Race, class and environmental justice

The growth of the environmental justice movement in the US surprised even the most seasoned of policy-makers by its speed and the magnitude of its impact on US national policy (Russell, 1989; Inhaber, 1990; Grossman, 1991; Goldman, 1992). Responding to intense public pressure from environmental and civil rights activists for close to a decade, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established an Environmental Equity Workgroup in 1990. The workgroup had two primary tasks:1 to evaluate the evidence that racial minority and low-income groups bore a disproportionate burden of environmental risks; and2 to identify factors that contributed to different risk burdens and to suggest strategies for improvement.