Here’s how Democrats want to address Washington racial, environmental disparities
Several state legislators are reviving the Healthy Environment for All Act, a law that aims to address decades of racial and economic disparities that affect the health of people who live and work in more heavily polluted areas of Washington state.
Called the HEAL Act, it is being re-introduced as Senate Bill 5489 for the session that opens Monday, Jan. 11.
“We believe that environmental justice is a right for every person of color, for every community,” state Rep. Debra Lekanoff said at a press conference Thursday, Jan. 7.
Front and Centered, a coalition of 60 groups representing people of color statewide that is organizing support for the measure, hosted the press conference.
“But for our most vulnerable communities, we find that we are living in the most polluted areas. For our vulnerable and rural communities, we the ones who are breathing the dirty air, who are living in a pollution-based economy,” Lekanoff said.
Lekanoff, a Democrat from Bow, is one of two House members who represent the 40th Legislative District.
As a member of the Tlingit tribe and the only indigenous woman in the Legislature, Lekanoff said that continued environmental degradation threatens her Tlingit name, which translates to “That place where the baby frogs live in cool and clean habitat.”
She said she feared that continued destruction of the Earth would make her Tlingit name and its heritage extinct.
What HEAL does
Front and Centered said the HEAL Act would:
▪ Require state agencies to adopt environmental justice as part of their mission.
▪ Direct state agencies to use environmental health disparity data as they consider new policies and in considering enforcement or investment decisions.
▪ Form a task force to decrease environmental health disparities.
▪ Improve public participation.
Aids farmworkers
Liz Darrow of the Bellingham group Community to Community Development, said she hopes HEAL will result in better conditions for farmworkers, a key mission of C2C, as her organization is called.
“We can’t look at climate change without looking at income disparities,” Darrow told The Bellingham Herald.
“We see lower life expectancies specifically because of all the chemicals that farmworkers are exposed to,” she said. “We need legislation and accountability.”
New bill considered
HEAL passed the House in 2019 with broad support, but was held over in the Senate to the 2020 session and never reconciled with the House version, Front and Centered officials said.
Its current revised version will need to pass the full Legislature, said state Sen. Liz Lovelett, an Anacortes Democrat who is the 40th District’s state senator.
“The HEAL act is an important step in creating environmental justice in all our state agencies,” Lovelett told The Herald.
“Every agency will have to use that lens when they do rule-making,” Lovelett said.
Proof of disparities
Front and Centered said on its website that an interactive online map operated by the state Department of Health proves that environmental health disparities exist across Washington.
It uses data from a variety of sources to illustrate how the residents of certain areas face greater pollution threats or suffer health disparities.
Proximity to factories or industrial areas or major roadways such as an interstate highway increases that disparity.
