ABSTRACT
The development of the environmental justice movement – a coalition of environmental, civil rights and social equality activists is one of the most significant new social movements in recent decades (Szasz, 1994; Gottlieb, 1993). Throughout the 1980s, the number of local environmental groups concerned with and protesting against sources of local environmental risk and hazards rose dramatically. During this period as well, the first of a number of studies (USGAO, 1983) provided some initial evidence on the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of colour and economically disadvantaged groups. This coalescence of governmental data and local activism led to the formation of the environmental justice movement (Geiser and Waneck, 1983; Bryant and Mohai, 1992; Bullard, 1993, 1994a, b; Schwab, 1994). At the local, state and national levels, this movement injected a new set of questions into the political discourse.
