Michael Meloro

ELR Staff ‘26

Environmental justice is an incredibly important subject that is rising in political spheres and environmental law spaces alike. Stemming from concerns about hazardous waste, highways, and other maladies, the movement focuses on the impact of environmental devastation on particular communities rather than global or national impacts. Environmental justice as a movement is traced to Warren County, North Carolina, where in the early 1980s, the Blackbelt county was subjected to a toxic dumpsite in their backyard.¹ While the protestors were unable to stop this project, they generated enough attention for the General Accounting Office (GAO) to study their plight.² 

The research the GAO produced found that 75% of disposal facilities were located in poor, majority Black communities.³ The concentration of minorities near waste disposal sites and other environmental hazards has contributed to the widespread perception that environmental justice is solely a racial issue. However, this traditional view can cause many to overlook the potential benefits it offers to their own communities, failing to recognize environmental justice as a valuable tool for all communities, not just those in the southern Black population.

The issue of environmental justice and the rural white working class can be viewed most potently through the lens of Appalachian coal mining. As a brief example, in the State of Pennsylvania, age-adjusted incidence rates for cancer are the highest in rural white republican coal counties. Schuylkill County, home to Pottsville, is one of the largest producers of anthracite coal in the United States.⁴ The poverty rate in the county is not exceptionally high, but is 3% higher than Pennsylvania’s state average.⁵ Schuylkill County is approximately 90% non-Hispanic white.⁶  With these demographics, it may seem like environmental justice is a foreign concept, given the near-average poverty rate and majority white population. However, Schuylkill County has an exceptionally high cancer rate, the second highest in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at 533 per 100,000.⁷ This cancer rate is higher than the age and race-adjusted rate in Philadelphia, 457 per 100,000, even when factoring in black demographics specifically.⁸

In the grand scheme of coal country, Schuylkill County is nowhere near the worst off. That makes it a good discussion point for working-class rural environmental justice. It is not deep Appalachia, nor is it filled with the poverty of McDowell County, West Virginia; Schuylkill County is a two hour drive from Philadelphia or New York City. Yet the county suffers Pennsylvania’s second highest cancer rate, even as it produces the country’s best anthracite coal. Coal isn’t even the county’s dominant source of employment; it ranks 22nd largest, a slight uptick from 24th in 2021.⁹ In an era of polarization and tense race relations, it is imperative to make environmental justice a talking point in every community, not just those where it is most apparent. Schuylkill County is a good case study because it is about average; the demographics are not the poorest nor the wealthiest. Adding the white working class to the environmental justice coalition can help to center environmental politics not only for that community but also for the impoverished and predominantly Black communities the movement originated in. 

1.  Percival, Schroeder, Miller & Leape, History of the Environmental Justice Movement in Environmental Regulation: Law Science and Policy, 17 (10th Ed. 2024). ↩︎
2. Id. ↩︎
3. Id. ↩︎
4.  https://www.britannica.com/place/Pottsville ↩︎
5. https://data.census.gov/profile/Schuylkill_County,_Pennsylvania?g=050XX00US42107#income-and-poverty ↩︎
6. https://data.census.gov/table/DECENNIALDHC2020.P8?g=050XX00US42107 ↩︎
7. https://statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/incidencerates/index.php?stateFIPS=42&areatype=county&cancer=001&race=00&sex=0&age=001&type=incd&sortVariableName=rate&sortOrder=default&output=0#results ↩︎
8. https://statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/incidencerates/index.php?stateFIPS=42&areatype=county&cancer=001&race=28&sex=0&age=001&type=incd&sortVariableName=rate&sortOrder=default&output=0#results ↩︎
9.  https://www.workstats.dli.pa.gov/Documents/Top%2050/Schuylkill_County_Top_50.pdf ↩︎