I didn’t read these articles in their entirity, so feel free to accuse me of “cherry picking.” I just did a Google search for “nuclear waste minority communities” and searched for “income” and/or “minority” within the pages.
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/pfsejfactsheet.htm
Bullcreek, a tribal member who resides on the reservation with her children, disagrees with NRC’s ruling that the dump presents “no disproportionately high and adverse impacts on low income or minority populations.” (DEIS, pg. LXX of the introduction).
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Blackbear is also working with his U.S. Congressman to investigate allegations that Chairman Bear has used PFS income to bribe some tribal members into supporting the lease agreement and dump proposal, while blocking other payments due tribal members who oppose the dump.
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=L7HbS1JG1pvkdvrqmx5t2whJ7sym51Hmr7bVcLSD9GVTkGJbvpQQ!517703876!1939691874?docId=5002192383
Hazardous waste production and disposal in the United States is a pressing environmental and public health concern. One issue related to this problem is the lack of published information about the health effect to humans from exposure to hazardous substances produced by commercial hazardous waste facilities and emanating from abandoned waste sites. Further, it is only recently that discussion has surfaced regarding the selective health risks faced by minority Americans who are more likely than nonminority populations to live in neighborhoods where these exposures might occur.
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The earliest documented evidence that minority communities were more likely to be located near commercial hazardous waste facilities or abandoned hazardous waste sites appeared in 1983 when the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) analyzed the racial and socioeconomic status of communities located in the southeast region of the U.S. (4, 13, 16). The study revealed that African Americans composed the majority of the population in three of the four communities where the hazardous landfills were located. In all four communities, more than one-fourth of the population had incomes below the poverty level, and most of this population below the poverty level was African American (9).
http://ehstoday.com/news/ehs_imp_35623/
Citizens are getting into the act: A federal civil rights lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Nevada by Jonathan Galaviz (a Hispanic-American, filing pro se). The lawsuit contends (among other constitutional arguments) that high-level nuclear waste shipments would inflict great damage on low-income white and minority communities nationwide. It further states that the DOE, with the approval of President George Bush and Energy Secretary Abraham, intentionally selected those routes in order to minimize political opposition to the project.
“Any U.S. senator voting in favor of [the Yucca Mountain project] will inflict great harm on African-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American and Native-American communities nationwide. High-level nuclear waste shipments will not be transported through Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif., or in the posh areas of Georgetown in Washington D.C., but there will be thousands shipped by truck and rail through predominately low-income communities for the next 40 years,” says Galaviz.
http://faculty.virginia.edu/ejus/ENV97.htm
Richmond, California has been described as exemplifying the lack of fair geographic distribution in the siting of facilities.23 According to one frequently cited study by Citizens for a Better Environment (CBE Report), "[a]ll of the lower income, minority neighborhoods are in the western and southern parts of Richmond where the highest concentration of petrochemical facilities are also located,"24 and "[t]his form of institutional discrimination has been called ‘environmental racism’ by some community leaders."25 Upon a closer examination, however, it is difficult to assess the relative importance of racially discriminatory practices versus nonracial factors when evaluating the proximity of minorities to contaminated sites in Richmond.
Granted, it’s mostly low-income and minority advocates making these claims, but there’s good evidence for the arguments. As I said before, most of these communities lack the economic and political power to adequately say, NIMBY.
