Environmental risks plague communities of color

Serghino René

When the Environmental Justice for All Tour came to Boston last week, it paid special attention to Roxbury, South Boston, East Boston and Chelsea. Recent studies have concluded that low-income communities and communities of color are victims of the worst environmental hazards, and the tour means to address those disparities.

“Environmental justice is not just about preventing more bad things from being put into our environment. It’s putting forth a vision of what it means to live in a decent neighborhood,” said Penn Loh, executive director for Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE).

As part of the tour, which is visiting 40 cities across the country, representatives from organizations from each neighborhood explored and explained the specific problems, issues and initiatives in their community.

But you don’t need to go far — in either distance or in history — to find the disparities in a given community. The MBTA Bartlett Bus Yard, now closed, used to house 200 buses, even though it was only designed for 100. Despite the 1973 law that restricted engine idling to five minutes, nearly 100 buses parked outside the depot were idling in open air and aiding the rising rate of asthma in the community.

“How can a public agency break the law, but yet nobody blinks an eye?” asked Loh.

In Roxbury, asthma rates are 178 percent of the state average. There are 123 pollution-generating sites per square mile in Roxbury, and the neighborhood has the tenth highest concentration of such sites in Massachusetts, forcing it and other low-income communities to bear toxic fumes.

A landmark study conducted by Northeastern University determined that low-income communities are three to four times more likely to be exposed to environmentally hazardous conditions compared to other communities in the state. It also found that minority communities are exposed to environmental hazards nearly nine times more than predominantly white communities in the state.

For some communities, seeking environmental justice is an ongoing effort.

“Welcome to Roxbury! In fact, welcome to historic Dudley Square,” said Bob Terrell, executive director of the Washington Street Corridor Coalition. In front of a crowd of neighborhood residents, elected officials and community activists, he preached about the MBTA’s disinvestment to the Roxbury community.

For well over 400 years, Terrell said, Dudley Square has been the hub of transportation. In the 1950s and ’60s, the state proposed building an I-95 highway through the South End, Roxbury, Jamaica Plain and part of the Fenway. After years of effort and protest from community residents, a political compromise was struck. Instead of building a highway, they would build a thorough transportation system for Amtrak and the commuter rail, and would also relocate the Orange Line system from an elevated system above Washington Street to what we know now as the Southwest Corridor.

In 1987, as an alternative to the elevated and relocated Orange Line from Dudley to downtown, the route was replaced with the #49 bus. In 2002, there was a supposed upgrade with the new Silver Line, which Terrell now refers to as the “Silver Lie.”

“The reason for that is because the MBTA never accepted the proposition that the [Silver Line] is a replacement for a public transit line. And we have to ask the question — why is it happening in this community?” said Terrell. “What used to take 10 minutes to get to Downtown Crossing now takes 30 minutes or more.”

He asked the audience to imagine the state telling Brookline residents that they planned to shut down the C Line service from Cleveland Circle to Kenmore Square and replace it with a bus to send them to Kenmore Square.

“I don’t think the folks in Brookline would accept it as an alternative and the situation is no different here,” said Terrell.

Working to get a viable alternative to the Silver Line project, Terrell would like to see one of two things: a light rail system coming down Washington Street, either on a surface line downtown or in the form of a tunnel, or an extension of the Orange Line from downtown underneath Washington Street back to Dudley Square.

“Our alternatives are … far less expensive than the MBTA’s Silver Line project,” said Terrell.

Miles from Roxbury, the environmental hazards and issues are different, but the communities they affect are largely the same. South Boston’s East First Street is the clear divide between residential and industrial space. These industrial businesses operate very close to homes, increasing hazardous waste and diesel fumes for residents, increased noise and roads with heavy truck access. The Greyhound Bus lot, for instance, sits directly behind a set of homes.

“The issues are really ongoing and so many of them are unresolved,” said South Boston activist Mary Cooney.

In East Boston, low-income community residents reclaimed their waterfront, once contaminated and fenced off, and made it into a park. Across the water in Chelsea, the city is fighting to claim that waterfront as well. Near that area is Chelsea’s lowest income, most densely populated and ethnically diverse portion of the city. Some residents must deal with animal odors, blood and body parts on their streets after they are discarded by a hide and fur company.

“We are calling for reform on a national level of our environmental laws, polices and of our environmental agencies. We are calling the government to recognize places like Chelsea and Boston. Low-income people are being disproportionately impacted,” said Dr. Mark Mitchell, founding president of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice.