Sacrifice zone

A sacrifice zone or sacrifice area (often termed a national sacrifice zone or national sacrifice area) is a geographic area that has been permanently impaired by heavy environmental alterations or economic disinvestment, often through locally unwanted land use (LULU). These zones most commonly happen to exist in low-income and minority communities.[1] Commentators including Chris Hedges, Joe Sacco, and Stephen Lerner have argued that corporate business practices contribute to producing sacrifice zones.[2][3][4] Whether or not the creation of such zones in the first place is immortal or unthethical, or that their negative effects and consequences outweigh the benefits and positive results, is still up for debate.

Definition

A sacrifice zone or sacrifice area (also a national sacrifice zone or national sacrifice area) is a geographic area that has been permanently impaired by environmental damage or economic disinvestment. They are places damaged through locally unwanted land use (LULU) causing "chemical pollution where residents live immediately adjacent to heavily polluted industries or military bases."[2]

One definition, by an English teacher at the International High School at Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, New York, was: "A sacrifice zone is when there is no choice in the sacrifice. Someone else is sacrificing people and their community or land without their permission."[5] In collaboration with the students, a more sophisticated definition was produced: "In the name of progress (economic development, education, religion, factories, technology) certain groups of people (called inferior) may need to be harmed or sacrificed in order for the other groups (the superior ones) to benefit."[5]

Origin of the term

The concept of sacrifice zones was first discussed during the Cold War, as a likely result of nuclear fallout, and the term coined in the Soviet Union.[1]

According to Helen Huntington Smith,[6] the term was first used in the U.S. discussing the long-term effects of strip-mining coal in the American West in the 1970s. The National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering Study Committee on the Potential for Rehabilitating Lands Surface Mined for Coal in the Western United States produced a 1973 report that introduced the term, finding:

In each zone the probability of rehabilitating an area depends upon the land use objectives, the characteristics of the site, the technology available, and the skill with which this technology is applied. At the extremes, if surface mined lands are declared national sacrifice areas, all ecological zones have a high probability of being successfully rehabilitated. If, however, complete restoration is the objective, rehabilitation in each zone has no probability of success.[7]

Similarly in 1975, Genevieve Atwood wrote in Scientific American:

Surface mining without reclamation removes the land forever from productive use; such land can best be classified as a national sacrifice area. With successful reclamation, however, surface mining can become just one of a series of land uses that merely interrupt a current use and then return the land to an equivalent potential productivity or an even higher one.[8]

Huntington Smith wrote in 1975, "The Panel that issued the cautious and scholarly National Academy of Sciences report unwitting touched off a verbal bombshell" with the phrase National Sacrifice Area; "The words exploded in the Western press overnight. Seized upon by a people who felt themselves being served up as 'national sacrifices,' they became a watchword and a rallying cry."[6] The term sparked public debate, including among environmentalists and politicians such as future Colorado governor Richard Lamm.[9][10]

The term continued to be used in the context of strip mining until at least 1999: "West Virginia has become an environmental sacrifice zone".[11]

Use of term in the 2000s

The US EPA affirmed in a 2004 report in response to the Office of Inspector General, that "the solution to unequal protection lies in the realm of environmental justice for all Americans. No community, rich or poor, black or white, should be allowed to become a ‘sacrifice zone’. ” [12]:28

Commentators including Chris Hedges,[3] Joe Sacco, Robert Bullard[2] and Stephen Lerner have argued that corporate business practices contribute to producing sacrifice zones.[4]

As of 2012, examples of sacrifice zones were Pine Ridge, S.D., Camden, N.J., Welch, West Virginia and Immokalee, Florida.[3] In 2017 a West Calumet public housing project in East Chicago, Indiana built at the former site of a lead smelter needed to be demolished and soil replaced to bring the area up to residential standards, displacing 1000 residents.[13] Naomi Klein wrote in her 2014 book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, that "running an economy on energy sources that release poisons as an unavoidable part of their extraction and refining has always required sacrifice zones."[5]

Further reading
  • Dumping in Dixie by Robert Bullard. Routledge, 1990, 302 pp. ISBN 0813367921
  • Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States by Steve Lerner. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 2010. 346 pp. ISBN 978-0-262-01440-3
  • Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt By Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco. Illustrated. 302 pp. Nation Books, 2012. 302pp. ISBN 978-1568588247

See also

References
  1. Jessica Roake. "Think Globally, Act Locally: Steve Lerner, 'Sacrifice Zones,' at Politics and Prose". Washington Post. Retrieved 2019-09-16.
  2. Bullard, Robert D. (June 2011). "Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States by Steve Lerner . Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 2010. 346 pp., $29.95". Environmental Health Perspectives. 119 (6): A266. doi:10.1289/ehp.119-a266. ISBN 978-0-262-01440-3. ISSN 0091-6765. PMC 3114843.
  3. Kane, Muriel (2012-07-20). "Chris Hedges: America's devastated 'sacrifice zones' are the future for all of us". www.rawstory.com. Retrieved 2019-09-16.
  4. Neal Conan (2 August 2012). "Drive For Profit Wreaks 'Days Of Destruction'". NPR.org.
  5. "From Rethinking Schools: Sacrifice Zones". Rethinking Schools Publishers. 2016. Retrieved 2019-09-16.
  6. Huntington Smith, Helena (1975-02-16). "The Wringing of the West". The Washington Post. Washington, DC. pp. –1–B4. ISSN 0190-8286. ProQuest 146405625.
  7. National Research Council (U. S.) Study Committee on the Potential for Rehabilitating Lands Surface Mined for Coal in the Western United States (1974). Rehabilitation potential of western coal lands. Cambridge, MA: Ford Foundation Energy Policy Project / Ballinger Pub. Co. pp. 85–86. ISBN 978-0-88410-331-8.
  8. Atwood, Genevieve (1975-12-01). "The Strip-Mining of Western Coal". Scientific American. 233 (6): 23–29. Bibcode:1975SciAm.233f..23A. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1275-23. ISSN 0036-8733.
  9. "Lamm explained his view that Colorado must begin to control its own future, rather than succumbing to Washington's plea that the state should be “a national sacrifice area” to provide for the nation's energy needs." Griffith, Winthrop (1974-10-27). "An eco‐freak for governor?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-05-10.
  10. Sterba, James P. (1974-09-26). "Worry Rises That Rockies Face Pollution and Crowds". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-05-10.
  11. Fox, Julia (June 1999). "Mountaintop Removal in West Virginia". Organization & Environment. 12 (2): 163–183. doi:10.1177/1086026699122002. ISSN 1086-0266.
  12. US EPA (7 June 2004). "Agency Response to Recommendations Provided in the OIGEvaluation Report entitled, "EPA Needs to Consistently Implement the Intent of the Executive Order on Environmental Justice"" (PDF).
  13. Bamberger, Kaela (2017-07-11). "Not Your Sacrifice Zone: In Lead-Poisoned East Chicago, Residents Fight for Their Health and Homes". In These Times. ISSN 0160-5992. Retrieved 2019-09-16.
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