Green Redlining

How rules against "environmental racism" hurt poor minorities most of all.How rules against "environmental racism" hurt poor minorities most of all.

Henry Payne from the October 1998 issue

(Page 4 of 4)

Romeville residents believe that the real injustice would occur if Shintech chose not to locate in St. James Parish. Some of them have seen the company's Freeport, Texas, plant, and know it is in a prosperous, white area, one of the richest counties in the state. Romeville's black residents want the chance to make the same choice the white residents of Freeport made.

In Claiborne Parish, site of the administration's first experiment in environmental redlining, the public's choice never really counted. Federal bureaucrats drew a one-mile radius around the plant's location, determined the racial makeup of the area based on census figures, and declared that the plant would have a disparate impact. As a result, the parish, whose property tax base would have doubled with the presence of the Claiborne Enrichment Center, still cannot afford a fire department; many of its residents still drive 40 miles to work in Shreveport's casinos; and the school system is $12 million poorer without the construction tax the plant would have paid.

Greenpeace, on the other hand, can celebrate one more win in its international crusade against the nuclear industry. And the Clinton administration can claim a victory for "environmental justice."

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