Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Goldstein, Liz

Titel

To Build a Septic System An Analysis of EPA's New Environmental Justice Policies for Rural Communities Lacking Adequate Wastewater Sanitation

Ist Teil von

• Georgetown environmental law review, 2023-09, Vol.36 (1), p.131

Ort / Verlag

Georgetown University Law Center

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Nexis

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Wastewater sanitation systems treat wastewater to prevent dangerous bacteria and toxins from causing harm to the environment as well as to people. While to most Americans, wastewater sanitation is a luxury not often considered or seen, many rural communities are not so privileged. For many of these communities, it is not a mere water sanitation problem, but also an environmental justice concern compounded by systemic poverty, invisibility, inaccessibility of political or financial resources, and an inaccessibility to seek justice through the regulatory regime culminating in life-altering health conditions. For these communities it is not an invisible privilege but the ever-present sight, pervasive stench, and weighted air which saturates their everyday lives. Through new initiatives, the Environmental Protection Agency, has sought to address this problem through new funding opportunities and a rejuvenated use of their Title VI power under their new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Through these new opportunities, the Environmental Protection Agency has the ability to take initiative in addressing wastewater sanitation, an issue traditionally left to states and localities and to integrate environmental justice into wastewater sanitation policy. However, to truly meet intended goals asserted by the current Administration under Executive Order 14,008, Justice 40 and specific initiatives, the meaning and communities behind environmental justice scholarship cannot be forgotten through application. The goal of this Note is to apply theory to application: to consider the distributive, procedural, corrective, and social justice theoretical considerations, all of which are encapsulated by the environmental justice framework, the creation of new policy, and the application to real-life communities to adequately address wastewater sanitation issues.