DC’s Waste and Environmental Racism

Few in our nation’s capi­tol city think twice when they throw stuff “away” — nor do they think about who lives where “away” is. Fit­ting a nation­al trend of envi­ron­men­tal racism, it should be no sur­prise that DC’s waste has long impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties of col­or in one of the most seg­re­gat­ed met­ro­pol­i­tan areas in the coun­try. (Black-white racial seg­re­ga­tion in the Wash­ing­ton, DC area is con­sid­ered “extreme” and is 17th worst in the nation.)

Before waste actu­al­ly goes for dis­pos­al, much goes to a trans­fer sta­tion first. Trans­fer sta­tions exist to move waste from small col­lec­tion trucks into big trucks for longer-dis­tance haul­ing. In 2000, the EPA’s Nation­al Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Advi­so­ry Coun­cil not­ed that waste trans­fer sta­tions “are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly clus­tered in low-income com­mu­ni­ties and com­mu­ni­ties of color.”

DC’s Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works (DPW) runs two large trans­fer sta­tions, in black com­mu­ni­ties at Fort Tot­ten and Ben­ning Road. These trans­fer sta­tions are large enough to take care of the city’s needs, but a pro­lif­er­a­tion of pri­vate trans­fer sta­tions cropped up years ago, in the absence of reg­u­la­tions. Of about 15 that opened, many have since been closed (after much strug­gle), and some are still being demol­ished, yet three remain — all clus­tered in Ward 5, in the adja­cent black res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hoods of Brent­wood and Lang­don. Res­i­dents of these neigh­bor­hoods have been strug­gling to close these pri­vate trans­fer sta­tions for three decades. They spoke pas­sion­ate­ly about their expe­ri­ences at a Feb 5th, 2014 DC City Coun­cil hear­ing where Ward 5 Coun­cil­man McDuffie was joined by oth­er mem­bers of coun­cil in push­ing a bill to increase enforce­ment on these facil­i­ties. In addi­tion to nui­sances like odors, “vec­tors” (seag­ulls, rats), and trucks (and their diesel exhaust), trans­fer sta­tions are also a source of air­borne mer­cury pol­lu­tion from sources such as bro­ken flu­o­res­cent bulbs.

Of the waste col­lect­ed at the city’s trans­fer sta­tions, the one facil­i­ty that gets the largest share of DC’s trash is the nation’s fourth largest incin­er­a­tor, in Lor­ton, Vir­ginia. The rest is split among a few south­east­ern Vir­ginia land­fills, far from pop­u­la­tion cen­ters. We know that the trash incin­er­a­tor indus­try in the U.S. is dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly locat­ed in low-income com­mu­ni­ties and com­mu­ni­ties of color.

Some argue that it’s not dis­crim­i­na­tion if it’s not inten­tion­al, or if a peo­ple of col­or moved to where the pol­lut­ing indus­try was first. Aca­d­e­mics have argued back that this “chick­en or egg” debate is beside the point, as what mat­ters is the com­mu­ni­ty impact, not the intent. Inten­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion is hard to prove. Even though the courts no longer allow pri­vate law­suits for Civ­il Rights Act vio­la­tions unless you can show intent, it’s still con­sid­ered a vio­la­tion of the Civ­il Rights Act when agen­cies (like the state agen­cies that grant pol­lu­tion per­mits to incin­er­a­tors) per­mit facil­i­ties in loca­tions where doing so cre­ates a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry effect. [See my envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice law jour­nal arti­cle for back­ground on this.]

Lor­ton, VA is an inter­est­ing case of envi­ron­men­tal racism as it rep­re­sents both the chick­en and the egg. Lor­ton was home to DC’s pris­ons from 1910 until 2001. The youth prison, added to the com­plex in 1960, is adja­cent to the coun­ty’s land­fill that was locat­ed there in 1973. In the ear­ly 1980s, anoth­er land­fill, a pri­vate one for con­struc­tion and demo­li­tion waste, opened on the oth­er side of the prison. Just a few years after the youth prison opened, a group of over 50 black Mus­lim youth inmates riot­ed, set fires, broke win­dows and dam­aged the chapel. In 1985, methane migrat­ing from the coun­ty’s land­fill entered the plumb­ing sys­tem, caus­ing blasts that killed one inmate and crit­i­cal­ly burned anoth­er, forc­ing the prison to be quick­ly evac­u­at­ed. Inmates were returned after sev­er­al months, once gas vents were installed. Even when not at explo­sive lev­els, expo­sure to the tox­ins in land­fill gas has been found to cause 4‑fold increas­es in blad­der can­cer and leukemia inci­dence in women.

Sit­ing major indus­tri­al pol­luters next to pris­ons is a stark form of envi­ron­men­tal racism, as the vic­tims are phys­i­cal­ly trapped next to the pol­lu­tion source at all times, not just finan­cial­ly trapped in neigh­bor­hoods where spend­ing some time away from the pol­luters may be pos­si­ble. In response to com­ments by this author on a coal-to-oil refin­ery pro­posed adja­cent to a state prison in Penn­syl­va­nia, the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy admit­ted, per­haps for the first time, that a minor­i­ty inmate prison pop­u­la­tion con­sti­tutes an “envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice” com­mu­ni­ty that could be dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly impact­ed in vio­la­tion of the Civ­il Rights Act. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the agency con­clud­ed (incor­rect­ly) that there would be no vio­la­tion of civ­il rights because the refin­ery would be stay­ing with­in the pol­lu­tion lev­els allowed by their state permits.

In 1990, the fourth largest trash incin­er­a­tor start­ed up, adja­cent to the land­fill and youth prison, capa­ble of burn­ing 3,000 tons of trash per day. Owned and oper­at­ed by Cov­an­ta, the nation’s largest incin­er­a­tor cor­po­ra­tion, the incin­er­a­tor burns a lot of DC’s waste and the result­ing tox­ic ash is dumped in the coun­ty-owned I‑95 Land­fill next door, which closed in 1995 to all but incin­er­a­tor ash.

Incin­er­a­tors are the most expen­sive and pol­lut­ing way to man­age waste or to make ener­gy. They’re far more pol­lut­ing than coal pow­er plants and are worse than land­fills. They turn trash into tox­ic air pol­lu­tion and tox­ic ash, mak­ing for small­er (but more tox­ic) landfills.

To make the same amount of ener­gy as a coal pow­er plant, trash incin­er­a­tors release 28 times as much diox­in than coal, 2.5 times as much car­bon diox­ide (CO2), twice as much car­bon monox­ide, 3.2 times as much nitro­gen oxides (NOx), 6–14 times as much mer­cury, near­ly six times as much lead and 20% more sul­fur dioxides.

The “chick­en or egg” sit­u­a­tion flipped when the pris­ons were closed in 2001 and a large new hous­ing devel­op­ment was built, right up against the incin­er­a­tor and land­fill. The devel­op­ment was pop­u­lat­ed between 2002 and 2006 with a very diverse com­mu­ni­ty, main­ly peo­ple of col­or. The clos­est neigh­bor­hood is 26% white, 32% Asian, 31% black, 8% His­pan­ic, and 5% mul­ti-racial/other.  It’s now con­sid­ered to be the 12th most diverse com­mu­ni­ty in the nation.  The fur­ther you get from the waste facil­i­ties, the aver­age income and per­cent­age of white peo­ple increases.

The issue of race vs. class is an inter­est­ing one here. We know from stud­ies like Tox­ic Waste and Race in the Unit­ed States that race is more of a defin­ing issue when it comes to where haz­ardous waste facil­i­ties are locat­ed. For exam­ple, if you had a the­o­ret­i­cal low-income white com­mu­ni­ty, and a mid­dle-income com­mu­ni­ty of col­or, and asked which com­mu­ni­ty is more like­ly to have a haz­ardous waste facil­i­ty try to locate there, it would be the mid­dle-income com­mu­ni­ty of col­or more often than not. In Lor­ton, you see some­thing sim­i­lar. Lor­ton is in Fair­fax Coun­ty, Vir­ginia — the 3rd wealth­i­est coun­ty in the nation. The medi­an house­hold income in the clos­est neigh­bor­hood is just over $87,000, high­er than the state or nation­al aver­ages. How­ev­er, in the con­text of afflu­ent Fair­fax Coun­ty, the neigh­bor­hood is rel­a­tive­ly lower-income.

In the neigh­bor­hood clos­est to the waste facil­i­ties, there are walls around the bor­ders of the devel­op­ment. The view over the south wall is of a giant hill (Lor­ton Land­fill) lined with ever­green trees that appear small com­pared to the moun­tain of waste. The view to the west is of a tall smoke­stack, tow­ered over the com­mu­ni­ty. Some of the clos­est res­i­dents, liv­ing on the oth­er side of the wall, can hear the con­stant back-up beep­ers of the trucks, but had no idea it was an incin­er­a­tor, think­ing it was just con­struc­tion noise that may go away some time, not the end­less sounds of a giant trash-burn­er being fed.

How did this hap­pen? Was it a form of redlin­ing, where peo­ple of col­or are steered into com­mu­ni­ties neigh­bor­ing giant waste facil­i­ties? Why were res­i­dents not informed of these dan­gers before mov­ing in? Was it just inno­cent “mar­ket-effi­cien­cy” that caused the not-quite-as-afflu­ent peo­ple of col­or to buy here, rather than in the wealth­i­er, whiter parts of the coun­ty? No mat­ter how it came to pass, the impact is still unequal, and the health con­se­quences of liv­ing next to incin­er­a­tors and land­fills will be felt more by peo­ple of col­or than the white res­i­dents of the region.

DC’s con­tract with Cov­an­ta expires at the end of 2015. Under the may­or’s Sus­tain­able DC plan, the city has a goal of zero waste by 2032. How­ev­er, this goal is often framed in the plan as “zero waste to land­fill,” which is code lan­guage for “burn it and pre­tend that the tox­ic ash does­n’t go to a land­fill.” The “zero waste to land­fill” idea is not true zero waste, and incin­er­a­tion has no place in a zero waste plan. How­ev­er, using $300,000 in DC tax mon­ey allo­cat­ed for Sus­tain­able DC, the city is pay­ing an incin­er­a­tor-friend­ly con­sul­tant with lit­tle zero waste expe­ri­ence to come up with a study of the options. The study is rigged in favor of incin­er­a­tion tech­nolo­gies, even though city offi­cials now know that propos­ing to build a new incin­er­a­tor is polit­i­cal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly non-viable.

The study is going to look at options to build a new waste dis­pos­al facil­i­ty in the dis­trict (which would have to be an incin­er­a­tor of some sort, since there is no space for a land­fill) or to part­ner with Mary­land or Vir­ginia coun­ties on build­ing a region­al facil­i­ty. DC’s Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works has looked into the pos­si­bil­i­ties of build­ing an incin­er­a­tor in DC to serve both DC and Prince George’s Coun­ty, MD — as well as the pos­si­bil­i­ty of part­ner­ing with the pro­posed trash, sewage sludge and tire incin­er­a­tor planned for Fred­er­ick Coun­ty, MD. The Fred­er­ick Coun­ty pro­pos­al has been fought by area res­i­dents ever since it was pro­posed about eight years ago. Even though that incin­er­a­tor was final­ly just grant­ed its pol­lu­tion per­mits by the state, the project is finan­cial­ly at risk because Car­roll Coun­ty, the oth­er coun­ty part­nered with the project, sees it as a major finan­cial risk and has set aside $3 mil­lion to pay to get out of the con­tract. For DC or any juris­dic­tion to step into their place would be eco­nom­ic foolishness.

While the city would be crazy to even try, it’s been fair­ly clear that if there is any attempt to build a new incin­er­a­tor in DC, the most like­ly place it would go is Ben­ning Road, where the city has the space and infra­struc­ture already. The Ben­ning Road com­mu­ni­ty has already been bur­dened by pol­lu­tion: the city’s old incin­er­a­tor oper­at­ed there from 1972 to 1994; the oil-burn­ing Ben­ning Road Pow­er Plant oper­at­ed there from 1968 to 2012, leav­ing behind a tox­ic con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed site; an old leak­ing Kenil­worth Land­fill (now a Super­fund tox­ic waste site) is next door, and the city oper­ates one of their two major waste trans­fer sta­tions there.

Res­i­dents in DC, in the Mary­land Coun­ties of Prince George’s, Fred­er­ick and Car­roll, and in Fair­fax Coun­ty, VA are all ris­ing up to stop the envi­ron­men­tal injus­tices posed by these indus­tries, and are striv­ing for real zero waste plan­ning, as oth­er for­ward-think­ing com­mu­ni­ties have been pur­su­ing. Please get in touch and join us!