How ‘Environmental Justice’ Hurts Poor Communities – Part II

The steel works near Gary, Indiana, on the shore of Lake Michigan in February 2018. The EPA considers Gary and other similar towns to be victims of environmental injustice, but economic and policy decisions are more the cause of the degradation of the city. Scott Olson/Getty Images

In my last article, we talked about the development project, what it meant to the low-income community that would host the project, and the care we took to keep big, project-killing environmental NGOs on the sidelines.

Getting the project approved, even without the environmental NGOs stepping in, took a lot of effort. The state permitting authority was extra careful with the project because they were justifiably wary of how the public and media would react.