Scottie Gilg - EPA Report, “Newport News and Environmental Justice.” (outside reading 2)

In my Writing about the Environment Class, we had to read the EPA Report, “Newport News and environmental justice.” It was the Newport News collaborative initiative to assess their environmental health. This initiative involved “listening to residents to understand their needs, working with the local, state, and other federal partners to leverage collective resources more efficiently and effectively in support of local goals.” In this report, they began by saying “people are at the consequences of their environment.” That is something that is very true and a main factor of environmental justice. In the beginning, it talked about how they got the community's feedback and what they were most concerned with which was: port and terminal operations; an interstate highway; a wastewater treatment facility; stormwater and sewer line breaks, and access to healthy foods and transportation. I knew that this area of Newport News was greatly affected by the environment surrounding it, but I did not realize that four out of five of the top census tracts for the lowest life expectancy in Virginia are in the Southeast area of Newport News. That is just frustrating because it is not the people's fault, but they are the ones who are affected and dying because of it. I was very interested when they were talking about the environmental concerns of the coal port and the shipyard facility. The coal workers can develop Black Lung Disease, asthma, obstructive pulmonary disease, and cancer, while people who work in the shipyard can develop fatal respiratory diseases or liver, kidney, and heart disease from breathing in beryllium compounds. I was very aware of the impacts the coal terminal and the shipyard had on the communities surrounding it, but I did not stop and think about how it could be affecting the people that work there. In this report, I liked how it talked about the plans that the Coalition had to reduce the number of environmental concerns. “The team decided that potential future actions could include the development of a near-roadway educational package, an asthma educational package, and a template cooperative agreement proposal” and then explained how each one could help and more of what it entailed.