Sacrifice Zones, Sacrificed People

Well, there's been a lot of water, err...over the levee since my last post--and a lot of it is pretty toxic!

I happened to come across a term originating in the environmental justice movement that's useful in understanding the full magnitude of the Hurricane Harvey disaster in Houston: "sacrifice zones."  This expression was first used in reference to the environmental aftermath of the use of the atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.  It's also been applied during the post-War decades to other sites of extreme environmental degradation, such as those of the waters polluted by "mountaintop removal" in Appalachian coal country and various Superfund sites that have been identified but rarely cleaned up. Perhaps the most current example is the town of Crosby, TX near Houston that was evacuated and then left to suffer the explosion and burning of un-refrigerated toxic substances at a plant owned by the Arkema chemical company.

An element usually implied by the term "sacrifice zone" is that it is generally poor communities of color that are located in or near such hazardous areas. At the moment I don't have any information about the people who used to live in Crosby, but I am certain that they face a lengthy process of relocation and rehousing, and possibly long-term health consequences of the disaster as well.  Something tells me that the less compromised homes of Houston's oil-wealthy Anglo residents are going to experience a much easier recovery process.  Let's wait and see how things unfold!

And then of course, there is today's well-predicted news concerning DACA--I think we're about to experience a media frenzy related to that, so for now I'll hold my keyboard (if not my peace!)