When politicians vote for the interests of rich Atlanta investors —Leigh Touchton

Leigh Touchton posted this yesterday as a comment on Dr. Mark George’s remarks to Valdosta City Council and Sonny Vickers’ response. -jsq
It’s really unfortunate when City Councilmen like Vickers and Wright don’t care that:
  1. The black infant mortality rate in Valdosta is twice as high for black babies as for white babies
  2. The asthma rate nationally for African-Americans is 3 times higher than for white Americans
  3. The death to asthma rate nationally for African-Americans is 5 times higher than for white Americans.
  4. 75% of the biomass incinerators in Georgia have been proposed for black communities, and the rest for poor white communities.
When politicians vote for the interests of rich Atlanta investors
to put a polluting industry in an area that’s already been designated an Environmental Justice community by the EPA, then those officials need to go. They ought to be ashamed, their constituents did not elect them to represent rich corporate investors from Atlanta.

What “Environmental Justice Community” means is that the Southside community is already burdened with more than its fair share of pollution. I don’t think it’s any mystery as to why the black infant mortality rate in Valdosta is twice as high as the white infant mortality rate.

-Leigh Touchton

More on this subject: NAACP asks EPA for review of biomass plant permit, and environmental racism and environmental apartheid, and Valdosta NAACP claims environmental racism.