E-M:/ Environmental Justice, Lead Paint and Mich

[CSim592951@aol.com]

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Enviro-Mich message from CSim592951@aol.com
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Dear friend, 
The environmental justice movement which goes back to the early 1980s is much 
broader than the traditional conservation movement. It is concerned about the 
problems of conservation but also raises the issues of the quality of air, 
water and other contaminants as they impact disproportionately on workers, 
and people of color. So the challenges we face in the urban centers such as 
lead paint, asbestos, illegal dumping, incinerators, leaking underground 
storage tanks, waste disposal and others are all incorporated. Those problems 
are not limited to workers and people of color nor the urban environment, but 
since those challenges are what we face, that is where we begin. 

Once people begin to recognize environmental issues anywhere, hopefully they 
will move toward understanding them globally. In my case, I got involved 
because of illegal dumping in my neighborhood and then learned about the 
hospital incinerator and then the problems of cancer alley in Louisiana, the 
runoff of toxic chemicals from pig farms around the country. We have the 
problem here of the new school built on a toxic dump site at the  Beard 
School. I mentioned in an earlier writing that although I live near downtown 
Detroit we now have seagulls,  pheasants and rabbits now living in my 
neighborhood because suburban sprawl has chased them out of their habitat and 
they must think they are in the woods. 

If the environmental movement is to grow stronger, it will be necessary for 
all of us to work together regardless of where we live. The pollution from 
the incinerators here do not stop at our borders, and the pollution anywhere 
in the Great Lakes impacts the lives of city folk as well. We all eat the 
same fish and breathe the same air, and our bodies consume the same mercury 
whether we are in the UP  or Detroit. 

Let's continue this discussion.

charles simmons
detroit  


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