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'Environmental justice' movement looks to pivotal New Jersey cases.

Article Excerpt
On an average day, over 200 diesel trucks rumble through Waterfront South, a neighborhood in Camden, New Jersey, spewing exhaust fumes and damaging streets. They are on their way to a nearby cement-grinding facility, which churns large volumes of dust particles into the air. The stench from a local sewage-treatment plant keeps children off the local playground. Residents no longer sit and visit on their porches in the evening.

But Waterfront South--one of many poor, minority communities overwhelmed by heavy industry and pollution--is fighting back.

In April, a federal judge ruled that a suit brought by a citizens group against the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) can go forward. (S. Camden Citizens in Action v. N.J. Dep't of Envtl. Prot., No. 01-702, 2003 WL 1877856 (N.J. Apr. 16, 2003).) The group claims that the agency intentionally discriminated against the community when it granted a permit to the Quebec-based St. Lawrence Cement Co. to build the cement grinding facility on public land adjacent to their neighborhood.

This case is one of several suits Camden residents have filed seeking to restore their quality of life. Community activists have also sued St. Lawrence Cement for the disruption caused by the truck traffic through their neighborhood, the city of Camden for allegedly distributing contaminated water, and the school district for failing to replace lead pipes in the water system.

Waterfront South has one of the highest concentrations of heavy-pollution-generating industry in the country. It is home to a power-cogeneration facility, a trash-to-steam incinerator, a regional sewage-treatment plant, four scrap-metal companies, and a petroleum-coke transfer station--as well as chemical companies, machine shops, and food-processing companies. It also bas two federal Superfund sites, including one contaminated with radioactive thorium, and 22 sites that the state has designated "contaminated." An NJDEP study discovered that the area had the state's highest recorded levels of fine particulates in the air.

Few neighborhood-specific studies have measured...

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