More than 41 million people live within four miles of the nation's 1,500 Superfund toxic waste sites. Although these dumps are the worst of the worst, there are more than 400,000 other waste sites in the country. And the numbers keep going up. The resulting saturation of our environment is believed to be a prime contributor to the cancer epidemic that is killing a half-million Americans annually.
More children now die of cancer than from any other disease for the first time in our history.
Not all Americans bear an equal ecological burden. Industries regularly adopt pollution policies that offer the path of least resistance. And the less political power a community possesses, the more likely it is to have environmental and human health problems. A 1984 report by Cerrell Associates for the Calitomia Waste Management Board recommended siting polluting industries and hazardous waste facilities in lower socio-economic neighborhoods because those communities were less likely to mount serious opposition. As a result, a new wave of grassroots environmentalism is building in the United States.