Testimony

Testimony

In Favor of SB 1190, The Clean and Healthy Communities Act

Submitted June 12, 2003

Good Morning Members of the Joint Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture,.

I am Daniel Faber, Associate Professor of Sociology at Northeastern University, and co-author of the report Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

I am here to testify in favor of Senate Bill 1190, the Clean and Healthy Communities Act.

My recent analysis of 368 communities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts reveals that environmentally hazardous sites and facilities – ranging from toxic waste dumps to polluting industrial plants, incinerators, power stations, landfills, etc., – are disproportionately located in communities of color and lower-income communities. As a result, residents of these communities live each day with substantially greater risk of exposure to environmental health hazards.

Let me briefly provide a few examples to help illustrate these disparities.

(1) In Massachusetts, there are over 21,038 hazardous waste sites, including 3,389 more serious Tier I-II sites, according to March 2000 DEP data. For residents living near Superfund and other major toxic waste sites, the National Research Council has found a disturbing pattern of elevated health problems, including heart disease, spontaneous abortions and genital malformations, and death rates, while infants and children are found to suffer a higher incidence of cardiac abnormalities, leukemia, kidney-urinary tract infections, seizures, learning disabilities, hyperactivity, skin disorders, reduced weight, central nervous system damage, and Hodgkin’s disease. For instance, elevated rates of leukemia (especially among children) has been linked to the industrial chemical trichloroethylene found in the town of Woburn’s drinking water, as well as tetrachloroethylene in drinking water on the Upper Cape.

My research indicates that communities of color and low-income communities experience a far more profound exposure rate to Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) hazardous waste sites than do higher-income and/or white communities, indicating that race and class appear to be significant factors in determining the location of both serious (Tier I-II) and less serious (Non-Tier) hazardous waste sites.