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Melina Hill Walker: A More Equitable Future
In a Manchester neighborhood, children live in housing with lead paint, with poor air quality, with ancient pipes. Cars race down the two-lane, one-way ‘neighborhood highway,’ making the walk to school unsafe. Their neighborhood lacks tree cover: in summer, it’s hotter there than in leafier parts of town, and the children don’t have access to space where they can safely take their shoes off and feel the grass beneath their feet.
The environment these children live in is so different from the pastoral mountains, lakes, and forests of New Hampshire's image.
People in low-income communities, communities of color, and people with limited English proficiency often suffer first, and worst, from climate and environmental perils. New Hampshire is no exception to this unfair environmental burden, and many New Hampshire communities lack resources to help prevent negative environmental impact, build resilience, and improve quality of life. And environmental hazards do not only affect children in Manchester, nor do they only affect cities. For-profit companies are more likely to place landfills – and all their associated dangers – in rural, low-income communities. Water pollution affects fish spawning grounds in the White Mountains and in coastal estuaries.
"Environmental justice” is the condition of fair, equitable access to environmental benefits – like clean air and water, safe housing, shady streets, and green places to play – and freedom from the burdens of an unhealthy environment. In New Hampshire, a growing movement is working to ensure that everyone, regardless of income, race, primary language or social status, has access to a healthy environment.
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