SYSTEMIC:

The threat this time: ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing chemical that facilities like the Union Carbide plant, now owned by Dow Chemical, make and that helps produce a huge variety of products, including antifreeze, pesticides and sterilizing agents for medical tools. The regulators, their Zoom backgrounds set to photos of pristine pine forests and green fields, shared a map of the area, a short drive west from Charleston. Institute, one of just two majority-Black communities in the state, is home to West Virginia State University, a historically Black college whose alumni include Katherine Johnson, the NASA mathematician made famous by the film "Hidden Figures," and Earl Lloyd, the first Black player in the NBA. Blocks on the map were shaded green, yellow or red, from lowest to highest cancer risk. Much of Institute was bright red. 

Institute is representative of Black communities across the country that bear a disproportionate health burden from industrial pollution. On average, the level of cancer risk from industrial air pollution in majority-Black census tracts is more than double that of majority-white tracts, according to an analysis by ProPublica, which examined five years of emissions data. That finding builds on decades of evidence demonstrating that pollution is segregated, with residents of so-called fence-line communities --  neighborhoods that border industrial plants -- breathing dirtier air than people in more affluent communities farther away from facilities.

The disparity, experts say, stems from a variety of structural imbalances, including racist real estate practices like redlining and decades of land use and zoning decisions made by elected officials, government regulators and corporate executives living outside these communities. That means that these areas, many of which are low-income, also lack the access that wealthier areas have to critical resources, like health care and education, and face poorer economic prospects. 

All of the concentrated industrial activity in these so-called "sacrifice zones" doesn't just sicken the residents who happen to live nearby. It can also cause property values to plummet, trapping neighborhoods in a vicious cycle of disinvestment.

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