Under the false claim of improving government efficiency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently disbanded its Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. But in reality, this was part of a broader effort to weaken federal regulation of contaminating industries, enabling polluters to gain greater profit at the public’s expense.
The cutbacks parallel Trump’s executive order targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, which his administration unjustly portrays as ‘economically disruptive’ – along with environmental justice efforts.
The callous elimination of EPA’s environmental justice and civil rights program has especially troubling significance in Glynn County, Georgia, but there are hundreds of other communities in the U.S. dangerously threatened by this reckless EPA action due to ongoing health problems caused by hazardous industrial contamination. As reported in 2023 by First Coast News, “Decades of industrial pollution flowing from factories in Brunswick, Georgia has ended up in the bloodstreams of longtime residents.” They reported that studies by Emory University found elevated levels of numerous hazardous chemicals, which in at least ten cases analyzed were in the top 5% of the most chemically contaminated Americans.
People at highest risk from such toxins are low-income residents – predominantly racial minority groups – living within or close to the hazard zones surrounding polluted industrial sites, who therefore suffer the greatest environmental injustices which now being eliminated from EPA’s agenda. But there are long-term medical hazards caused by pollutants that enter water supplies, either through pipeline discharges, contaminants dumped on land leaching chemicals into groundwater and/or carried into waterways as stormwater runoff.
Since there are some 1,340 known industrially contaminated sites in America that are federally designated on the "National Priorities List," many of them within close proximity to neighborhoods containing homes, commercial areas, and jobs, such findings - though deeply disturbing - are not surprising. The contaminants found in blood analysis are known to cause cancer and debilitating damage to human reproductive health, digestive organs, and nervous systems. According to the Center for Public Integrity, nearly 100 million people in America are at risk due to exposure to industrial pollution, including many who are using industrially contaminated water supplies.
A federal court has ruled that recent EPA mass-firings were unlawful and at least some employees were temporarily reinstated, though their job security remains uncertain. Public demonstrations opposing these and other cutbacks undermining science in public policy are escalating across the nation.