Environmental Racism in the United States and Canada

From Flint, Michigan, to Standing Rock, North Dakota, minorities have found themselves losing the battle for clean resources and a healthy environment. This book provides a modern history of such environmental injustices in the United States and Canada.
From the 19th-century extermination of the buffalo in the American West to Alaska's Project Chariot (a Cold War initiative that planned to use atomic bombs to blast out a harbor on Eskimo land) to the struggle for recovery and justice in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017, this book provides readers with an enhanced understanding of how poor and minority people are affected by natural and manmade environmental crises.
Written for students as well as the general reader with an interest in social justice and environmental issues, this book traces the relationship between environmental discrimination, race, and class through a comprehensive case history of environmental injustices. Environmental Racism in the United States and Canada: Seeking Justice and Sustainability includes 50 such case studies that range from local to national to international crises.

Bruce E. Johansen is professor emeritus of communication and Native American studies at the University of Nebraska.

Preface
Chapter 1 Background
What Is Environmental Justice?
Types of Environmental Discrimination
Perpetrators and Victims
Challenges and Solutions
Future Outlook
Chapter 2 Unifying Themes
Introduction
Mining: Mother Earth or Mother Lode?
Lead, Lead Everywhere: Flint, Michigan's Water Crisis in Context
The Political Economy of Lead Poisoning and Other Water Quality Issues
Canadian Tar Sands: From Treaty Forest to Moonscape
Pipelines and Protests
"Cowboys" vs. "Indians": Racial Stereotyping and Agent Orange in Vietnam
Farmworkers: Toxicity as an Occupational Hazard
Extermination of the Buffalo as Environmental Warfare
Environmental Racism and the Demise of an Ice World
Chapter 3 Cases: United States East
Introduction
Houston, Texas: Segregation, Sewage, and Environmental Racism
Anniston, Alabama: A Plague of PCBs
Dickson, Tennessee: Environmental Racism's "Poster Child"
A 100 Percent Chance of Pig-manure Showers in North Carolina
Bridgeport, Connecticut: A Spreading Web of Toxins
Chester, Pennsylvania: Unwilling Capital of Hazmat
South Chicago: Life and Death in the "Toxic Doughnut"
Race, Class, and Toxicity at Love Canal
North Carolina: Protesting Unwelcome Toxic Dumps
Donald Trump, Hurricane Maria, and Puerto Rico
Triana, Alabama: Dumped On, Ceaselessly
Malathion and the Rosebud Sioux in Mission, South Dakota
Houston, Texas: Always Awaiting the Next Flood
Akwesasne: Land of the Toxic Turtles
The Toxics Plantation: Life and Death in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley"
The Demographics of Death in New Orleans: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina
Chapter 4 Cases: United States West
Introduction
Montana's Gros Ventre and Assiniboine: Gold Mining and Cyanide Poisoning
The Mothers of East Los Angeles Stand Down a Toxic Incinerator-and More
Pueblo, Colorado: The Toxic Legacy of the "Pittsburgh of the West"
Richmond, California: The Greens vs. Big Oil
Alaska's Pebble Mine: Corporate Gold vs. Natives' Salmon
Alaska Natives: Swamped by Warming
The Point Hope Eskimos: An Atomic Harbor and a Nuclear Dump as a Neighbor
"The Most Bombed Nation on Earth"
Utah's Goshute Asked to House Waste Uranium-but Were Denied
The Laguna Pueblo and Anaconda's Jackpile Uranium Mine
The Navajos' Nuclear Legacy
The Largest Uranium Spill in the United States
Hunting Grounds to Dumping Grounds
The Moapa Paiute: Good-Bye Toxic Ash: Solar In, Coal Power Out
Chapter 5 Cases: Canada
Introduction
Grassy Narrows, Ontario: The Continuing Toxic Toll of Mercury
The Aamjiwnaang of Ontario: Immersed in a Toxic Bath
Dumping on Blacks in Africville, Nova Scotia
British Columbia: Native Canadians vs. Mining's "New Prosperity"
The Crees: Hydro Quebec's Electric Dreams
The Lubicon Cree: Land Rights and Resource Exploitation
The Dene: Killed by the "Money Rock"
The Inuit: Mother's Milk Is Toxic
Who Is Liable for Ruining a Culture? The Inuit Sue the United States of America
Selected Bibliography
Index