March 2004 | Volume 2, Number 6

Promoting the Environmental Justice & Health Union mission, Catalyst identifies training, research, policies, events, and funding opportunities that foster partnerships to eliminate environmental disease in low-income communities of color within the United States. To do that, Catalyst depends on information submitted by an advisory board of environmental health professionals and environmental justice activists as well as our readers.

TOOLBOX

Technology for activists
The Organizers' Collaborative provides free software and technical assistance to groups promoting social change.

Community foundations
The Council on Foundations includes a link to community foundations in each state.

Corporate funding
The National Network for Health includes links to a large number of corporate health foundations.

OTHER REPORTS OF INTEREST

Tracking environmental health disparities
In response to state legislation, the California Policy Research Center developed "Strategies for Establishing an Environmental Health Surveillance System in California" that include means to track environmental health disparities.

ADVISORY BOARD

Lynn Battle
Executive Director, Citizen's Lead Education & Poisoning Prevention (Birmingham, AL)

Michael Green
Executive Director, Center for Environmental Health (Oakland, CA)

Swati Prakash
Environmental Health Director, West Harlem Environmental Action (New York, NY)

Alejandra Tres
Executive Director, Association of Environmental Health Academic Programs (Portland, OR)

The Environmental Justice and Health Union is an independent project of the Center for Environmental Health

SUBSCRIBE and PROVIDE

The Catalyst is an online newsletter sent monthly to Environmental Justice & Health Union members. Groups with annual budgets of less than $200,000 receive free EJHU membership. The EJHU website (www.ejhu.org) includes information for activists and professionals about training, research, and policies, EJHU membership, and past issues of Catalyst.

If you want to provide information to be considered for inclusion in Catalyst, include a contact name, website, and e-mail address. Please forward the information to ejhu@ejhu.org or the following address:
Max Weintraub - Director
Environmental Justice and Health Union
528 61st Street, Suite A
Oakland, CA 94609

SPREAD THE WORD! - Free membership for community groups will be discontinued in April 2004. Sign up now!

The Next Step...

Executive Order 12898 identified the EPA as the lead federal agency to remedy environmental injustices. An review of the agency's response during the past decade concluded that EPA has failed to satisfy the intent of the environmental justice executive order to prevent disproportionate environmental harm to low- income and minority communities. EPA's recent actions on mercury emissions reflect that failure.

According to the CDC, the most exposed minority populations have up to 50% more mercury in their bodies than the most exposed white populations. Much of that exposure is due to community exposure to local industrial air pollution. Yet, EPA has proposed new rules that allow mercury pollution to the air to continue and even be traded among industrial facilities. The National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee passed resolutions in the late 90's that recommended approaches to the problems posed by air pollution trading and mercury emissions. In January the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee also asked whether air pollution hotspots will be created in communities under the proposed rules. EPA has yet to respond. This is somewhat surprising given that, though EPA infrequently acts on recommendations from the federal advisory committee on environmental justice, it often responds to recommendations from the children's health committee.

EPA's disingenuous claim that equal protection for all will achieve environmental justice ignores the long history of racism in the United States and the need to take action specifically against that history in order to overcome it. By claiming to address environmental justice, and then doing so in such an incremental fashion, EPA allows environmental injustices to continue.

PARTNERSHIPS

Community-campus partnerships
The UCSF Community-Campus Partnerships for Health has identified resources available to help create, maintain, and evaluate community-campus partnerships.

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

Chemical-disease links
The Collaborative on Health and the Environment has developed a comprehensive review of studies that indicate definite or potential links between chemical exposure and almost 200 hundred environmental diseases in humans.

Local poison control centers
The American Association of Poison Control Centers maintains links to more than 50 poison control centers nationwide.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

New Jersey
The governor of New Jersey signed an executive order on environmental justice that includes development of a coordinated particulate air pollution strategy between environmental and transportation agencies to reduce asthma.

Environmental justice politics
Doctoral dissertations completed in 2003 by Dom Apollon of Stanford University, Julie Sze of New York University, and Scott Sherman of the University of Michigan reflect the increasing analytical depth of academic studies of environment justice politics.

Return to EJHU or Catalyst homepage

CLOSING DATES

March 1
Funding Exchange
$20,000
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March 1
A Territory Resource - Northwest
$7,500
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March 2
Vanguard Public Foundation - California
$10,000
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March 14
Foundation for Change - California
$7,000
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March 15
Delmarva Foundation
$50,000
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March 15
San Francisco Fund - California
$300,000
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March 15
Kansas Health Foundation - Kansas
$25,000
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April 1
Bedford Community Health Foundation - Virginia
$20,000
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April 9
Northwest Health Foundation - Northwest
$70,000
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April 16
Center for Third World Organizing summer activist training
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

April 16
Environmental justice hazardous substance research
$25,000
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April 23
Wilberforce Foundation - West
$15,000
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April 30
Patagonia
$8,000

EVENTS CALENDAR

March 17, Kansas City MO
Student education on health disparities
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March 19, Houston TX
Gulf Coast pediatric environmental health
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March 29 - April 2, Atlanta GA
ATSDR partners in public health
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April 2 - 4, Berkeley CA
National pesticide forum
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April 13 - 16, New Orleans LA
National environmental justice advisory committee
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April 14 - 16, Atlanta GA
National asthma conference
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April 24 - 25, Seattle WA
Community-based solutions for environmental health & justice
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April 28 - 30, Boston MA
Mobilizing trust to reduce disparities
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April 29, Sacramento CA
NIEHS/UC Davis air pollution symposium