Environmental injustice is present all over the world. It is in Flint, Michigan, where people haven’t had access to clean water for the past year. And then you can see it in our own backyard – the South Bronx. Children who live in the South Bronx streets are 8x more likely to grow up with asthma or other respiratory problems. Poor urban communities have taken the broken end of the environmental justice ladder, along with other injustices. The United States government has create an abundant and comprehensive amount of legislation to reduce water and air pollution.
The United States government has seen environmental issues disproportionately impact the nation and has created environmental agencies, in response. For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency was created in the 1970s. The agency in in charge of enforcing legislation, such as the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and an assortment of others. “The Clean Air Act of 1990 authorized an emissions trading, or cap-and- trade program, which enables the 110 most polluting coal- fired power plants in 21 states to buy and sell SO2 air pollution rights.” Between 1990 and 2012, this emissions trading program reduced 76% of SO2 emissions from power plants in the United States.[i]
Another major legislation effort, in part of the United States, includes the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act is one of many legislative acts put forth by the government to help mitigate water pollution. However, the EPA also takes reign of other regulatory water acts, such as the Safe Drinking Act (SDWA) of 1974. While the CWA focuses primarily on the regulation of surface waters (rivers, lakes, and some areas of the ocean), the Safe Drinking Water Act regulates drinking water.[ii] The SDWA regulation comes in the form of enforced drinking water standards, actions to protect groundwater from contamination, and subsidies for cleaner drinking water.[iii] The main difference between the CWA and SDWA is that the CWA does not directly regulate groundwater contamination. Instead, other acts such as the Safe Drinking Water Act, Superfund Act, and Resources Conservation and Recovery work in unison to protect groundwater. Overall, there are many pieces of legislation that directly or indirectly work together to provide protection of the country’s waters from water pollution.
Today, over half of the United States rivers and lakes are in violation of environmental standards.[iv] To put that in the perspective of human health, roughly 4 to 28 percent of Americans in a year have drank water from systems that have violated codes on health standards.[v] Therefore, it makes sense that polls have shown water pollution to have been a top environmental concern for the past thirty years.[vi] People depend on clean and viable water for almost everything. It is used for hydrating ourselves, farming the plants we eat, bathing ourselves, and so much more. About only 3% of the world’s water is fresh, but even then only 0.5% of its accessible due to the large majority trapped in glaciers and snowfields.[vii] The Clean Water Act has aided and continues to aid against the various forms of water pollution released into its nation’s waters, but water pollution remains a present concern and a main issue for debate across the country.
As for toxic waste, the main legislation is the Superfund Act. However, currently, there is no legislation on municipal waste. Municipal waste is mainly handled on the state level. For example, In 2013, there were 20 U.S. states that banned the disposal of computers and TV sets in landfills and incinerators.[viii] This ban has created a profitable e-cycling industry. [ix] In 2013, 13 states along with New York City made manufacturers responsible for recycling most electronic devices. [x] Increasing numbers of scientists and economists have been calling for a U.S. federal law to institute a cradle-to cradle approach that would require manufacurers to take back all electronic devices they produce and recycle them domestically. [xi] Under waste legislation, the Toxic Substances Control Act has been in place since 1976. It regulates the safety of the thousands of chemicals used in manufacturing and contained within products. Under this law, companies notify the EPA of new chemicals entering the marketplace
[i] Miller
[ii] David A. Keiser, Joseph S. Shapiro, “US Water Pollution Regulation over the Past Half Century: Burning Waters to Crystal Springs?” 53.
[iii] Id. at 57-58
[iv] Id. at 52
[v] Id.
[vi] Id.
[vii] “Water Facts – World Wide Supply,” Bureau of Reclamation California-Great Basin, Dec. 2019.
[viii] Miller 590
[ix] Miller 590
[x] Miller 590
[xi] Miller 590
Environmental Studies 