HUFFINGTON
06.17.12
OLD KING COAL
prise to Bullard. In 2007, along
with researchers from the Universities of Michigan and Montana,
and Dillard University in New
Orleans, he updated a 1987 analysis of toxic waste facilities in the
United States. The new report,
“Toxic Wastes and Race at 20,”
used Census data and distancebased analyses to reveal the characteristics of residents within the
orbit of the nation’s 413 commercial hazardous waste facilities.
“The application of these new
methods, which better determine
where people live in relation to
where hazardous sites are locat-
“After more than two
decades of intense empirical study...it is very clear
that environmental racism
and discrimination is real.”
— Robert Bullard, Dean of the Barbara
Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public
Affairs at Texas Southern University
ed, reveals that racial disparities
in the distribution of hazardous
wastes are greater than previously
reported,” the authors noted. “In
fact, these methods show that
people of color make up the majority of those living in host neighborhoods within 3 kilometers (1.8
miles) of the nation’s hazardous
waste facilities. Racial and ethnic
disparities are prevalent throughout the country.”
ONE OF THE BEST PLACES
TO DUMP GARBAGE
Bullard points to BP’s Gul b