I was reading about water today, and how it plays into the larger picture of environmental justice. I found a paper entitled, "A Twenty-First Century U.S. Water Policy." The relevant chapter, written by Amy Vanderwarker, discusses water and environmental justice. Ms. Vanderwarker says that U.S. water policy has prioritized economic water uses, as opposed to water use for human consumption. She says water policy focuses on large-scale water developments such as dams, irrigation, flood control, but fails to consider the communities and environments such developments affect.

While federal agencies are supposed to consider the disparate impacts their actions have on low-income and minority communities, their oversight to truly consider the cumulative effects their decisions and projects have on environmental justice communities can be seen in various policy areas. For example, when the EPA considers a permit application under the Clean Air Act, only the specific facility's emissions and the regional air quality are taken into account. It does not weigh the fact that a community may already have four other air polluting facilities located within its borders. Similarly, when approving a water polluting permit, as long as the total maximum daily load for the water body isn't exceeded, the permit will be approved. Approving a water permit does not take into account the facility's air emissions, or the number of trucks that will be entering and exiting the facility on a daily basis, or the amount of waste the facility will process or ship off-site. Cumulative effects on the community and the environment are not considered; this is a major failing in U.S. policy, which prioritizes economic gain over the welfare of the people.

To read the paper, see: http://pacinst.org/us_water_policy/water_and_environmental_justice_ch3.pdf