Environmental review documents omit or erase the communities they harm

Evidence

While ostensibly designed to identify significant environmental impacts, the environmental review process is only as good as the government agency conducting it. Across the country, agencies have failed to consider certain impacts or communities as a result of incompetence or design. … The draft EIS failed to consider any impact of the facility on Forest Grove and Center Springs—the communities closest to the proposed site. In fact, neither of the communities appear on any of the numerous maps included in the 400-page document although more distant, predominantly white communities of similar size are noted. … Remarkably, the Initial Study failed to mention that there was a substantial concentration of people living very close to the proposed toxic facility. The site map included in the Initial Study showed the neighborhood surrounding the toxic plant, and conveniently stopped across the street from the Sanborn Court residential complex. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 1071

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to ch5 highlight that ‘technical jargon functions as a silencing weapon’ and ch11 claims about untranslated environmental reviews — the omitted-map pattern is the cartographic arm of the same procedural exclusion. — connects to: Legal remedies consistently fail to aid communities in environmental justice struggles; The government’s own environmental reviews of its programs are structurally biased — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 307; Monolingual Spanish residents were excluded by an untranslated environmental review — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 72 (+9 more)
• SEED: The EIS whose site map ‘conveniently stopped across the street’ from the affected housing is a vivid, sharable case study for an essay on how cartographic framing erases communities from regulatory consideration.
• ADDENDUM: Supports the article on trees/infrastructure? No — better: the omitted-map pattern extends ch11/ch12 claims that procedural violations, not civil rights, win EJ cases.

Broader Connections

• Misrecognition and political exclusion structurally block poor communities’ participation in environmental decisions #expands (0.78) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 248
• Environmental justice discourse centers maldistribution over recognition or participation #complicates (0.78) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 34
• Unwanted environmental risk exposure constitutes a denial of recognition #expands (0.75) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 223
• Environmental defenders’ erasure of indigenous peoples constitutes a recognition injustice #exemplifies (0.75) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 304
• Environmental injustice includes both disproportionate risk and exclusion from decisions #expands (0.75) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 200
• Environmental conflict arises when official extraction-driven landscapes override vernacular community maps #expands (0.73) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 50
• Environmental degradation of a place is experienced as an attack on community identity #complicates (0.72) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 232
• Misrecognition of identities drives environmental justice groups to demand recognition. #expands (0.72) — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 226
• Ignoring population growth’s role in environmental harm is a moral failure of omission #exemplifies (0.72)