Chronicles from the Environmental Justice Frontline

This book, first published in 1991, describes how and why conflicts over environmental injustice are created and eventually resolved.

J. Timmons Roberts (Author), Melissa M. Toffolon-Weiss (Author)

9780521669009, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 September 2001

292 pages, 12 b/w illus. 3 maps 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.43 kg

"These authors give a particularly chilling account of the political-economic climate in Louisiana in which race and economics have always been complexly intertwine, dating back to the era of slavery." Brenda L. Murphy, Wilfrid Laurier University

Chronicles from the Environmental Justice Frontline, first published in 1991, provides a rare glimpse of the environmental justice movement as it plays out in four landmark struggles at the end of the twentieth century. The book describes the stories of everyday people who have decided to take to the streets to battle what they perceive as injustice: the unequal exposure of minorities and the poor to the 'bads' produced by our industrial society. In these struggles residents and local, state, and national environmental and social justice groups are on one side pitted against local and state government representatives and industry on the other. By employing historical and theoretical lenses in viewing these struggles, the book reveals how situations of environmental injustice are created and how they are resolved. These cases bear great similarity to battles occurring across the nation, and are setting precedents for national and state agencies as they handle these cases.

1. Environmental justice struggles in perspective
2. Roots of environmental justice in Louisiana
3. The Nation's first major environmental justice judgment: the LES Clairborne Uranium Enrichment Facility
4. EPA's environmental justice test case: the Shintech PVC Plant
5. Media savvy Cajuns and Houma Indians fight Exxon's oilfield waste in Grand Bois
6. Stress and the politics of living on a superfund site - the agriculture street municipal landfill (with Amanda Leiker)
7. The Empire Strikes Back: backlash and implications for the future
First hand resources on environmental justice struggles: web sites
Further readings.

Subject Areas: Social issues & processes [JFF]