Don’t Cry Wolf on Environmental Racism : Pacific Pipeline: Critics misuse a visceral issue to attack a project that would benefit the affected L.A.-area communities.

The Los Angeles City Council has been exhorted by some of its members to oppose a major project called the Pacific Pipeline, which is backed by the Chevron, Unocal and Texaco oil companies. Among the arguments opponents make is that the pipeline constitutes racial injustice because it would pass through some poor, working-class minority communities.

The fight for environmental equity should not be construed as a mandate against industrial development in communities of color. While land-use policies across the country reflect--and often reinforce--racial injustice, policymakers and communities would be wise to weigh the full impact of proposed industrial development before rejecting it on charges of environmental racism. To do otherwise invites misuse of a highly charged issue and could further marginalize those communities by posing a disincentive to desirable development.

In the case of the Pacific Pipeline, which would transport crude oil in an underground conduit from Kern County to Los Angeles-area refineries, opponents have employed the charge of environmental racism to effectively stifle debate.

Mere use of the term “environmental racism” evokes images of conspiratorial abuse. Not surprisingly, elected officials who are inclined to support the pipeline are reluctant to publicly embrace a project tarnished by the charge of racism. More unfortunate, though, is that for the same reasons that communities of color have too often been victimized by environmental racism--lack of resources, organization and political voice--they may be unwittingly manipulated by rhetoric that has the effect of isolating the community from a meaningful role in the give and take that is an essential element of policymaking.

To argue that the Pacific Pipeline is environmentally unjust simply because some of the communities through which it would travel have majority populations of people of color ignores the full range of environmental justice. Minority communities are not looking for paternalistic protection from public policies but for meaningful participation in the planning process, with an expectation of equitable outcomes.

Based on maps of existing crude oil pipelines, it would appear that it is white, middle- and upper-income communities that have borne a disproportionate burden. Only one 40-year-old line travels through communities that for the most part have transitioned to predominantly Latino populations in the past decade. A second pipeline traverses Beverly Hills, following a route south through the center of Los Angeles. Three other existing crude oil pipelines travel through the Westside via the Sepulveda Pass from the San Fernando Valley through Westwood and Marina del Rey to the South Bay.

The Pacific Pipeline proposes to enter Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley and traverse the cities of Burbank and Glendale, following a southeasterly route through mostly industrial areas along the Southern Pacific rail line.

According to Robert D. Bullard, who heads the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark-Atlanta University, a key element of environmental racism is the disproportionate burden of air, water and waste problems that are visited upon communities of color.

The Pacific Pipeline meets the most important test of environmental justice by providing net benefits in air quality, economics and safety to the communities through which it passes. The project met and exceeded guidelines for community participation during the planning process.

The pipeline would have a beneficial impact on air quality in low-income and minority communities by reducing the number of tanker trucks and trains that currently carry oil over surface routes. In an analysis of the environmental reports prepared for the project, the Public Utilities Commission noted the expectation of a significant reduction in pollution along the heavily traveled I-5 and Harbor freeways and the Alameda Corridor, where there is a heavy concentration of low-income and minority communities.

The pipeline also offers significant safety benefits through elimination of tanker truck and train traffic. A study performed by the state fire marshal found that pipelines are 300 times safer than transporting crude oil by tanker truck.

The project will also create several hundred jobs during construction--a total payroll of $38 million--and the producers are committed to recruiting from local communities.

The record has taught us that almost no amount of scrutiny is too little with respect to industrial projects or other developments that present a significant impact on communities of color; the threat of public hue and cry is often the only safeguard we have against abusive land uses. However, to raise the banner of racism unfairly and without credible cause undermines efforts to combat inequities at the policy level.