This environmental victory could amplify injustice in Black communities

While virtually every environmental group across the country celebrated the Biden administration’s historic steps to reduce pollution last month, John Beard sat patiently.

After years of advocacy and hundreds of scientific studies, the federal government has designated two “forever chemicals” as hazardous substances. This step makes it easier to mandate the removal of these man-made compounds from the environment.

Exposure to these chemicals, which are found in virtually everything from Air Jordan duffel bags to lipsticks, has been linked to reduced fertility, developmental delays and a range of cancers. Thus, this new designation is remarkably poised to improve the health of the nation.

But as he often does, Beard, an oil refinery worker turned environmental activist in Port Arthur, Texas, waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Every time we think someone on a white horse or the cavalry is going to show up to help us,” he said, “we find out they’ve just dug the hole deeper for us.”

As Capital B has reported, these rural favors have often inadvertently reinforced environmental injustices in historically overburdened communities, many of which are majority Black. This scenario couldn’t be more different.

One of the largest plants in the country licensed to burn hazardous waste is in the community of Beard, which is predominantly black and has one of the highest cancer risks in the country due to air pollution.

While Michael Regan, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the designation is part of “an interagency approach to protect public health and address the harm to communities overburdened by PFAS pollution,” it would Beard and his neighbors could mean more dangerous chemicals are being used. are transported, stored and emitted in their backyards.

“A win for the country and these companies usually means more pain and suffering for us,” Beard explains.

Despite the ongoing practice of burning these types of chemicals, the data behind their safety and effectiveness is not clear. However, several studies show that commercial combustion of forever chemicals only partially destroys them and often disperses them widely through the atmosphere. Once they land, they pollute the water and soil of surrounding communities.

Asked to sacrifice

Over the past three years, the Biden administration has tightened and issued more pollution regulations than any other U.S. president. Policies such as reducing air pollution from power plants and permanently removing chemicals from drinking water will have positive impacts on Black communities, which have disproportionately suffered the harmful effects of pollution for decades.

The policy will not only save lives; they will also save the federal government money. This recent designation of perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as PFOA, and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, known as PFOS, as hazardous substances allows the government to force the companies that produce these chemicals to pay for their cleanup. Previously, taxpayers footed the bill, both economically and health-wise.

This “means more communities will be protected from disproportionate and unacceptable health risks, including communities with environmental justice concerns,” an EPA spokesperson told Capital B.

While the new designation does not dictate how and where these chemicals are disposed of, the economics could do so. At least that’s what companies like the Veolia Port Arthur incinerator in the town of Beard hope.

While it is as much as ten times cheaper for companies to dump these materials in landfills, the new designation will make these practices less feasible. Because these chemicals often leach into soil and groundwater, the ongoing cleanup costs of keeping landfills up to standards can make it more expensive than just sending them to incinerators like the Port Arthur plant and others found primarily in Black communities .

The EPA believes these rules will not “significantly increase” the demand for hazardous waste disposal. Still, some companies, like Veolia, are banking on their ability to meet demand — especially as some landfill operators have already said the designation could force them to reject materials contaminated with the chemicals for fear of new costs or fines from the EPA.

Nationally, Black communities are 75% more likely than others to live near hazardous waste facilities such as the Veolia Port Arthur plant.

The Veolia plant is one of two plants in the Port Arthur area with a permit to burn hazardous waste.

According to a Capital B analysis of EPA and U.S. Census Bureau data, there are 44 similar permitted factories nationwide, and more than a third of those factories are in areas with an above-average share of Black residents.

In Port Arthur, some neighborhoods have a cancer risk from air pollution that is 190 times higher than the EPA’s “acceptable” cancer risk. Beard says that as a result, he has stopped counting the many cancer diagnoses of his loved ones and the funerals he has attended.

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Read more: Chemical factories destroyed these black cities. The EPA hopes new regulations will help.

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For decades, local, state, and federal leaders have promised policies and regulations to ease this burden, but it persists. While the Biden administration has made record progress on environmental justice and prioritized ways to address the disparate impacts of environmental damage on Black communities, Port Arthur and other communities are seemingly still being asked to make sacrifices.

“I am not willing to trade my life and my health and the health of my family, my neighbors or my community,” Beard said.

Justifying destruction

Currently, the Veolia Port Arthur plant is the only plant in the country allowed to burn similar dioxin waste, and it hopes to use this position to take advantage of the growing need for PFOA and PFOS removal. As maintenance costs have fallen, the supply and demand for chemical disposal has put the company in a unique situation to expand its work, said Bob Cappadona, CEO of the company’s Environmental Solutions and Services.

“We recognize that the proper management of PFAS poses a significant environmental challenge, and we believe we are well suited to address them,” he said.

With the Port Arthur plant processing nearly 60,000 tons of hazardous waste collected annually from across North America, the plant has generated more than $100 million in sales. At the same time, it exacerbated an environmental crisis in the province, which is the ninth most vulnerable to climate change threats in the country, according to a recent study.

Hilton Kelley, another Port Arthur resident, has seen how the growth of the industry has led to an “abandonment” of the people who live there.

“Growing up, we had community centers and a YMCA. That’s all gone now,” he told Capital B earlier this year. “And every time they destroy our communities, they always find a way to justify it.”

Throughout the process of writing the new regulations, industry leaders such as the Environmental Technology Council fought hard to keep incineration and landfill as options. Last December, the council told the EPA that all destruction methods should be “evaluated on the same basis,” despite environmental concerns.

In 2019, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California introduced a bill to ban the burning of PFAS chemicals, but it was never voted on. Currently, Illinois is the only state in the country with a nationwide ban on PFAS burning, with the EPA still including burning as a recommended disposal practice for the chemicals.

Some senior officials, The New York Times reports, have argued that the designation could harm local communities whose economies rely heavily on chemical production. However, the chemicals are no longer manufactured in the US

Over the past five years, the Port Arthur plant has been fined twice by the state and once by the federal government for violating pollution standards. Since 2021, the facility has violated the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act eight times out of 13 reporting periods.

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read more: The nation’s largest climate bill threatens to leave Black communities behind

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The health consequences are palpable. According to a Capital B analysis of EPA data outlining how facilities impact human health, adverse human health impacts and risks associated with Veolia’s plant are already 3,250 times higher than the average risk from hazardous waste facilities in the whole country.

“The concentration of these dangerous activities occurs in communities like ours because this is the path of least resistance,” Beard explains. “Communities of people who are largely poor, black and Latino, and who don’t have the resources or expertise to fight back against these multibillion-dollar decisions.”

The problem – as Port Arthur and other overburdened communities show – is that because of the environmental damage done over the past century, even the cleanup process will provide unhealthy options. Even prominent anti-burning organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Environmental Working Group have not offered viable alternatives, citing the need for more research while offering other emergency programs, many of which the government has already instituted.

“I’ve been fighting this battle since the mid-1980s,” Beard said. “And nothing has changed yet.”