>From WED%NCCIBM1.BITNET@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU Fri Oct 7 05:44:00 1994
Message-ID: <199410080024.RAA27113@cats.ucsc.edu>
with BSMTP id 7108; Fri, 07 Oct 94 17:43:51 EDT
BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 2096; Fri, 7 Oct 1994
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Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 08:44:00 EDT
Subject: Re: epa on env justice
> Recently I was reading "Whose Common Future? Reclaiming the Commons"
> by The Ecologist. On page 88 they say "... in a leaked memorandum,
> the US Environmental Protection Agency has described the environmental
> justice movement in the US, best known for its work in opposing toxic
> waste dumps, as the greatest threat to political stability since the
> anti-war movement of the 1960s."
>
> I would like to see this document. Can anyone offer any help,
> direction, starting point? Anyone else heard about this?
>
This sounds bogus to me.
A little background; I've worked in Clean Water Act enforcement for 21
years now, for EPA, in the largest Regional office. For the last year,
almost the only thing I hear out of HQ is Environmental Justice, over
and over again. In a poll ealier this week of the Water Permits and
Enforcement Branch (this is incredible timing; there has never been such
a poll before) of which issues the staff considers most important to
address in our new, streamlined (read even more badly understaffed)
organization, environmental justice tied for last among eleven issues on
the list.
Here is the reason for that: there is no environmental injustice now,
nor has there ever been. We bust our asses trying to enforce the law
whenever and WHEREVER there are violations. I can state categorically
for myself and every enforcement officer I have worked with here, NONE
of us has EVER either taken or failed to take an enforcement action
based on location or demographics. I consider the basic assumption
behind the environmental justice issue to be flawed, and I find that
assumption an insult to our professionalism.
It was not my intent to get strident on you; please accept my apology
for my tone. To respond to your question, I don't think such a memo
ever existed, because I know that upper management at EPA is fully
committed to environmental justice. While there may be a few at HQ who
consider a focus on environmental justice issues just another
distraction that prevents us from doing our job as well as we would like
to do it, I would doubt that any consider it a threat to "stability."
If there are, I would doubt that they would be stupid enough to put such
in writing. But if there are, and they did, I can assure everyone that
any such memo represents the opinion of one flake and not the official
policy of EPA.