The Brazen Brutality of Erased Environmental History

One little thing that should be a big thing

Mar 06, 2025

You walk down the street with your pup on the leash to a little patch of green space and watch him roll around in the grass. You look around at the view from a new corridor of downtown development, breathe in the crisp morning air, and think about what a pleasant place you found yourself in. Maybe you think it’d be a great spot to live.

But what you don’t know and can’t see would surprise you, and it might be harming you now.

Maybe there is a rail line not very far away that pumps out harmful exhaust, or maybe this spot used to be a booming, unregulated industrial zone that casually dumped toxic waste on the property. Maybe there are underground storage tanks nearby, at risk of leaking petroleum into the soil and water. What you don’t know is vast, and it can be detrimental to your health.

Air pollution, cancer incidents, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) superfund sites, flood zones, hazardous waste, and other environmental hazards used to be documented and accessible on the EPA’s website. But no longer.

Last month, our governmental parasites deleted an invaluable mapping tool for planners, residents, and researchers. The online interactive map was called EJ (Environmental Justice) Screen, and it worked as part of an information system that armed Americans with knowledge about the environmental conditions of their communities.

The reason it was deleted is presumably because of its name and its especially helpful application when helping underserved populations. This is because historically, most environmentally threatening businesses and infrastructure were placed in areas where minorities lived. If you look at old city maps, there are often red lines marking the areas designated for white and Black people. Sometimes properties are shaded in white or black to be even clearer. White areas of town were mostly spared the intrusion of smog filled air, dump sites, and industrial unsightliness, but no one blinked an eye putting these sorts of dangers where other races lived.

Today, this history still effects residents in lower income areas of town. Many of the landscapes that were harmed during the industrial era have still not been remediated. So in this way, our environmental history is, of course, inseparably connected to its political and social histories. And making moves to improve the environment based on damage done to it, is inherently a move to undo a past injustice.

I used the EJ Screen tool in my doctoral research, I used it applying for federal grants for underserved communities, and I used it when evaluating park sites and potential greenway extensions. I also personally used it when shopping for homes and choosing running routes.

Its removal is ridiculously negligent.

This shift takes away a tool that can be life-protecting for every single citizen. But it also indicates that as deregulation ravages our country, we won’t have information about how to protect ourselves from its health-threatening effects. It all but promises that federal grants that help cities and regions create connected, healthy communities will no longer be available.

To me, this removal is a blatant example of how this administration’s blind anti-DEI ideology cripples the entire country. We are one, and right now, we are all suffering. As we all face this environmental injustice together, we must harness our unity to turn the toxic tide.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

Luckily, some dedicated folks over at Harvard are working to preserve what knowledge we currently have with their own EJ Screen here.

Let me know what you think!

Parks People

Discussion about this post