. They Want to Burn Trash’: Chester Residents Raise Environmental Racism Concerns Over Incinerator with Covanta

| Kenny Cooper | WHYY | May 3, 2021

This article covers Chester, Pennsylvania, a predominantly Black city burdened by one of the nation’s largest waste incinerators. Residents and advocates describe the Covanta facility as part of a wider pattern of environmental racism in which outside trash is burned in a low-income Black community.

Environmental Racism in Chester

| Public Interest Law Center | Public Interest Law Center | No date listed

This case summary describes Chester, Pennsylvania as a low-income African American city with an unusually dense cluster of polluting facilities, including a trash incinerator, sewage treatment plant, waste processors, oil refineries, and other industrial polluters. It is useful for documenting Chester as a long-running environmental justice case.

What Is Environmental Racism?

| Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living | CRCQL | No date listed

This community resource explains environmental racism through Chester’s experience with waste and industrial facilities. It describes Chester as a major example of how polluting industries can become concentrated in low-income Black communities with limited political power.

Smells Like Environmental Racism

| Valerie Vande Panne | In These Times | October 25, 2017

This article examines Detroit’s trash incinerator and the surrounding neighborhoods affected by odor and air pollution. It reports that nearly 90 percent of those living within a mile of the incinerator were people of color, making the facility a strong example of environmental racism in urban waste infrastructure.

The Blackest City in the US Is Facing an Environmental Justice Nightmare

| Drew Costley | The Guardian | January 9, 2020

This article examines Detroit’s environmental justice crisis, including toxic air, lead exposure, water shutoffs, and industrial pollution. It highlights the 48217 ZIP code, a majority-Black area near Marathon’s refinery and other industrial sources, as an example of how segregation and pollution intersect.

Environmental Activists Claim Victory After Detroit Incinerator Closes

| Kianga Moore | Truthout | July 13, 2019

This article reports on the closure of Detroit’s controversial trash incinerator after years of community organizing. It frames the shutdown as a victory for environmental justice advocates who had long argued that the incinerator harmed nearby low-income and predominantly Black communities.

Industry Poisoned a Vibrant Black Neighborhood in Houston. Is a Buyout the Solution?

| Adam Mahoney | Capital B News / Grist | March 8, 2024

This article focuses on Houston’s Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens, historically Black neighborhoods affected by contamination linked to a rail yard. It connects the case to Houston’s long history of environmental racism and to Robert Bullard’s foundational research on race and toxic pollution.

Double Jeopardy in Houston

| Union of Concerned Scientists and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services | Union of Concerned Scientists | October 2016

This report examines Houston communities facing both climate risks and industrial chemical hazards. It is useful for showing how low-income communities and communities of color can face layered risks from refineries, chemical plants, flooding, and weak emergency planning.

How Black North Carolinians Pay the Price for the World’s Cheap Bacon

| Jamie Berger | Vox | April 1, 2022

This article explains how industrial hog farms in eastern North Carolina disproportionately affect Black, Latinx, and Indigenous residents. It links hog waste lagoons, odors, respiratory harms, and weak regulation to a broader history of racial discrimination and land-use inequality.

Decades of Legal Battles Over Pollution by Industrial Hog Farms Haven’t Changed Much for Eastern NC Residents Burdened by Environmental Racism

| Melba Newsome | North Carolina Health News | October 29, 2021

This article covers the long struggle of eastern North Carolina residents living near industrial hog farms. It explains how courts have recognized harms from hog-waste pollution while state and local laws have made it difficult for affected rural Black communities to win meaningful relief.

Environmental Injustice in North Carolina’s Hog Industry

| Steve Wing et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2000

This peer-reviewed article analyzes the distribution of industrial hog operations in North Carolina and finds that environmental justice variables remained associated with hog facility concentration even after considering population density. It is an important scholarly source on hog farms and racialized rural pollution.

Diesel Trucks Are Causing Environmental Injustice Across US Cities

| Krystal Vasquez | Environmental Health News | October 19, 2021

This article reports on research showing that low-income people of color in U.S. cities are more exposed to nitrogen dioxide pollution, largely because of diesel truck routes. It connects freight traffic, freeway placement, and air pollution to environmental racism in urban planning.

South Seattle Communities of Color Disproportionately Exposed to Freight Truck Emissions

| TRUE Initiative | TRUE Initiative | January 29, 2026

This report focuses on freight truck emissions in South Seattle and the Duwamish Valley, where communities of color face elevated exposure to transportation-related pollution. It is useful as a recent example of port, freight, and truck-route pollution creating environmental justice disparities.

Empowering Communities of Color for Environmental Health and Justice: The Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling in Los Angeles Case

| Jessica A. Douglas et al. | CDC Preventing Chronic Disease | February 22, 2024

This peer-reviewed article examines neighborhood oil drilling in Los Angeles and the organizing work of Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling. It explains how communities of color experienced persistent exposure to oil wells, air pollution, and health risks tied to environmental racism.

The US Nuclear Weapons Program Left ‘a Horrible Legacy’ of Environmental Destruction and Death Across the Navajo Nation

| Cheyanne M. Daniels | Inside Climate News | June 27, 2021

This article examines the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation, where mining for the U.S. nuclear weapons program left radioactive contamination, illness, and abandoned waste. It is useful for connecting environmental racism to Indigenous communities and extractive industry.

Nuclear Buildup Sickened His Community. Then It Caught Up With Him.

| Yvette Cabrera | Center for Public Integrity | November 30, 2022

This investigation follows Navajo activist Earl Tulley and the continuing harms from uranium mining on and near the Navajo Nation. It documents how Cold War-era extraction left lasting radioactive contamination and health fears in Indigenous communities.

A Poisoned People: For Navajo, Uranium Contamination Is Environmental Racism

| Laurel Morales | KJZZ / Fronteras Desk | November 20, 2017

This article reports on Navajo communities living with abandoned uranium mine contamination decades after mining companies left. It explicitly frames the contamination as environmental racism affecting Indigenous people whose land and health were sacrificed for uranium extraction.

The Health Impacts of Uranium Mining in Indigenous Communities

| Talia Keyanna | Native American Budget and Policy Institute / University of New Mexico | 2023

This policy brief summarizes health risks and cleanup issues associated with uranium mining in Indigenous communities, especially the Navajo Nation. It is useful for documenting how abandoned mines, contaminated water, and radioactive waste remain long-term environmental justice problems.

PM2.5 Polluters Disproportionately and Systemically Affect People of Color in the United States

| Christopher W. Tessum et al. | Science Advances | April 28, 2021

This national study found that people of color are disproportionately exposed to fine particulate pollution from many major emission categories. It supports the broader claim that environmental racism is not limited to isolated cases, but appears across many types of polluting activity.

Communities of Color Are Disproportionately Exposed to Long-Term and Short-Term PM2.5 in Metropolitan America

| Timothy W. Collins et al. | Environmental Research | 2022

This peer-reviewed study finds that people of color in U.S. metropolitan areas face significantly worse fine-particle pollution exposure, with disparities especially affecting Hispanic/Latinx, Asian, and Black populations. It is useful as a national-scale scientific source on racial disparities in air pollution.

We Birthed the Movement: The Warren County PCB Landfill Protests, 1978–1982

| UNC Libraries | University of North Carolina Libraries | No date listed

This exhibition documents the Warren County, North Carolina PCB landfill protests, widely recognized as a foundational event in the environmental justice movement. The case involved a predominantly Black rural community fighting the state’s decision to place PCB-contaminated soil in their county.

Warren County and the Birth of Environmental Justice: From Local Protest to a National Movement

| Yiheng Wang | Critical Debates in Humanities, Science, and Global Justice | 2025

This scholarly article examines how the 1982 Warren County PCB landfill protest transformed a local hazardous-waste siting fight into a national environmental justice movement. It explains how activists reframed the landfill as a civil-rights and environmental racism issue.

Birth of an Environmental Movement: Q&A with Pioneers

| Climate Central | Climate Central | No date listed

This interview article revisits the Warren County PCB landfill protests and their lasting influence on environmental justice organizing. It is useful for showing how early organizers connected hazardous waste siting to civil rights, race, water, health, and community self-determination.

The Decades-Long Fight in a Community Treated as a Dumping Ground

| Yvette Cabrera | Center for Public Integrity | January 19, 2024

This article focuses on Kettleman City, California, a largely Latino farmworker community burdened by hazardous waste disposal. It describes the long fight over toxic permitting decisions and explains how the community became a major example of environmental racism in California.

Kettleman City

| Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice | Greenaction | No date listed

This community history describes Kettleman City’s fight against Chemical Waste Management’s hazardous waste landfill and proposed incinerator. It explains how residents in a largely Latino farmworker town helped defeat a major toxic-waste expansion and contributed to the national environmental justice movement.

An Analysis of Kettleman City’s Hazardous Waste Facility

| Shalini Patrachari | eScholarship / University of California | 2017

This academic paper examines the hazardous waste facility in Kettleman City through the lens of race, public health, and environmental justice. It is useful for documenting how toxic waste infrastructure became concentrated near a vulnerable rural community of color.

Toxic Waste Landfill in Kettleman City, California

| Environmental Justice Atlas | EJAtlas | No date listed

This case profile describes Kettleman City’s hazardous waste landfill as a case of environmental racism. It summarizes community mobilization against toxic waste disposal in a largely Latino farmworker community.

Unraveling Environmental Racism, Here and Now: What the South Bronx and Other Communities Deserve

| Arif Ullah and Mychal Johnson | South Bronx Unite / New York Daily News | April 22, 2022

This article discusses environmental racism in the South Bronx, where highways, waste facilities, industrial uses, and freight infrastructure have long burdened a largely Black and Latino community. It argues that the neighborhood deserves investment, clean air, and protection from cumulative pollution.

From “Asthma Alley” to Green Spaces: A Field Trip with South Bronx Unite

| Conor O’Brien | Columbia Climate School | July 11, 2024

This article describes the South Bronx as a major environmental justice case, including the neighborhood’s heavy exposure to highways, truck traffic, waste infrastructure, and poor air quality. It is useful for documenting how community groups organize against concentrated pollution in Black and Latino neighborhoods.

What Does Sustainability Mean in the Bronx?

| Terry Nguyen | Vox | September 8, 2021

This article examines sustainability and environmental racism in the Bronx, where working-class communities of color have long faced pollution, waste infrastructure, and unequal urban planning. It is useful for connecting local pollution burdens to broader questions of race, class, and environmental policy.

Breathe At Your Own Risk: Transit Justice in West Harlem

| Peggy Shepard | Race, Poverty & the Environment | Spring 2007

This article discusses West Harlem’s fight against diesel bus depots, sewage infrastructure, and transportation-related pollution. It is useful for showing how transit infrastructure and public facilities were concentrated in a community of color, contributing to asthma and other health burdens.

The MTA, Bus Depots and Race

| Robert D. Bullard | The Nation | October 17, 2003

This article examines the racial distribution of bus depots and diesel pollution in New York City, especially in northern Manhattan. It explains how bus depots, sewage treatment plants, lead exposure, and other environmental hazards contributed to disproportionate health burdens in communities of color.

Environmental Justice Delayed Has Been Justice Denied

| Steven Cohen | Columbia Climate School | May 9, 2022

This article discusses the long environmental justice fight over the North River sewage treatment plant in West Harlem. It shows how communities of color spent decades fighting the placement and impacts of large pollution-generating public infrastructure.

The Godmother of the Environmental Justice Movement Speaks Out

| Environmental Defense Fund | EDF | No date listed

This article profiles Peggy Shepard and WE ACT’s early work against pollution in Harlem. It describes how activists challenged the placement of toxic industry and polluting infrastructure in minority communities as environmental racism.

Issues of Community Empowerment

| Peggy M. Shepard | Fordham Urban Law Journal | 1994

This legal article discusses community empowerment in the environmental justice movement, including the West Harlem fight over the North River sewage treatment plant. It is useful as an older source showing how communities of color organized against environmental racism in urban planning.

The Mother of Environmental Justice

| Q Magazine | University of Illinois | May 23, 2018

This article profiles Hazel Johnson of Altgeld Gardens, Chicago, often called the mother of environmental justice. It describes the “Toxic Doughnut” of landfills, industrial sites, and contaminated areas surrounding a Black public-housing community.

What a Gutted EPA Could Mean for Chicago’s “Toxic Doughnut”

| NRDC | Natural Resources Defense Council | April 17, 2017

This article discusses Altgeld Gardens on Chicago’s South Side, a Black community surrounded by toxic sites and industrial pollution. It explains how the neighborhood became a major example of environmental racism and why federal enforcement matters for communities facing cumulative pollution.

Chicago’s Toxic Doughnut, USA

| Environmental Justice Atlas | EJAtlas | No date listed

This case profile describes Chicago’s “Toxic Doughnut” around Altgeld Gardens as an early environmental justice struggle. It documents community-led research and organizing against hazardous waste, contaminated land, and industrial pollution in a predominantly Black community.

Community Spotlight: Altgeld Gardens

| Nishant Shah | National Wildlife Federation | November 8, 2024

This article discusses Altgeld Gardens as a Chicago neighborhood shaped by toxic industry, environmental injustice, and the legacy of Hazel Johnson’s organizing. It is useful for documenting how community groups continue to address the long-term harms of pollution in a Black neighborhood.

Port Arthur, Texas: American Sacrifice Zone

| Andrea Germanos | NRDC | November 13, 2014

This article describes Port Arthur, Texas as a refinery and petrochemical fence-line community. It explains how residents live near major industrial pollution sources along the Gulf Coast, making the city a prominent example of environmental injustice.

A Dream Deferred: 30 Years of U.S. Environmental Justice in Port Arthur, Texas

| James Bruggers | Inside Climate News | February 11, 2024

This article uses Port Arthur, Texas to evaluate the legacy of federal environmental justice policy. It describes life along the Gulf Coast petrochemical corridor, where largely Black and low-income communities continue to face refinery and chemical-plant pollution.

In the Belly of the Beast: Health, Justice, and Resilience in Port Arthur

| Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health | Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health | January 9, 2025

This article discusses Port Arthur as a community surrounded by petrochemical infrastructure and industrial pollution. It is useful for documenting health and environmental justice concerns in a city heavily shaped by refineries and chemical plants.

How Port Arthur’s Oxbow Plant Is Damaging Nearby Black Communities

| Amal Ahmed | Texas Observer | November 2, 2021

This article examines pollution from the Oxbow calcining plant in Port Arthur and its impact on nearby Black communities. It discusses environmental justice complaints and the difficulty residents face when challenging industrial polluters.

Benzene Emissions on Texas Gulf Coast Among Nation’s Highest, Report Finds

| Alejandra Martinez | Texas Tribune | April 23, 2026

This article reports on benzene emissions and refinery pollution along the Texas Gulf Coast, including Port Arthur. It is useful as a recent example of how fence-line communities near petrochemical facilities continue to face toxic air pollution.

Mossville Environmental Action Now v. United States

| Inter-American Commission on Human Rights | IACHR | March 17, 2010

This human-rights decision concerns Mossville, Louisiana, a historically Black community surrounded by chemical plants and industrial facilities. Petitioners alleged that U.S. environmental policies exposed Mossville residents to a disproportionate pollution burden amounting to environmental racism.

CNN Investigates a “Toxic America”

| Earthjustice | Earthjustice | June 2, 2010

This article highlights Mossville, Louisiana, where residents lived near numerous chemical plants and reported serious health concerns. It is useful for documenting how national media and advocacy groups framed Mossville as a toxic pollution and environmental justice case.

Life in Mossville, Louisiana: Policy Implications of Toxic Waste Contamination in a Historic African American Community

| Christopher Kelsey | Rochester Institute of Technology | 2022

This thesis examines Mossville, Louisiana as a historic African American community affected by nearby chemical plants and toxic contamination. It is useful for understanding the policy failures and environmental racism claims surrounding industrial development in the community.

A Chemical Firm Bought Out These Black and White US Homeowners. The Black Owners Got Less

| Sara Sneath | The Guardian | November 17, 2021

This article examines buyouts in Mossville, Louisiana, where Black families lost ancestral homes as petrochemical development expanded. It reports that Black homeowners received less compensation than white homeowners, connecting industrial pollution, property loss, and racial inequality.

David and Goliath in “Mossville: When Great Trees Fall”

| Brown University School of Public Health | Brown University | February 8, 2024

This article discusses the documentary “Mossville: When Great Trees Fall” and the environmental racism themes at the center of the film. It is useful for documenting how Mossville became a symbol of petrochemical pollution, displacement, and public health harm.

Mossville, Louisiana: Environmental Racism and Mass Exodus

| ArcGIS StoryMaps | ArcGIS StoryMaps | May 10, 2024

This story map examines Mossville, Louisiana as a case of environmental racism and displacement. It describes how chemical plants and industrial expansion transformed a historic Black community and pushed residents out.

West Oakland’s Experience in Building Community Power to Confront Environmental Injustice

| Lara MacIver et al. | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health | 2022

This peer-reviewed article examines West Oakland’s organizing against environmental injustice, including diesel pollution from freight, port activity, and transportation corridors. It is useful for documenting how a historically Black community confronted cumulative air-pollution burdens.

Ditching Diesel

| Margaret Gordon et al. | Race, Poverty & the Environment | No date listed

This article discusses West Oakland’s fight against diesel pollution from trucks, port operations, and freight corridors. It is useful for showing how residents used community-based research to challenge transportation pollution in a community of color.

A Case Study of Environmental Justice Work in West Oakland

| Helen H. Kang | Golden Gate University School of Law | 2009

This legal case study examines environmental justice organizing in West Oakland, including community work to address diesel pollution and cumulative exposure. It is useful for showing how race, income, land use, and transportation infrastructure shaped pollution burdens.

A Lesson in Discrimination: A Toxic Sea Level Rise Crisis Threatens West Oakland

| Ezra David Romero | KQED | September 13, 2022

This article connects West Oakland’s toxic industrial legacy to sea-level-rise risks and environmental racism. It explains how a historically Black community faces ongoing pollution and climate risks because of past land-use and industrial decisions.

West Oakland Indicators Project Addresses the History of Environmental Racism in West Oakland

| Peyton DeJardin | The Environmentalist Magazine | March 15, 2026

This article discusses West Oakland’s history of redlining, diesel emissions, port pollution, and environmental racism. It is useful as a recent overview of community-based environmental justice work in a historically Black neighborhood.

Stop the Port of Oakland’s Pollution-Generating Expansion

| Earthjustice | Earthjustice | No date listed

This advocacy article discusses concerns that the Port of Oakland expansion could worsen pollution in nearby West Oakland, an environmental justice community. It is useful for documenting ongoing conflicts over port, freight, and diesel emissions near communities of color.

Environmental Victimization: Lived Experiences of Black Residents Residing Near Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Refineries

| Tia D. Robinson | Congressional Black Caucus Foundation | No date listed

This research article discusses the lived experiences of Black residents living near oil, gas, and petrochemical refineries. It is useful for connecting refinery siting, racial inequality, health harms, and the broader literature on environmental racism.

Perceptions of Environmental Health Risks Among Residents in the “Toxic Doughnut”

| Brandi M. White et al. | Journal of Community Health | 2015

This peer-reviewed article examines residents’ perceptions of environmental health risks near Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens and surrounding industrial hazards. It is useful for documenting community experiences in one of the best-known environmental justice neighborhoods in the United States.

Critical Environmental Injustice: A Case Study Approach to Environmental Inequality

| Clare E. B. Cannon et al. | Environmental Justice | 2024

This peer-reviewed article uses case studies to examine environmental injustice, including how rural, Indigenous, Black, and low-income communities experience concentrated pollution burdens. It is useful as a broader academic source tying specific local cases to systemic environmental racism.

1 Million African Americans Live Near Oil, Gas Facilities

| Phil McKenna | Inside Climate News | November 14, 2017

This article reports on NAACP research finding that more than one million African Americans live near oil and gas facilities. It explains how refinery, drilling, and petrochemical pollution disproportionately burden Black communities and connects fossil fuel infrastructure to environmental racism.

EPA Finds Black Americans Face More Health-Threatening Air Pollution

| Phil McKenna | Inside Climate News | March 2, 2018

This article reports on EPA research finding that Black Americans face higher exposure to dangerous particulate air pollution. It is useful for showing that race, not only income, is a major predictor of exposure to health-threatening pollution.

US Neighborhoods With More People of Color Suffer Worse Air Pollution

| Aliya Uteuova | The Guardian | March 8, 2023

This article reports on research showing that U.S. census districts with larger populations of people of color suffer worse air pollution. It includes Robert Bullard’s analysis that systemic racism is the underlying variable connecting race and pollution exposure.

How Dividing US Cities Along Racial Lines Led to an Air Pollution Crisis

| Nina Lakhani | The Guardian | March 10, 2022

This article explains how historic redlining continues to shape modern air pollution exposure. It shows how neighborhoods denied investment under racist housing policy are now more likely to suffer from asthma, lead exposure, lung disease, and other pollution-related harms.

Historical Redlining Is Associated with Present-Day Air Pollution Disparities in U.S. Cities

| Haley M. Lane et al. | Environmental Science & Technology Letters | March 2022

This peer-reviewed study finds that historically redlined neighborhoods have higher levels of present-day air pollution. It is useful for documenting how racist housing policy helped determine where industrial and transportation pollution became concentrated.

Residential Segregation and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Ambient Air Pollution

| Benjamin Woo et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2019

This peer-reviewed article finds that racial and ethnic minorities are exposed to significantly higher levels of air pollution than white residents. It is useful for connecting residential segregation, land use, and pollution exposure.

The Double Jeopardy of Environmental Racism

| Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health | Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Magazine | October 14, 2020

This article explains how Black communities are burdened by both higher pollution exposure and greater vulnerability from health and economic inequality. It discusses hazardous waste sites, particulate pollution, asthma, and the role of race in environmental risk.

America’s Dirty Divide: How Environmental Racism Leaves Communities of Color Exposed

| The Guardian | The Guardian | February 11, 2021

This article introduces a Guardian series on environmental racism in the United States. It frames pollution, waste, climate impacts, and disaster recovery as civil-rights issues because communities of color often face the greatest environmental burdens.

The Jacksonville Environmental Groups Trying to Tackle Racial Disparities

| Emily Holden | The Guardian | February 17, 2021

This article examines Jacksonville, Florida, where Black neighborhoods have long been burdened by polluting industries. Local advocates explain that industrial siting in Black communities was intentional and reflected the low value placed on Black residents’ health and well-being.

Environmental Justice in Jax: Bringing Black Communities to the Climate Table

| Emily Holden | Jacksonville Today | January 21, 2021

This article discusses environmental racism in Jacksonville and the effort to bring Black communities into climate and environmental planning. It is useful for documenting how polluting industries were allowed in Black neighborhoods where land was cheaper and political power weaker.

Environmental Racism Is Rampant in Florida, But Don’t Mention It

| Craig Pittman | Florida Phoenix | July 20, 2023

This article surveys environmental racism in Florida, including incinerators, toxic waste sites, and health hazards affecting Black residents. It is useful as a state-level overview of how pollution burdens fall unevenly on communities of color.

Professors, Student Uncover Negligence and Racism in Florida Environmental Contamination

| Williams College | Williams College | No date listed

This article discusses research on Tallevast, Florida, a Black community harmed by industrial contamination and government inaction. It is useful for documenting how environmental racism and regulatory neglect allowed groundwater pollution to harm a historically Black community.

Poisoning Tallevast

| Rhon Manigault-Bryant, James Manigault-Bryant and Kristen Constantine | Boston Review | February 24, 2021

This essay examines Tallevast, Florida, where industrial contamination affected a historically Black community. It connects environmental racism, state negligence, and the long struggle of residents to obtain recognition and cleanup.

In Florida, Officials and Communities Clash Over Where to Build the Nation’s Largest Trash Incinerator

| Lylla Younes | Grist | December 23, 2024

This article covers a fight over a proposed large trash incinerator in Florida. It explains how residents and advocates see the siting debate through the lens of environmental racism, redlining, segregation, pollution exposure, and unequal public health burdens.

In Maryland, One Community Is Taking a Stand Against Environmental Racism

| Jeremy Deaton | Grist | July 27, 2016

This article focuses on Brandywine, Maryland, a majority-Black community facing multiple polluting power plants within a short distance. It is useful for documenting how fossil fuel infrastructure can become concentrated in Black communities.

Maryland Faces Civil Rights Complaint After Approving Gas Plant in Black Community

| Earthjustice | Earthjustice | May 11, 2016

This press release describes a civil-rights complaint challenging Maryland’s approval of a gas-fired power plant in Brandywine. Community advocates argued that the permitting reflected environmental racism because the community was majority African American and already burdened by power plants.

Environmental Racism Prevalent in Brandywine, Maryland

| Center for Health, Environment & Justice | CHEJ | November 18, 2015

This article discusses Brandywine, Maryland as an example of environmental racism, focusing on gas-fired power plants and the burden placed on surrounding communities. It is useful for documenting local opposition to concentrated fossil-fuel infrastructure.

Prince George’s County Leaders Must Assist Brandywine’s Fight Against Environmental Racism

| Shane McIntyre | The Diamondback | February 23, 2021

This opinion article argues that Brandywine’s concentration of power plants in a predominantly Black area is an example of environmental racism. It connects local pollution burdens to broader racial health disparities and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Environmental Injustice in Alabama’s Black Belt

| Equal Justice Initiative | EJI | October 22, 2018

This article discusses Uniontown, Alabama, where residents filed a civil-rights complaint over pollution burdens in a rural Black community. It explains how landfills, coal ash, and other polluters created a major environmental justice struggle in Alabama’s Black Belt.

In This Poor, Black, Polluted Alabama Town, Speaking Up Gets You Sued

| Lee Rowland | ACLU | June 2, 2016

This article covers Uniontown residents who organized against pollution and environmental injustice, then faced a defamation lawsuit. It is useful for documenting both the pollution burden and the intimidation faced by Black residents who challenged it.

Defending Uniontown, Alabama from Toxic Coal Ash

| Earthjustice | Earthjustice | March 10, 2014

This case page describes Uniontown’s fight against coal ash disposal at Arrowhead Landfill. It documents how a largely Black community was burdened by coal ash containing toxic contaminants from a disaster cleanup in another state.

Environmental Injustice in Uniontown, Alabama, Decades After the Civil Rights Act of 1964

| American Bar Association | Human Rights Magazine | No date listed

This article discusses Uniontown’s coal ash landfill and civil-rights complaint as a modern example of environmental racism. It highlights how a predominantly Black community was left with toxic waste despite residents’ health and quality-of-life concerns.

The Coal Ash Community: An Analysis of Environmental Racism in Uniontown, Alabama

| Emma Bach | University of Colorado Honors Journal | 2021

This academic paper analyzes Uniontown’s coal ash controversy as a case of environmental racism. It examines how private industry, state regulators, and federal civil-rights enforcement failed a predominantly Black community.

Why Coal Ash Is an Environmental Justice Issue

| Sue Sturgis | Facing South | March 7, 2014

This article explains why coal ash pollution is an environmental justice issue, especially in the South. It connects coal ash disposal, water contamination, and weak regulation to disproportionate burdens on low-income communities and communities of color.

For the Third Time, Black Residents in Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest Neighborhood File a Civil Rights Complaint to Fend Off Polluting Infrastructure

| Aman Azhar | Inside Climate News | October 27, 2022

This article covers Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest neighborhood, where Black residents have repeatedly challenged polluting infrastructure through civil-rights complaints. It is useful for documenting how highways, refineries, ports, and industrial projects burdened a historically Black neighborhood.

Black Residents of Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest Back in Court Over Pollution

| Dylan Baddour | Texas Observer | October 31, 2022

This article examines Hillcrest residents’ legal challenges over a sewage treatment plant, bridge construction, and desalination infrastructure. It shows how a Black neighborhood already surrounded by industrial pollution continued to face new environmental burdens.

The Story Behind the Harbor Bridge: Segregation, Neglect and Pollution in Corpus Christi

| Texas Housers | Texas Housers | August 7, 2015

This article explains how Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest and Washington-Coles neighborhoods were shaped by segregation, disinvestment, industrial pollution, highways, and port infrastructure. It is useful for documenting the connection between racial segregation and environmental burden.

Historic Agreement Resolves Environmental Justice Complaint in Corpus Christi, Texas

| Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law | Lawyers’ Committee | December 18, 2015

This article describes an agreement addressing the disparate impacts of a planned highway through Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest neighborhood. It notes that Hillcrest was already hemmed in by a ship channel, refineries, and an interstate highway.

Corpus Christi Civil Rights and Fair Housing Complaint Referred to U.S. Department of Justice

| Earthjustice | Earthjustice | February 12, 2024

This press release reports that a Corpus Christi civil-rights and fair-housing complaint was referred to the U.S. Department of Justice. It frames the Hillcrest community’s struggle against polluting infrastructure as a fight against environmental racism.

Assessing Soil Health in the Corpus Christi Community

| Thriving Earth Exchange | American Geophysical Union | No date listed

This project page describes community-based work to assess possible soil contamination from industrial pollution in Corpus Christi, including the Hillcrest neighborhood. It is useful for documenting local environmental health concerns linked to industrial activity.

Venezuelan Oil Brought to the U.S. Would Be Refined in Black Gulf Communities

| Adam Mahoney | Inside Climate News / Capital B | January 6, 2026

This article reports that Venezuelan heavy crude brought into the United States would likely be refined in Black Gulf Coast communities. Residents and advocates warned that the policy could worsen environmental racism in Texas and Louisiana refinery corridors.

In Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” Excitement Over New Emission Rules Is Tempered by Legal Challenges

| Victoria St. Martin | Inside Climate News | May 10, 2024

This article covers new EPA rules aimed at reducing toxic emissions in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. It also discusses political and legal resistance to federal efforts addressing environmental harms linked to systemic racism.

Environmental Racism in Death Alley, Louisiana

| Forensic Architecture | Forensic Architecture | June 28, 2021

This investigation examines petrochemical development in Louisiana’s “Death Alley” and the Black descendant communities affected by it. It connects refinery and chemical-plant siting to plantation history, racial violence, land dispossession, and ongoing pollution.

Critical Infrastructure, Environmental Racism, and Protest: A Case Study in Cancer Alley, Louisiana

| Columbia Human Rights Law Review | Columbia Human Rights Law Review | No date listed

This legal article examines how critical infrastructure laws can criminalize protest in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. It is useful for showing how environmental racism and restrictions on protest intersect in Black communities fighting petrochemical expansion.

Fighting Environmental Racism in Cancer Alley, Louisiana

| University Network for Human Rights | University Network for Human Rights | No date listed

This project page documents research and advocacy around Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. It is useful for connecting petrochemical exposure, health harms, and environmental racism in Black communities along the Mississippi River corridor.

A Sewage Crisis Is Bubbling Up in Communities of Color Across the Country

| Adam Mahoney | Grist | July 28, 2021

This article examines failing sewage systems and wastewater infrastructure in communities of color. It connects sewage exposure to redlining, racial covenants, underinvestment, and unequal access to basic public services.

The Environmental Justice Issue No One Wants to Talk About

| Yessenia Funes | Grist | December 29, 2020

This article profiles Catherine Coleman Flowers and the fight for sanitation justice in rural Alabama. It is useful for documenting how sewage failures, poverty, race, and government neglect form part of environmental racism.

Adrift: Communities on the Front Lines of Pesticide Exposure Fight for Change

| Environmental Health News | Environmental Health News | March 2023

This article focuses on communities facing pesticide drift and exposure, including Latino farmworker communities. It is useful for documenting agricultural pesticide exposure as an environmental justice issue affecting workers and families of color.

The Environmental and Social Injustice of Farmworker Pesticide Exposure

| Joan D. Flocks | Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy | 2012

This scholarly article explains that U.S. farmworkers are an environmental justice community because they are low-income, primarily Hispanic, and disproportionately exposed to pesticides. It analyzes pesticide exposure as a distributional, procedural, corrective, and social injustice.

The Environmental Injustice of Pesticide Use in California

| UCI Law Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources | UC Irvine School of Law | No date listed

This article discusses public data showing unequal pesticide exposure in California. It is useful for documenting how pesticide use burdens farmworker communities and other vulnerable populations despite state commitments to environmental justice.

Where They Live, Work and Spray: Pesticide Exposure in the San Joaquin Valley

| Nancy A. Schwartz et al. | Health & Place | 2015

This peer-reviewed article uses community-based research to examine pesticide exposure in California’s San Joaquin Valley. It is useful for documenting how families in agriculturally intensive, heavily Latino communities understand and experience pesticide drift and asthma risks.

Pesticides and Environmental Injustice

| Center for Biological Diversity | Center for Biological Diversity | No date listed

This resource summarizes research on pesticide exposure and environmental injustice in the United States. It argues that communities of color face excessive pesticide risks and that pesticide regulation must address structural racism and classism.

Disproportionate Pesticide Hazards to Farmworkers and People of Color Documented Again

| Beyond Pesticides | Beyond Pesticides | February 16, 2024

This article reports on research showing that pesticide regulation continues to fail farmworkers and people of color. It is useful for documenting agricultural chemical exposure as part of broader environmental injustice.

Superfund Site Cleanups Ignore Communities of Color

| Juan Declet-Barreto | Union of Concerned Scientists | September 18, 2020

This article argues that communities of color are disproportionately exposed to toxic Superfund sites and that cleanup priorities often fail to protect them. It is useful for connecting hazardous waste cleanup delays to environmental racism.

People of Color Live Disproportionately Close to Superfund Sites

| University of Alabama at Birmingham Institute for Human Rights | UAB Institute for Human Rights | January 15, 2021

This article explains how people of color disproportionately live near Superfund sites. It is useful as a general overview connecting toxic waste cleanup, race, and environmental justice.

Toxic Waste Sites and Environmental Justice: Research Roundup

| Denise-Marie Ordway | Journalist’s Resource | September 24, 2018

This research roundup summarizes academic studies on Superfund sites, toxic waste, race, and environmental justice. It is useful for finding scholarly support that communities of color are more likely to live near hazardous waste sites.

Communities of Color and Hazardous Waste Cleanup

| Deborah Ferri | Fordham Urban Law Journal | 1994

This legal article examines hazardous waste cleanup and communities of color under Superfund. It is useful as an older source documenting concerns that cleanup programs failed to protect minority communities equally.

Most U.S. Hazardous Waste Sites in Close Proximity to Federally Assisted Housing

| Shriver Center on Poverty Law | Shriver Center | June 30, 2020

This article reports that hazardous waste sites are often located close to federally assisted housing. It frames the pattern as the result of decades of environmental racism that placed low-income residents and people of color near toxic sites.

Equitable Cleanup of Superfund Sites Leaving No U.S. Community Behind

| M. Azhar et al. | Nature Communications | 2025

This peer-reviewed study analyzes more than 13,000 Superfund sites and finds that Asian, Black, and disadvantaged populations are disproportionately overrepresented in Superfund host block groups. It is useful for documenting modern inequities in hazardous waste cleanup.

Race and Superfund Site Remediation

| Chad M. Topaz et al. | PLOS Climate | 2024

This peer-reviewed article examines racial patterns in Superfund remediation. It is useful for documenting whether cleanup progress and remediation outcomes differ by the racial makeup of communities near contaminated sites.

U.S. Jails Are Frontline Environmental Justice Communities

| Yessenia Funes | Grist | April 15, 2021

This article examines jails as environmental justice sites because incarceration facilities are often located near pollution sources or contribute to local environmental burdens. It is useful for connecting environmental racism, policing, incarceration, and exposure of mostly Black and Latino incarcerated people.

The Road to Racial Justice: Resolving the Disproportionate Health Burden Placed on Communities of Color by Highway Pollution

| Columbia Human Rights Law Review | Columbia Human Rights Law Review | No date listed

This legal article analyzes how highway placement creates disproportionate air-pollution burdens for communities of color. It is useful for documenting traffic-based pollution as a civil-rights and environmental justice issue.

Highway Pollution Affects More Black and Latino Communities

| Moms Clean Air Force | Moms Clean Air Force | December 16, 2025

This article discusses how Black and Latino communities live near major highways at disproportionate rates. It connects freeway construction, urban renewal, racial segregation, diesel pollution, noise, and health harms.

Diesel Trucks Are Causing Environmental Injustice Across U.S. Cities

| Krystal Vasquez | Environmental Health News | October 19, 2021

This article reports on research showing that diesel truck pollution disproportionately affects low-income people of color in U.S. cities. It is useful for documenting freight routes, nitrogen dioxide pollution, and transportation-related environmental racism.

Which Cities Have Concrete Strategies for Environmental Justice?

| Justine Calma | Grist | May 12, 2019

This article discusses how cities are beginning to address environmental justice through planning tools. It notes that hazardous waste facilities, fossil fuel storage, transportation sites, and other polluters are disproportionately located in communities of color and low-income communities.

Pollution Burdens Nearly Half of New York and Communities of Color Most Harmed

| Aliya Uteuova | The Guardian | April 5, 2024

This article reports on New York City environmental justice data showing that communities of color face disproportionate pollution burdens. It is useful for documenting modern municipal recognition of unequal exposure to pollution, heat, flooding, and other environmental harms.

“Asthma Alley”: Why Minorities Bear Burden of Pollution Inequity Caused by White People

| Oliver Milman | The Guardian | April 4, 2019

This article focuses on the South Bronx and other communities where people of color bear disproportionate pollution burdens. It connects traffic, industrial siting, asthma, and air pollution to long-standing environmental racism.

Wealthy Residents of Chicago May Live 30 Years Longer Than Poorer Ones. Can a New Mayor Help Close the Gap?

| Aliya Uteuova | The Guardian | May 20, 2024

This article examines Chicago’s environmental racism and health inequality. It discusses how communities of color face disproportionate climate and pollution risks and how city leadership has been pressured to address these long-standing burdens.

After a Hard Year for Environmental Justice, Chicago Groups Try to Rebuild

| Inside Climate News | Inside Climate News | December 27, 2025

This article discusses Chicago environmental justice groups after federal grant cuts and policy rollbacks. It is useful for documenting continuing organizing in neighborhoods burdened by pollution and environmental racism.

Black Environmentalists Are Organizing to Save the Planet from Injustice

| Yessenia Funes | Grist | June 16, 2020

This article discusses the revival of the National Black Environmental Justice Network and the broader Black environmental justice movement. It is useful for contextualizing community resistance to polluting facilities and environmental racism nationwide.

The Event That Changed the Environmental Justice Movement Forever

| Yessenia Funes | Grist | November 1, 2021

This article revisits the 1991 First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit and its lasting influence. It is useful for understanding how communities of color developed a national framework to fight toxic siting, pollution, and environmental racism.

Race and Environmental Justice in the United States

| Robert D. Bullard | Yale Journal of International Law | 1993

This legal article by Robert Bullard surveys the efforts of communities of color to achieve environmental justice in the United States. It is useful as an early scholarly source connecting race, toxic siting, waste facilities, and unequal environmental protection.

Confronting Environmental Racism in the United States

| Robert D. Bullard | United Nations Research Institute for Social Development / Chicago State University copy | 2004

This article explains how environmental decision-making reflects power inequalities and often disadvantages people of color while benefiting corporations and wealthier communities. It is useful as a broad theoretical source on environmental racism and polluter siting.

Environmental Racism and the Contamination of Black Lives

| Samantha Henderson and Rebekah Wells | Journal of African American Studies | 2021

This literature review examines environmental racism and Black communities’ exposure to pollution, contamination, and health risks. It is useful as a broad scholarly overview of how environmental racism operates across housing, industry, regulation, and public health.

Industrial Lead Poisoning in Los Angeles: Anatomy of a Public Health Failure

| Jill E. Johnston and Andrea Hricko | Environmental Justice | 2017

This peer-reviewed article examines the Exide Technologies battery recycling plant in Vernon, California, and its lead contamination of nearby Southeast Los Angeles communities. It is useful for documenting how mostly Latino working-class neighborhoods were exposed to industrial lead pollution for decades.

A Collaborative Approach to Assess Legacy Pollution in Communities Near a Lead-Acid Battery Smelter

| Jill E. Johnston et al. | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health | 2019

This peer-reviewed article examines community-based research around the Exide battery smelter in Southeast Los Angeles. It documents how residents, researchers, and community organizations investigated lead contamination in communities that described the case as environmental racism.

USC Study Finds Lead in Baby Teeth of Children Near Battery Recycling Plant

| Leigh Hopper | USC Today | May 6, 2019

This article reports on USC research finding lead in baby teeth from children living near the former Exide battery recycling plant. The study focused on Boyle Heights, Maywood, East Los Angeles, Commerce, and Huntington Park, communities heavily affected by industrial lead contamination.

Baby Teeth Study Reveals Children Near Smelters Are Exposed to Dangerous Lead in the Womb

| Nsikan Akpan | PBS NewsHour | May 16, 2019

This article reports on research using children’s baby teeth to track lead exposure near smelters. It is useful for documenting how industrial lead contamination affects children in nearby communities, including environmental justice communities.

“I Felt I Killed My Children”: Lead Poisons California Community and Fills Kids’ Teeth

| Alastair Gee | The Guardian | March 29, 2021

This article examines the aftermath of the Exide lead contamination crisis in Southeast Los Angeles. Residents and organizers describe the case as environmental racism because the affected communities are largely Latino and working class.

Recycling Injustice: Lead-Toxicity Publics and the Struggle Over Sustainability

| Antero Garcia Tejeda | Media+Environment | 2022

This scholarly article examines the Exide battery recycling case as an example of environmental injustice created through the hidden costs of “recycling.” It is useful for connecting hazardous battery recycling, regulatory failure, and environmental racism in Latino communities.

Environmental Justice Primer for Ports: Impacts of Port Operations and Goods Movement

| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | 2016

This EPA primer explains how port operations and goods movement can create disproportionate pollution burdens for nearby communities. It notes that near-port communities are often low-income communities of color exposed to diesel exhaust, truck traffic, ships, rail yards, and freight infrastructure.

Racial Disparities in the Health Effects from Air Pollution: Evidence from Ports

| Kenneth Gillingham and Pei Huang | Yale University | December 17, 2022

This academic paper examines air pollution from maritime ports and finds unequal health effects across racial groups. It is useful for documenting how port-related emissions contribute to environmental injustice in communities of color.

Environmental Justice and Power Plant Emissions in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative States

| Juan Declet-Barreto et al. | Environmental Research Letters | 2022

This peer-reviewed study examines power plant emissions and environmental justice communities. It is useful for documenting how power plants contribute to unequal pollution burdens and why climate policy must consider race, income, and local air pollution.

Air of Injustice: African Americans and Power Plant Pollution

| Black Leadership Forum, Clear the Air, Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda and Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice | Energy Justice Network copy | 2002

This report focuses on the disproportionate impact of power plant pollution on African American communities. It is an older environmental justice source connecting coal-fired power plants, asthma, premature death, and racial inequality.

Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People

| NAACP | NAACP | 2012

This report examines coal-fired power plants and their impacts on low-income communities and communities of color. It is useful for documenting how coal pollution, public health, and racial justice intersect.

Coal-Fired Power Plants Disproportionally Impact Communities of Color

| Maureen Nandini Mitra | Earth Island Journal | November 15, 2012

This article reports on findings that African Americans are disproportionately likely to live near coal-fired power plants. It is useful for documenting coal pollution as a major environmental justice issue.

Coal Pollution and the Fight for Environmental Justice

| Diane Toomey | Yale Environment 360 | June 19, 2013

This interview with NAACP climate justice leader Jacqueline Patterson discusses coal-burning power plants in minority communities. It is useful for understanding organizing against coal pollution as part of the environmental justice movement.

Residents of Minority Communities Decry Dumping of Toxic Coal Ash

| Kristen Lombardi | Center for Public Integrity | February 5, 2016

This article covers community complaints about toxic coal ash disposal and environmental racism. It is useful for documenting how coal ash waste burdens minority communities and how residents have sought civil-rights remedies.

Environmental Racism Case: EPA Rejects Alabama Town’s Civil Rights Claim Over Toxic Landfill

| Oliver Milman | The Guardian | March 6, 2018

This article reports on Uniontown, Alabama, where residents challenged a landfill receiving coal ash in a largely poor and Black community. Advocates described the case as one of the clearest examples of environmental racism in the United States.

Protecting Black and African Americans from Coal Ash Exposure in Georgia

| Sumaiya Khatun and Hannah T. Carter | Journal of Science Policy & Governance | 2022

This policy article discusses coal ash exposure in Georgia and its disproportionate harms for Black communities. It proposes stronger coal ash permitting rules to address environmental justice concerns.

Approaching Coal-Fired Power Plants and Renewable Energy Through an Environmental Justice Lens

| Nicholas Frischkorn | Chicago-Kent Journal of Environmental and Energy Law | 2021

This law review article connects coal-fired power plant pollution to environmental racism and energy injustice. It discusses communities such as Detroit’s 48217 ZIP code, where Black residents face heavy fossil-fuel pollution burdens.

Trash Incinerators Are Disproportionately Harmful to Black and Hispanic People

| WLRN / Health News Florida | WLRN | December 24, 2024

This article examines how municipal waste incinerators disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic communities. It is useful for documenting how waste-burning facilities create heavier pollution burdens where communities of color live nearby.

An Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Los Angeles

| Author not listed here | Oceaniron / Los Angeles environmental history source | No date listed

This paper discusses environmental racism in Los Angeles, including historic attempts to place incinerators in non-white communities. It is useful for documenting older land-use conflicts and toxic siting patterns in Southern California.

The Road to Racial Justice: Resolving the Disproportionate Health Burden Placed on Communities of Color by Highway Pollution

| Columbia Human Rights Law Review | Columbia Human Rights Law Review | No date listed

This legal article examines how highway pollution disproportionately harms communities of color. It is useful for documenting how freeway placement, diesel emissions, particulate matter, and urban planning decisions created environmental racism.

Highway Pollution Affects More Black and Latino Communities

| Moms Clean Air Force | Moms Clean Air Force | December 16, 2025

This article discusses how Black and Latino communities are more likely to live near major highways. It connects traffic pollution to redlining, segregation, freeway construction, and public-health disparities.

Diesel Trucks Are Causing Environmental Injustice Across U.S. Cities

| Krystal Vasquez | Environmental Health News | October 19, 2021

This article reports on research showing that diesel truck pollution disproportionately exposes low-income people of color to nitrogen dioxide. It is useful for documenting freight routes, warehousing, trucking corridors, and environmental racism.

Community Science Reveals Insights Into Metal Pollution and Environmental Justice

| Matthew Dietrich et al. | ESS Open Archive | 2022

This preprint discusses community science methods for investigating metal pollution and environmental justice. It is useful for documenting how residents and researchers identify pollution burdens that may be overlooked by formal regulators.

The Threat of Environmental Racism

| Robert D. Bullard | Natural Resources & Environment | 1993

This older article by Robert Bullard explains environmental racism as a national problem, not just a southern or rural issue. It is useful for documenting early legal and policy framing around hazardous waste, race, and unequal protection.

Remedies for Environmental Racism: A View from the Field

| Luke W. Cole | Michigan Law Review | 1992

This law review article discusses legal strategies for communities fighting environmental racism. It is useful as an early source showing how communities of color challenged toxic siting and unequal environmental protection in court and through organizing.

A Tort Law Response to Environmental Racism

| Kevin S. Northern | William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review | 1997

This legal article examines whether tort law can respond to environmental racism. It is useful for documenting older legal efforts to address the disproportionate placement of hazardous facilities in communities of color.

Black, Brown, Poor & Poisoned: Minority Grassroots Environmentalism and the Quest for Eco-Justice

| Michael H. Schill and others | University of Chicago Law Review copy | 1991

This older article discusses grassroots environmental justice organizing among minority and poor communities. It is useful for documenting early recognition that pollution, poverty, race, and toxic siting were intertwined.

Race and Environmental Justice in the United States

| Robert D. Bullard | Yale Journal of International Law | 1993

This article surveys environmental justice struggles in the United States and argues that communities of color were systematically targeted for noxious facilities such as sewage plants, garbage dumps, landfills, and hazardous-waste sites.

The Legacy of American Apartheid and Environmental Racism

| Robert D. Bullard | Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development | 2012

This article connects segregation, housing discrimination, and environmental racism. It is useful for documenting how racially segregated land-use patterns shaped who lives near polluting facilities.

Confronting Environmental Racism in the United States

| Robert D. Bullard | United Nations Research Institute for Social Development / Chicago State University copy | 2004

This article explains how environmental decision-making often reflects unequal power, benefiting corporations and wealthier residents while imposing pollution burdens on people of color. It is useful as a broad theoretical source on environmental racism.

Racism as a Public Health Issue in Environmental Health Disparities and Environmental Justice

| Shalanda H. Baker et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2024

This article discusses racism as a public health issue in environmental health disparities. It is useful for connecting environmental justice research to public health, regulatory failures, and the cumulative effects of pollution exposure.

Where We Live, Learn and Play: Environmental Racism and Early Childhood Development

| Adrienne Ford | Early Childhood Research Quarterly | 2024

This scholarly review examines environmental racism and early childhood development. It is useful for documenting how pollution near homes, schools, and neighborhoods can affect children of color.

Environmental Racism and the Contamination of Black Lives

| Samantha Henderson and Rebekah Wells | Journal of African American Studies | 2021

This literature review examines how environmental racism exposes Black communities to pollution, contamination, and health harms. It is useful as a broad scholarly overview of environmental racism across housing, industry, regulation, and public health.

Toxic Waste and Race in Twenty-First Century America

| Michael Mascarenhas | Environment and Society | 2021

This scholarly article revisits the toxic-waste-and-race framework and argues that environmental racism remains central to understanding pollution exposure in the United States. It is useful as a modern academic overview of the field.

People of Color Live Disproportionately Close to Superfund Sites

| University of Alabama at Birmingham Institute for Human Rights | UAB Institute for Human Rights | January 15, 2021

This article explains how people of color disproportionately live near Superfund sites. It is useful for documenting toxic-waste cleanup and contaminated land as environmental justice issues.

Toxic Waste Sites and Environmental Justice: Research Roundup

| Denise-Marie Ordway | Journalist’s Resource | September 24, 2018

This research roundup summarizes academic studies on toxic waste, Superfund sites, race, and environmental justice. It is useful for locating additional scholarly evidence on racial disparities near hazardous sites.

Equitable Cleanup of Superfund Sites Leaving No U.S. Community Behind

| M. Azhar et al. | Nature Communications | 2025

This peer-reviewed study analyzes thousands of Superfund sites and finds that Asian, Black, and disadvantaged populations are disproportionately represented in Superfund host block groups. It is useful for documenting ongoing cleanup inequities.

Race and Superfund Site Remediation

| Chad M. Topaz et al. | PLOS Climate | 2024

This peer-reviewed article examines racial patterns in Superfund cleanup and remediation. It is useful for documenting how contaminated-site cleanup may differ depending on the racial makeup of affected communities.

5 Things to Know About Communities of Color and Environmental Justice

| Cathleen Kelly and Tracey Ross | Center for American Progress | April 25, 2016

This article provides an overview of environmental justice issues affecting communities of color, including Flint water contamination, air pollution, toxic exposure, and climate vulnerability. It is useful as a broad policy-oriented summary.

How 600 Years of Environmental Violence Is Still Harming Black Communities

| Earthjustice | Earthjustice | March 30, 2021

This article connects Black environmental injustice to the long history of racial violence, land dispossession, and pollution exposure. It notes that Black communities are more likely to live near oil and gas refineries and face higher risks from power plant pollution.

African Americans on the Frontline Fighting for Environmental Justice

| Robert D. Bullard | Dr. Robert Bullard website | No date listed

This article surveys African American environmental justice struggles across refinery, petrochemical, coal, and industrial communities. It is useful for documenting fence-line Black communities in Houston, Port Arthur, Corpus Christi, Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, Southwest Detroit, North Richmond, and Los Angeles.

Environmental Racism, Black Lives, and the Struggle for Justice

| Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College | Roosevelt House | March 6, 2018

This article discusses the origins of the environmental racism movement and connects Warren County’s PCB landfill protests to later struggles against toxic facilities in Black communities. It is useful as a historical overview.

The Environmental Justice Movement

| Courtney Lindwall | Natural Resources Defense Council | August 22, 2023

This overview explains the history and goals of the environmental justice movement. It is useful for summarizing how communities of color have fought against being forced to live near pollution sources.

From Environmental Racism to Environmental Justice

| New Jersey State Bar Foundation | New Jersey State Bar Foundation | August 13, 2024

This article explains environmental racism and environmental justice through legal and civic examples. It is useful as a general educational source on how race, pollution, and unequal protection intersect.

The Call for Environmental Justice Legislation

| Jennifer Bisgaier | Poverty & Race Research Action Council | July 2018

This research guide summarizes legal and policy literature on environmental justice legislation. It includes examples involving minority neighborhoods, hazardous siting, municipal underbounding, and the long-term effects of racially discriminatory land-use decisions.

Lessons from Ag Street: African American Neighborhood Built on a Toxic Dump

| Bridge the Gulf Project | Bridge the Gulf Project | March 30, 2011

This article discusses the Agriculture Street Landfill in New Orleans, where a Black neighborhood was built on contaminated landfill land. It is useful for documenting how toxic land-use decisions became a long-running environmental justice struggle in a community of color.

Commentary: Environmental Justice in the Big Easy? The Agriculture Street Landfill Tragedy

| Craig E. Colten | Environmental Practice | 2001

This article examines the Agriculture Street Landfill in New Orleans as a Superfund and environmental justice case. It is useful for understanding how a former dump became a residential neighborhood and why remediation alone did not resolve the community’s sense of harm.

Environmental Justice in New Orleans

| Bradford C. Rajotte | Tulane Environmental Law Journal | 2007

This law journal article discusses environmental justice in New Orleans, including Cancer Alley and the Agriculture Street Landfill. It is useful for documenting how contamination and environmental burdens have disproportionately affected communities of color in Louisiana.

Local Residents Demand Closure of Agriculture Street Landfill

| New Orleans Historical | New Orleans Historical | No date listed

This history page documents community demands to close the Agriculture Street Landfill, which caused smoke, odors, pests, and neighborhood hazards. It is useful for showing the older roots of New Orleans environmental justice struggles before the site became a Superfund case.

How the Promise of Affordable Housing Lured Black New Orleans Residents to Gordon Plaza

| Katie Moore | WWL-TV | May 12, 2023

This article reports on Gordon Plaza residents in New Orleans who were sold homes on land later recognized as part of the Agriculture Street Landfill Superfund site. It is useful for documenting how Black homeowners were drawn into a toxic housing development and then fought for relocation.

Poster Child for Environmental Racism Finds Justice in Dickson, Tennessee

| Albert Huang | Natural Resources Defense Council | December 8, 2011

This article covers the Dickson, Tennessee landfill contamination case, where an African American family’s well was polluted with toxic chemicals. It is useful for documenting a widely cited “poster child” case of environmental racism involving landfill contamination and unequal protection.

Time for Tennessee to Give Environmental Justice to Black Family Poisoned by Toxic Landfill

| Robert D. Bullard | Dr. Robert Bullard website | No date listed

This article discusses the Holt family in Dickson, Tennessee, whose well was contaminated by trichloroethylene from a nearby landfill. It is useful for documenting how a Black family and historically Black community were exposed to toxic contamination while government agencies failed to protect them.

Dickson, Tennessee and Toxic Wells

| Glenn S. Johnson | Race, Gender & Class | 2008

This scholarly article examines the Dickson, Tennessee toxic-well case as an environmental justice struggle. It is useful for documenting how race, rural land use, landfill contamination, and public health failures intersected in one of the best-known environmental racism cases.

The Dumping Grounds in a Tennessee Town

| United Church of Christ / Environmental Justice Resource Center | Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty | 2007

This chapter describes Dickson, Tennessee as a textbook environmental racism case. It explains how the mostly African American Eno Road community became a dumping ground and how contamination from the county landfill affected the Holt family.

Environmental Racism in Emelle, Alabama

| LaToya M. Wilson | Midwest Social Sciences Journal | 2023

This paper examines the hazardous waste landfill in Emelle, Alabama, through the lens of environmental racism. It is useful for documenting how one of the nation’s largest hazardous-waste sites became located in Alabama’s Black Belt.

Emelle Residents Protest Chemical Waste Management Hazardous Waste Landfill, 1978–1995

| Global Nonviolent Action Database | Swarthmore College | No date listed

This case profile documents organizing against the Chemical Waste Management hazardous waste landfill in Emelle, Alabama. It is useful for tracing a long-running Black Belt environmental justice struggle over toxic waste disposal.

Wisconsin Cleanup Shifts Toxic PFAS Burden to Alabama Black Belt Community

| Bennet Goldstein, Sarah Whites-Koditschek and Dennis Pillion | Wisconsin Watch / AL.com | October 9, 2023

This article reports that PFAS-containing firefighting foam from Wisconsin was shipped to Emelle, Alabama, a low-income Black-majority community with a major hazardous waste landfill. It is useful for documenting how modern waste disposal decisions can continue older environmental racism patterns.

How Alabama Became the Nation’s Toilet

| Rocky Mountain PBS | In the Margins | April 21, 2025

This article and video describe Emelle, Alabama as home to one of the nation’s largest hazardous waste landfills. It is useful for documenting how toxic waste from other places is concentrated in a poor Black Belt community.

Field Workers Finally Win Fight With Dump

| Mark Arax | Los Angeles Times | May 5, 2002

This article covers farmworker community fights over toxic waste dumps in California’s Central Valley, including Buttonwillow, Kettleman City, and Westmorland. It is useful for documenting how Latino farmworker towns became locations for hazardous waste disposal.

Buttonwillow

| Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice | Greenaction | No date listed

This community page describes Buttonwillow’s fight against a large hazardous-waste landfill operated by Clean Harbors. It is useful for documenting environmental justice concerns in a heavily Latino Central Valley farmworker community.

Environmental Justice and Hazmat Transport: A Spatial Analysis in Southern California

| Lisa Schweitzer | Transportation Research Part D | 2006

This scholarly article examines hazardous-material transport and environmental justice, including toxic waste truck routes through Buttonwillow. It is useful for showing how hazardous-waste disposal burdens include both landfill siting and transportation impacts on communities of color.

Kettleman City, Buttonwillow, and Out-of-State Solid Waste

| Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice | California Board of Environmental Safety presentation | January 25, 2023

This presentation summarizes toxic waste and civil-rights concerns involving Kettleman City and Buttonwillow. It is useful for documenting allegations that California hazardous-waste policy discriminated against Latino and Spanish-speaking residents.

Toxic Trash: California’s Aging Hazardous Waste Sites Have a Troubling History

| Alejandro Lazo and Julie Cart | CalMatters | August 22, 2023

This investigation examines California’s aging hazardous-waste facilities, including sites in farmworker communities such as Kettleman City and Buttonwillow. It is useful for documenting how hazardous waste infrastructure remains concentrated in politically vulnerable communities.

In East Chicago, Knowing Your Soil Is Toxic Is Only Half the Battle

| Sasha Lyutse | Natural Resources Defense Council | May 23, 2017

This article examines lead and arsenic contamination in East Chicago, Indiana, including the West Calumet Housing Complex. It is useful for documenting how residents of a low-income community of color discovered they had been living on toxic soil.

HUD Knowingly Poisoned Our Children. This Can Never Happen Again.

| Earthjustice | Earthjustice | April 6, 2021

This article focuses on former West Calumet residents in East Chicago, where public housing was built on contaminated land. It is useful for documenting how federal housing policy and toxic contamination combined to harm low-income Black and Latino families.

Poisonous Homes: The Fight for Environmental Justice in Federally Assisted Housing

| Shriver Center on Poverty Law and Earthjustice | Shriver Center / Earthjustice | June 2020

This report examines federally assisted housing located near hazardous waste sites, including East Chicago’s West Calumet Housing Complex. It is useful for documenting how low-income residents and people of color can be exposed to toxic contamination through housing policy.

Blood, Lead & Soil: A Year in East Chicago

| Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations | IPBS | July 26, 2017

This multimedia project documents the East Chicago lead and arsenic contamination crisis. It is useful for showing how residents experienced toxic soil, relocation, public-health fears, and environmental justice failures.

On Poisoned Ground

| Rebecca Burns | The Baffler | 2017

This article examines the East Chicago contamination crisis and the displacement of West Calumet residents. It is useful for documenting how toxic contamination, public housing, race, and government neglect converged in a major environmental justice case.

Discriminatory Environmental Permitting in Camden, N.J.

| Public Interest Law Center | Public Interest Law Center | No date listed

This case summary describes Camden, New Jersey as a 90-percent-minority city burdened by a regional incinerator, regional sewage treatment plant, and multiple Superfund sites. It is useful for documenting environmental racism in municipal permitting and cumulative pollution.

Fighting for Air

| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | November 1, 2002

This article covers Camden’s Waterfront South neighborhood and the fight against discriminatory environmental permitting. It is useful for documenting how residents challenged a dense concentration of polluting facilities in a low-income community of color.

The Challenge of Environmental Justice

| Sheila R. Foster | Rutgers Journal of Law and Urban Policy | 2004

This legal article examines environmental justice battles in Camden, New Jersey. It is useful for documenting the limitations of civil-rights law when communities of color challenge incinerators, sewage plants, and other locally unwanted land uses.

Air Quality Injustices Put Neighbors in Two Local Towns at Risk

| 6abc Philadelphia | 6abc Action News | October 26, 2021

This article discusses air pollution burdens in New Jersey environmental justice communities, including Camden’s Waterfront South. It is useful for documenting how neighborhoods with high minority and low-income populations face disproportionate pollution.

What New Jersey’s New Environmental Justice Law Will Mean for Newark and Camden

| Justine Calma | Grist | July 23, 2020

This article discusses Newark and Camden as pollution-burdened communities targeted by New Jersey’s environmental justice law. It is useful for documenting garbage incinerators, sewage treatment, ports, airports, and chemical corridors in communities of color.

Ironbound Unyielding

| Earthjustice | Earthjustice | January 22, 2021

This feature profiles Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood, where residents live near a garbage incinerator, sewage-treatment plants, power plants, port activity, and heavy truck traffic. It is useful for documenting a largely immigrant community’s fight against being treated as a sacrifice zone.

With N.J.’s Tough New Environmental Justice Law in Place, Why Is Newark in Line for Another Power Plant?

| Emilie Lounsberry | Inside Climate News | November 15, 2024

This article reports on a proposed power plant in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood despite New Jersey’s environmental justice law. It is useful for documenting ongoing fights over adding new polluting infrastructure in an already overburdened community of color.

Free to Breathe Clean Air

| Surdna Foundation | Surdna Foundation | September 23, 2025

This article describes Newark’s Ironbound as a multiply burdened neighborhood with power plants, a major garbage incinerator, a sewage facility, port traffic, and industrial pollution. It is useful for documenting cumulative pollution burdens in a community of color.

Don’t Trash the Ironbound

| Climate Reality Project | Climate Reality Project | May 5, 2022

This article focuses on waste incineration in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood. It is useful for documenting how trash from elsewhere is burned in a largely immigrant and working-class community already burdened by multiple pollution sources.

Pollution, Poverty, and People of Color: The Factory on the Hill

| Environmental Health News | Environmental Health News | 2012

This article examines Richmond, California, where mostly Black residents historically lived near the Chevron refinery. It is useful for documenting refinery pollution, race, poverty, asthma, and long-term environmental injustice in a Bay Area fence-line community.

Fighting for Environmental Justice in Richmond, California

| Earthjustice | Earthjustice | No date listed

This case page describes Richmond’s fight over the Chevron refinery, which has long burdened surrounding neighborhoods with pollution. It is useful for documenting how communities of color around a major refinery challenged industrial expansion and climate pollution.

An Oil Giant Is No Match for Resistance and Resilience in Richmond, California

| Sasha Lyutse | Natural Resources Defense Council | May 7, 2021

This article profiles community organizing against Chevron in Richmond, California. It is useful for documenting how residents in a diverse, working-class community confronted refinery pollution and corporate political power.

Emergence of Environmental Justice in Richmond

| FoundSF | FoundSF | No date listed

This historical overview describes Richmond’s environmental justice movement, including struggles over the Chevron refinery, Superfund sites, and industrial land use. It is useful for documenting how refinery pollution became central to local environmental racism activism.

The Northern California Household Exposure Study

| Julia G. Brody et al. | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2009

This peer-reviewed study examined household chemical exposures in Richmond and Bolinas, California. It is useful for documenting how Richmond’s refinery, rail lines, Superfund sites, and industrial land use created unequal exposure risks.

Marathon Petroleum and Southwest Detroit: The Challenge of Environmental Justice

| Harvard Business School | Harvard Business School | 2023

This case study examines the Marathon Petroleum refinery in Southwest Detroit and the environmental justice issues surrounding it. It is useful for documenting refinery pollution in a largely Black and Latino neighborhood.

Mapping Environmental Justice and Uplifting Community Survival in Southwest Detroit

| Lori Atherton | University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability | July 11, 2023

This article discusses Southwest Detroit’s 48217 community, often described as Michigan’s most polluted ZIP code. It is useful for documenting how Black and Latino residents have faced decades of refinery, industry, and traffic pollution.

We Fight So Many Battles

| Lisa Berglund | American Planning Association | October 2020

This article examines a Detroit neighborhood shaped by a century of land-use decisions that prioritized industry over public health. It is useful for documenting how zoning, refineries, heavy industry, and race produced long-term environmental injustice.

Toxic Cities: Neoliberalism and Environmental Racism in Flint and Detroit Michigan

| Terressa A. Benz | Critical Sociology | 2019

This scholarly article examines environmental racism in Flint and Detroit, including the Marathon refinery in Detroit. It is useful for connecting lead contamination, refinery pollution, race, and policy choices in Michigan.

Marathon Petroleum Company to Reduce Air Pollution at Detroit Refinery

| U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | EPA | June 9, 2016

This EPA release describes a settlement requiring Marathon Petroleum to reduce air pollution at its Detroit refinery. It is useful for documenting official recognition of refinery emissions at the fence line of a heavily burdened Detroit community.

Diverse Populations Benefit from Targeted Efforts to Improve Duwamish Valley Pollution

| Christopher Dunagan | Salish Sea Currents Magazine | April 12, 2021

This article discusses environmental justice in Seattle’s Duwamish Valley, where diverse and lower-income communities live near industrial pollution and toxic sediments. It is useful for documenting how cleanup and community power developed around a heavily polluted waterway.

Why Is Our Work Important?

| Duwamish River Community Coalition | DRCC | No date listed

This community page explains why South Seattle’s Duwamish Valley is considered an environmental justice community. It is useful for documenting disproportionate environmental health burdens affecting communities of color, immigrants, and low-income residents.

Local Communities Lead Environmental Action on the Duwamish River

| America Is All In | America Is All In | July 29, 2024

This article profiles community-led environmental action along the Duwamish River. It is useful for documenting how immigrants, people of color, Indigenous people, and low-income residents organize around toxic river pollution.

Climate Justice on the Duwamish

| Seattle Foundation | Seattle Foundation | September 18, 2019

This article discusses the Duwamish River corridor as a climate and environmental justice case. It is useful for documenting how low-income communities and communities of color face both legacy pollution and climate risk.

Health Impact Assessment: Proposed Cleanup Plan for the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund Site

| University of Washington / Just Health Action / Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition | Health Impact Assessment | July 25, 2012

This report examines health and environmental justice concerns surrounding the Lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund cleanup. It is useful for documenting how industrial pollution, diesel emissions, fish consumption, and social vulnerability affect nearby communities.

Environmental Impacts and Policy Failures in Black Mesa

| Arizona Journal of Environmental Law & Policy | AJELP | April 22, 2024

This article discusses coal mining, water depletion, and environmental policy failures affecting Navajo and Hopi communities in Black Mesa. It is useful for documenting environmental racism and resource extraction on Indigenous lands.

The Black Mesa Controversy

| Cultural Survival | Cultural Survival Quarterly | May 7, 2010

This article examines the Black Mesa coal mine controversy and the long fight over mining practices on Navajo and Hopi lands. It is useful for documenting Indigenous environmental justice struggles involving coal extraction and water resources.

Black Mesa Mine Mess

| High Country News | High Country News | April 12, 2010

This article reports on the Black Mesa coal mine complex and environmental justice concerns involving Navajo and Hopi lands. It is useful for documenting conflict over mining permits, water pollution, and Indigenous community impacts.

Navajo and Hopi Tribes Campaign to Remain on Black Mesa Lands and Protect It from Coal Mining

| Global Nonviolent Action Database | Swarthmore College | No date listed

This case profile documents Navajo and Hopi resistance to relocation and coal mining on Black Mesa. It is useful for tracing Indigenous environmental justice organizing against extractive industry and land displacement.

Restoring Natural and Cultural Resources on Black Mesa

| Sam Gilbert | Waging Nonviolence | December 27, 2013

This article reports on Indigenous resistance and restoration work on Black Mesa. It is useful for documenting how Navajo and Hopi communities challenged coal extraction, water depletion, and damage to cultural resources.

The Anniston Community Health Survey

| C. Cusack et al. | Environmental Justice | 2020

This peer-reviewed article examines PCB exposure in Anniston, Alabama, where Monsanto produced PCBs for decades. It is useful for documenting how race and age were important determinants of PCB exposure in a community long associated with environmental racism and industrial contamination.

Pollution, Poverty and People of Color: Dirty Soil and Diabetes

| Environmental Health News / Scientific American | Scientific American | June 13, 2012

This article examines West Anniston, Alabama, where residents experienced some of the world’s highest PCB contamination levels after decades of Monsanto pollution. It is useful for documenting how a poor Black community became a major example of toxic exposure and environmental injustice.

Toxic Knowledge: A Review of Baptized in PCBs

| Elena Conis | Southern Spaces | August 19, 2015

This review discusses Ellen Griffith Spears’s book “Baptized in PCBs,” which traces Anniston’s history from factory town to “Toxic Town USA.” It is useful for documenting how race, industrial secrecy, corporate power, and public health failures shaped the Anniston PCB disaster.

Monsanto in Alabama

| Environmental Working Group | EWG | No date listed

This article discusses Monsanto’s PCB contamination in Anniston, Alabama, and the community’s long struggle for accountability. It is useful for documenting corporate pollution, Superfund cleanup, and the environmental justice implications of toxic exposure in a heavily affected community.

Africatown’s Environment: The Race and Justice Narrative

| Architectural League of New York | Architectural League of New York | No date listed

This article examines Africatown in Mobile, Alabama, where descendants of the last known enslaved Africans brought to the United States live near heavy industry. It is useful for documenting how zoning, industrial siting, and racial history produced long-term environmental injustice.

Africatown Residents Fight Industrial Pollution

| Equal Justice Initiative | EJI | January 31, 2018

This article discusses Africatown residents’ fight against industrial pollution and oil storage proposals. It is useful for documenting how a historic Black community has resisted continued industrial encroachment and environmental racism.

The Progressive Era Roots of Environmental Racism

| Nick Tabor | Grist | February 24, 2023

This article uses Africatown’s history to show how environmental racism developed long before the term became widely used. It is useful for documenting how Jim Crow-era planning and industrial development shaped pollution burdens in a Black community.

Reading Smoke in Africatown and Across the South

| Southern Environmental Law Center | SELC | December 13, 2024

This article discusses air pollution concerns in Africatown and the failure of state regulators to adequately protect residents. It is useful for documenting ongoing environmental justice struggles in a historic Black community surrounded by industrial facilities.

Highly Polluting Paper Factories in Africatown, Alabama, US

| Environmental Justice Atlas | EJAtlas | May 2, 2022

This case profile describes pollution from paper mills and other industries in Africatown, Alabama. It is useful for documenting how residents continue to face toxic exposure and environmental justice concerns in a historic Black community.

Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana’s Chemical Corridor

| Don VanderMeer | Environmental Health Perspectives | 2005

This article reviews the environmental justice struggle in Diamond, a Black neighborhood in Norco, Louisiana, located next to Shell chemical facilities. It is useful for documenting a nationally significant fight over refinery and chemical-plant pollution in Cancer Alley.

Black Residents of Diamond Win Fight with Shell Chemical for Relocation, 1989–2002

| Global Nonviolent Action Database | Swarthmore College | No date listed

This case profile documents how residents of Diamond, Louisiana organized against Shell Chemical and won relocation after years of pollution and explosions. It is useful for documenting successful Black community resistance to environmental racism.

How One Woman Took On Shell to Save Her Louisiana Town

| Reid Frazier | The Allegheny Front | April 7, 2017

This article profiles Margie Richard and the Diamond, Louisiana fight against Shell. It is useful for documenting how local organizing exposed the environmental justice harms of chemical industry pollution in a Black fence-line community.

Shell Games: Divide and Conquer in Norco’s Diamond Community

| CorpWatch | CorpWatch | No date listed

This article examines Shell’s relationship with the Diamond community in Norco, Louisiana. It is useful for documenting race, class, relocation, and corporate power in a Black neighborhood located beside major chemical facilities.

“Waiting to Die”: Toxic Emissions and Disease Near the Denka Performance Elastomer Neoprene Facility

| R. Nagra et al. | Environmental Justice | 2021

This peer-reviewed article examines toxic chloroprene emissions near the Denka Performance Elastomer facility in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. It is useful for documenting health concerns in a predominantly Black Cancer Alley community facing some of the nation’s highest estimated cancer risks from air pollution.

Reflections on Fighting Environmental Racism in St. John the Baptist Parish

| Marianne Engelman Lado Jordan | Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review | 2022

This legal article discusses the fight against toxic chloroprene pollution in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. It is useful for documenting civil-rights strategy, community organizing, and environmental racism in Cancer Alley.

Justice Department Files Complaint Alleging Public Health Endangerment Caused by Denka Facility

| U.S. Department of Justice | DOJ | February 28, 2023

This federal release describes a Justice Department complaint seeking to reduce hazardous chloroprene emissions from the Denka neoprene facility in LaPlace, Louisiana. It is useful for documenting official federal action over toxic air pollution in a heavily burdened Cancer Alley community.

In Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, a Deserved Reprieve for St. John Residents After Years of Environmental Injustice

| Deena Tumeh and Adam Kron | Earthjustice | May 27, 2025

This article discusses Denka’s halt of toxic neoprene production after years of community pressure from St. John the Baptist Parish residents. It is useful for documenting a major community victory in a Black Cancer Alley community fighting industrial air pollution.

“You Have to Speak Up”: How Advocates in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley Helped Push a Toxic Chemical Facility to Close

| Rebekah Sager | Moms Clean Air Force | April 22, 2026

This article discusses organizing against the Denka facility in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. It is useful for documenting how residents and advocates challenged chloroprene emissions in a Black community facing extreme cancer-risk estimates.

America’s Dirty Little Secret: The Texas Town That Has Been Without Running Water for Decades

| Oliver Laughland | The Guardian | November 23, 2017

This article examines Sandbranch, Texas, a historic Black freedmen’s community without running water. It is useful for documenting environmental justice issues involving water access, flood risk, government neglect, and racial inequality.

After 150 Years, Black Residents of Sandbranch, Texas, Still Have No Running Water

| People’s World | People’s World | June 25, 2024

This article discusses Sandbranch, Texas, where Black residents have long lacked basic water infrastructure. It is useful for documenting environmental racism through infrastructure denial, water insecurity, and political neglect.

Solutions for Sandbranch and Deconstructing Environmental Racism

| Dallas Weekly | Dallas Weekly | March 5, 2024

This article discusses efforts to address environmental racism in Sandbranch, Texas. It is useful for documenting how floodplain arguments, infrastructure denial, and political decisions have left a Black community without basic water access.

Come Hell or No Water: The Story of Sandbranch and the Environment

| D. Pemberton | Texas A&M Law Student Scholarship | 2022

This legal paper examines Sandbranch, Texas as an environmental justice case. It is useful for documenting the legal and policy issues behind a freedmen’s community’s lack of running water and exposure to environmental hazards.

The Newtown Story: One Community’s Fight for Environmental Justice

| Ellen Spears | Southern Changes | December 1, 1998

This older article documents Newtown, an African American neighborhood in Gainesville, Georgia, where segregated housing was built on a landfill near railroad tracks after a 1936 tornado. It is useful for documenting a long-running environmental justice struggle involving landfills, segregation, and toxic exposure.

The Newtown Florist Club: The 70-Year Fight for Environmental Justice in Gainesville

| Lawson Smith | Vanguard | April 28, 2025

This article discusses the Newtown Florist Club’s decades of environmental justice advocacy in Gainesville, Georgia. It is useful for documenting community organizing by Black women against pollution, landfills, and health disparities.

Decades of Air Pollution and Environmental Racism Have Devastated the Health of Newtown

| Basil Pursley | The Catalyst | November 22, 2022

This article discusses the health effects of air pollution and environmental racism in Newtown. It is useful for documenting how a historically Black community has experienced long-term pollution burdens and community health harms.

East Gainesville Residents Continue to Demand Action on Landfill Closure

| WUFT | WUFT | January 29, 2025

This article covers residents’ demands for action on an unlined landfill in East Gainesville. It is useful for documenting how residents described water contamination concerns and landfill exposure as environmental racism.

In the Shadows of Industry: LA County’s Port Communities

| Pablo Unzueta | CalMatters | February 1, 2022

This photo essay documents life in Wilmington, Carson, and other Los Angeles County port communities near refineries, freeways, warehouses, and port pollution. It is useful for documenting environmental justice struggles in heavily Latino and working-class neighborhoods.

In the Port Town of Wilmington, the Community’s Long Fight Against Industrial Pollution Continues

| Ashley Miznazi | USC Center for Health Journalism | March 16, 2023

This article examines Wilmington, California, where residents live near oil refineries, ports, and industrial pollution. It is useful for documenting a Latino working-class community’s long fight for clean air.

A Community Poisoned by Oil

| Adam Mahoney | High Country News | June 22, 2022

This article focuses on Wilmington, California, where residents experience higher illness and mental-health burdens while living near oil industry infrastructure. It is useful for documenting the human impacts of refinery and drilling pollution in a community of color.

Wilmington Residents, Plagued by Oil Industry, Just Want Clean Air

| LA Public Press | LA Public Press | August 14, 2025

This article reports on Wilmington residents living near oil refineries and fighting for clean air. It is useful for documenting continuing environmental justice concerns in a community surrounded by fossil-fuel infrastructure.

The Increasing Burden of Oil Refineries and Fossil Fuels in Wilmington, California

| Communities for a Better Environment | Communities for a Better Environment | 2009

This report examines the health and environmental impacts of oil refineries in Wilmington and nearby Southern California communities. It is useful for documenting how refining heavier crude oil can worsen pollution in already burdened communities of color.

Confirming the Environmental Concerns of Community Members Utilizing Participatory-Based Research in the Houston Neighborhood of Manchester

| G. Sansom et al. | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health | 2016

This peer-reviewed article examines pollution concerns in Manchester, a Houston neighborhood near the Ship Channel and multiple industrial facilities. It is useful for documenting community-based research in a predominantly Latino environmental justice community.

Air Toxics and Health in Manchester

| Union of Concerned Scientists | UCS | June 29, 2016

This article discusses toxic air pollution in Manchester, Houston, where poverty and pollution overlap near refineries and industrial facilities. It is useful for documenting how a community with limited political power faces cumulative environmental health risks.

Toxic Air Pollution in the Houston Ship Channel

| Yukyan Lam | Natural Resources Defense Council | August 31, 2021

This report discusses racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in toxic air pollution along Houston’s Ship Channel. It is useful for documenting how industrial emissions from refineries and chemical plants disproportionately affect nearby communities of color.

Lives “Devastated” by Petrochemical Industry Pollution in Texas

| Kristina Marusic | Environmental Health News | January 26, 2024

This article reports on petrochemical pollution along the Houston Ship Channel and its harms to local communities. It is useful for documenting human-rights and environmental justice concerns in neighborhoods near refineries and chemical plants.

History of Environmental Justice in Houston

| Here in Houston | Here in Houston | No date listed

This overview discusses environmental justice in Houston, including the Manchester and Harrisburg neighborhoods. It is useful for documenting how low-income and minority communities were placed near hazardous industrial environments.

Environmental Racism in Houston, Texas

| ArcGIS StoryMaps | ArcGIS StoryMaps | November 12, 2021

This story map discusses environmental racism in Houston, including refinery pollution and the Manchester neighborhood. It is useful for documenting how industrial emissions, flooding, and race intersect in Houston environmental justice communities.

The Elusive Quest for Environmental Justice at Hunters Point

| Earth Island Journal | Earth Island Journal | December 5, 2022

This article examines the environmental justice fight at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. It is useful for documenting radioactive and toxic contamination in a historically Black neighborhood shaped by racist housing policy and industrial land use.

Bayview Hunters Point

| Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice | Greenaction | No date listed

This community page collects reports and organizing materials about Bayview Hunters Point in San Francisco. It is useful for documenting a long-running environmental justice struggle involving shipyard contamination, industrial pollution, redevelopment, and health concerns.

The Breathers of Bayview Hill

| Lindsey Dillon | Hastings Environmental Law Journal | 2018

This law journal article examines Bayview Hunters Point, redevelopment, toxic dust, and environmental justice in southeast San Francisco. It is useful for documenting how residents connected construction pollution and shipyard cleanup to a longer history of racial injustice.

For These Black Bayview-Hunters Point Residents, Reparations Include Safeguarding Against Rising Toxic Contamination

| Ezra David Romero | KQED | July 5, 2022

This article discusses Bayview Hunters Point residents’ calls for reparations and protection from toxic contamination. It is useful for documenting how racist housing policy and Superfund contamination are connected in a historically Black San Francisco neighborhood.

Lawsuit Filed Over Radioactive Waste at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard

| Berkeley Law Environmental Law Clinic | Berkeley Law | June 28, 2024

This article describes a lawsuit over the radiological cleanup at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. It is useful for documenting ongoing legal challenges around radioactive contamination, redevelopment, and environmental justice in Bayview Hunters Point.

Toxic Waste Cleanups Take Longer in Marginalized Parts of the Bay Area

| San Francisco Public Press | San Francisco Public Press | March 10, 2025

This investigation reports that toxic waste cleanups take longer in marginalized Bay Area communities. It is useful for documenting broader cleanup inequities that affect communities of color, including places such as Bayview Hunters Point.

Discriminatory Environmental Permitting in Camden, New Jersey

| Public Interest Law Center | Public Interest Law Center | No date listed

This case summary describes Camden as a 90-percent-minority city burdened by a regional incinerator, sewage treatment plant, and multiple Superfund sites. It is useful for documenting how environmental permitting can concentrate polluting facilities in communities of color.

Fighting for Air

| Shelterforce | Shelterforce | November 1, 2002

This article examines Camden’s Waterfront South neighborhood and its fight against a concentration of polluting facilities. It is useful for documenting environmental racism in a low-income community of color facing incinerators, sewage plants, and industrial pollution.

What New Jersey’s New Environmental Justice Law Will Mean for Newark and Camden

| Justine Calma | Grist | July 23, 2020

This article discusses New Jersey’s environmental justice law and its relevance to Newark and Camden. It is useful for documenting communities burdened by incinerators, sewage plants, ports, airports, and chemical corridors.

“Enough Pollution” in Low-Income New Jersey Area with One Power Plant

| Wayne Parry | Associated Press | March 1, 2023

This article reports on community opposition to additional power-plant pollution in an already overburdened New Jersey area. It is useful for documenting how environmental justice laws are tested when new polluters seek permits in low-income and minority communities.

NJ Groups Fight Power Plants and Wait for Environmental Justice Law

| Wayne Parry | Associated Press / KSAT | February 14, 2023

This article discusses New Jersey communities, including Perth Amboy-area advocates, fighting additional power-plant pollution. It is useful for documenting how civil-rights and environmental justice arguments are used against new fossil-fuel infrastructure.

New Jersey Communities Spotlight: The Trouble with Neighborhood Trash

| A. Peterson | Rutgers Policy Lab | 2025

This article discusses neighborhood trash infrastructure and environmental justice in New Jersey. It is useful for documenting how waste facilities and related truck traffic can burden low-income communities and communities of color.

This Juneteenth, Black New Jerseyans Still Can’t Breathe Free

| New Jersey League of Conservation Voters | NJLCV | No date listed

This opinion article discusses environmental racism affecting Black neighborhoods in New Jersey. It is useful for documenting how toxic air, polluted water, lack of green space, and industrial siting continue to affect communities of color.

Wastewater Disposal Wells, Fracking, and Environmental Injustice in Southern Texas

| Jill E. Johnston et al. | American Journal of Public Health | 2016

This peer-reviewed article examines wastewater disposal wells associated with oil and gas activity in southern Texas. It is useful for documenting how fracking-related waste infrastructure can create environmental justice concerns for nearby communities.

A Case Study on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory in Houston, Texas

| H. Wheless et al. | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health | 2025

This article examines industrial toxic releases and environmental justice in Houston. It is useful for documenting how Latinx communities face disproportionate environmental burdens and how public data can support policy change.

Community Science Is Changing How People Can Fight Pollution

| Courtney Lindwall | Natural Resources Defense Council | May 23, 2023

This article discusses community science efforts in environmental justice communities, including Houston refinery neighborhoods. It is useful for documenting how residents gather their own pollution data to challenge industrial polluters.

Air Pollution from the Los Angeles and Long Beach Ports

| I. Leifer et al. | Atmospheric Environment | 2025

This scholarly article examines air pollution from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. It is useful for documenting the environmental justice implications of port emissions, trucking, ships, trains, and heavy industry near surrounding communities.