Speaking Like a State: Environmental Justice and Fish Consumption Advisories

Catfish consumption as a contributor to elevated PCB levels in a non-Hispanic black subpopulation

“…It is unlikely subsistence anglers seek fish advisory information from a website upon which a state relies to disseminate advisories (Webber, 2006). Advisories may not respond to angler needs or, as a river flows through various jurisdictions, present different recommendations despite constant contamination (Campbell et al, 2002;Beehler et al, 2001;Burger, 2004;McDermott et al, 2003;Knuth et al, 2003;Chess et al, 2005). Such confusing and inaccessible guidance helps to explain why the non-Hispanic black population in the Northeast US and urban areas are more likely to be restrained from fishing due to general water pollution concerns rather than specific fish advisories (Burger and Waishwell, 2001).…”

The risk/no-risk rhetoric of environmental impact assessments (EIA): the case of offshore wind farms in Sweden

“…True to what natural scientists like to call "the phenomenon of the event", cultural themes, motivations, and symbolic meanings are neglected because such matters do not belong to a technical understanding of how and why risk messages are produced and understood. Risk communication messages designed by experts and policy makers do not always have the intended consequences, because an audience understands messages according to knowledge at hand and the social practices and power relationships that condition the life of the concerned people (Chess et al 2005).…”

Inuit women, decision-making and contaminants.

“…Much environmental justice literature focuses on the spatial distribution of environmental degradation, particularly, proximity to toxic wastes released or generated by large industrial facilities (Taylor, 1997;Salmond et al, 1999;Bowen and Haynes, 2000;Burningham and Thrush, 2003;Reed and Mitchell, 2003;Chess et al, 2005). This literature is dominated by localized case studies in which a direct link between an industrial source and a specific polluted community is established.…”

“…Salmond et al (1999, p. 20) observed that "the burden of environmental risk rests disproportionately with communities heavily populated by the socio-economically disadvantaged." These disadvantaged communities are often Indigenous or populated by people of colour (Weinberg, 1998;Sexton and Adgate, 1999;Lee, 2002;O'Neill, 2003;Chess et al, 2005). According to scholars of environmental justice, low income and ethnic communities are targeted by major companies as likely sites for facilities with the potential to cause environmental degradation (Bullard, 1993;Lavelle and Coyle, 1993;Newton, 1996).…”

“…Environmental justice crosses many disciplinary boundaries and its literature therefore is published in a variety of journals including environmental and public health (Taylor, 1997;Salmond et al, 1999;Sexton and Adgate, 1999;Lee, 2002;Gee and Payne-Sturgis, 2004;Brulle and Pellow, 2006), sociology (Krauss, 1993;Weinberg, 1998;Burningham and Thrush, 2003), geography (Draper and Mitchell, 2001;Reed and Mitchell, 2003;Ishiyama, 2003), natural resources (Chess et al, 2005;Flint and Luloff, 2005) and women's studies (Peeples and DeLuca, 2006).…”