A state-funded consulting report instructed waste companies to target poor, uneducated communities

Evidence

Members of El Pueblo also found out about a 1984 report done for the California Waste Management Board. That report, known popularly as the Cerrell Report, and paid for California taxpayers’ dollars, suggested to companies and localities that were seeking to site garbage incinerators that the communities that would offer the least resistance to such incinerators were rural communities, poor communities, communities whose residents had low educational levels, communities that were highly Catholic, communities with fewer than 25,000 residents, and communities whose residents were employed in resource-extractive jobs like mining, timber, or agriculture. When members of El Pueblo looked around Kettleman City, they were startled. “The Cerell report fit us to a T,” says Mary Lou Mares, one of the leaders of El Pueblo. The incinerator proposal suddenly also made sense to Kettleman residents: “If there’s a report that specifically tells them what to look for, of course they’re going to target us,” observes Mares. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 61 (#expands, via linked claim)

In 1984, the California Waste Management Board commissioned a study on how to site waste incinerators. The report, written by the political consulting firm Cerrell Associates of Los Angeles and entitled Political Difficulties Facing Waste-to-Energy Conversion Plant Siting (popularly known as the Cerrell Report), set out “to assist in selecting a site that offers the least potential of generating public opposition.” The report acknowledged that “since the 1970s, political criteria have become every bit as important in determining the outcome of a project as engineering factors.” The Cerrell Report suggests that companies target small, rural communities whose residents are low income, older people, or people with a high school education or less; communities with a high proportion of Catholic residents; and communities whose residents are engaged in resource extractive industries such as agriculture, mining, and forestry. Ideally, the report states, “officials and companies should look for lower socioeconomic neighborhoods that are also in a heavy industrial area with little, if any, commercial activity.” — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 356 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

It sounded like a great idea to Tribal officials on the Navajo reservation: a 40 million recycling plant that would bring 200 desperately needed jobs to the isolated Navajo community of Dilkon, Arizona, where unemployment hovered around 75 percent. Waste-Tech Services promised the community of Dilkon 200,000 a year, with an additional $600,000 a year to be paid to the Navajo Nation in rent and lease funds. Company officials pledged that 95 percent of the jobs would go to Navajo workers and that they would set up a scholarship fund for Navajo students interested in coming back to work as chemists or technicians at the plant. On the basis of these representations by the company, the Tribal chair (similar to a state governor of the reservation) approved the plant in August 1988, and Waste-Tech began plans to set up shop in the remote town. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 599 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Waste firms sold toxic proposals to impoverished Tribes as green job schemes — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 599; A state-funded report formally advised siting toxic facilities in poor, rural, minority communities — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 61; The 1984 Cerrell Report told industry how to site waste plants in low-opposition communities — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 356

Related

• A state-funded report formally advised siting toxic facilities in poor, rural, minority communities (similarity 0.91)
• The 1984 Cerrell Report told industry how to site waste plants in low-opposition communities (similarity 0.86)
• Waste firms sold toxic proposals to impoverished Tribes as green job schemes (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• A state-funded report formally advised siting toxic facilities in poor, rural, minority communities #expands (0.90) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 61
• The 1984 Cerrell Report told industry how to site waste plants in low-opposition communities #exemplifies (0.85) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 356
• Waste firms sold toxic proposals to impoverished Tribes as green job schemes #exemplifies (0.82) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 599