The Sustainability Imperative - Sustainable Design: The Science of Sustainability and Green Engineering - page 233

Historic disenfranchisement and even outright bias may well have put certain
neighborhoods at a disadvantage.
Thus, the responsibility of professionals cannot stop at sound science but should
consider the social milieu, especially possible disproportionate impacts. The de-
termination of disproportionate impacts, especially pollution-related diseases and
other health endpoints, is a fundamental step in ensuring environmental jus-
tice. But even this step relies on the application of sound physical science. Like
everything else that design professionals do, we must first assess the situation
to determine what needs to be done to improve it. As a first step in assessing
environmental insult, epidemiologists look at clusters and other indications of
elevated exposures and effects in populations. For example, certain cancers, as
well as neurological, hormonal, and other chronic diseases, have been found to be
significantly higher in minority communities and in socioeconomically depressed
areas. Acute diseases may also be higher in certain segments of society, such as
pesticide poisoning in migrant workers. 25 These are examples of disparate effects.
In addition, each person responds to an environmental insult uniquely and that
person is affected differently at various life stages. For example, young children are
at higher risk than adults following exposure to neurotoxins. This is an example
of disparate susceptibility. However, subpopulations can respond differently than
the entire population, meaning that genetic differences seem to affect people's
susceptibility to contaminant exposure. Scientists are very interested in genetic
variation, so that genomic techniques 26 (e.g., identifying certain polymorphisms)
are a growing area of inquiry.
In a sense, historical characteristics constitute the “environmental” aspects of
EJ communities, and socioeconomic characteristics entail the “justice” consider-
ations. The two sets of criteria are mutually inclusive, so for a community to be
defined as an EJ community, both of these sets of criteria must be present.
A recent report by the Institute of Medicine 27 found that numerous EJ com-
munities experience a “certain type of double jeopardy.” The communities must
endure elevated levels of exposure to contaminants while being ill equipped to
deal with these exposures, because so little is known about the exposure scenarios
in EJ communities. The first problem (i.e., higher concentrations of contami-
nants) is an example of disparate exposure. The latter problem is exacerbated by the
disenfranchisement from the political process that is endemic to EJ community
members. This is a problem of disparate opportunity or even disparate protection. 28
The report also found large variability among communities as to the type and
amount of exposure to toxic substances. Each contaminant has its own type of
toxicity. For example, one of the most common exposures in EJ communities is to
the metal lead and its compounds. The major health problem associated with lead
is central and peripheral nervous system diseases, including learning and behav-
ioral problems. Another common contaminant in EJ communities is benzene,
as well as other organic solvents. These contaminants can also be neurotoxic,