Associated Press Writer
| The six-member Alabama Environmental Management Commission unanimously endorsed the creation of the position, loosely referred to as the environmental justice ombudsman, at a meeting attended by some 50 environmental justice activists and politicians. Before the vote, U.S. Rep. Artur Davis encouraged the commission to join his environmental justice initiative, asking them not to sacrifice the environment or communities for the sake of economic development. “We have been given a false choice between growing jobs and protecting our environment,” Davis said. Members of the Alabama African American Environmental Justice Action Network, one of the advocacy groups that attended, painted a grim picture of landfills expanding near poor, minority communities. Twenty of Alabama’s 29 landfills are in towns with either low-come or nonwhite populations, or both, according to their research, compiled by Florida A&M University and an environmental firm. The minority populations increased the closer they were to the landfills in most examples. In Mobile County, the population jumped from 65.2 percent within a 3-mile radius of the Mobile dump to 97 percent within a 1-mile radius, according to the research. Residents of Anniston, who were exposed to PCBs, and Talladega, where high levels of toxic TCE were found in the drinking water, also supported proposed changes to ADEM’s policies to include environmental justice concerns. Dixie Bonner, a Talladega resident and member of the Community Organized to Resist Eradication, said she became involved in the environmental justice movement when she realized Talladega residents were reporting more ailments sometimes associated with TCE consumption, including acid reflux disease and thinning hair. “I have grandchildren ... and we made formula with contaminated water - and that shook me up,” she said before the meeting. Environmental justice advocate Tanisa Foxworth argued that ADEM has been indifferent to the needs of minority groups in the past. She called on the commission to create a new division within the agency that would collect demographic data from landfill sites before issuing or renewing waste dump site, and assess the risk of the residents near those sites. “We would love to have an environmental agency that we can be confident in to protect us from inequitable exposure and one we can rely on for help,” Foxworth told the commission. “The communities you see here today have not found this to be the case.” Commission member Kenneth Hairston, who initially proposed creating the ombudsman post, said he wasn’t sure if ADEM will ever create a division dealing with environmental justice problems. But he said the unanimous vote endorsing the new post proved that the commission wanted solutions. “I felt very strongly for ADEM to start on the track of becoming an advocate,” he said. |
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