WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY | Enviromentalists: Pollution disproportionately affects the poor
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By Elizabeth Donatelli - bio | email
Posted by Charles Gazaway - email
LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - Environmentalists are saying there is environmental injustice in Louisville. Politicians, along with community and religious leaders went on the Environmental Health and Justice Tour Tuesday.
As the tour stopped at several sites in west Louisville, guides pointed out that pollution disproportionately affects the poor. Perhaps the most infamous site in the Metro is the Rubbertown area.
"The chemical of primary concern is 1,3 Butadiene," said Russ Barnett, director of the Kentucky Institute for the Environment and Sustainable Development. "1,3 Butadiene is one of the carcinogens in tobacco smoke that makes smoking cancer causing."
The buses also stopped along the Ohio River across from the Gallagher Power Plant, which Barnett called environmental injustice.
"It has absolutely no environmental controls on it because it predates the Clean Air Act," said Barnett. "So it's one of the more polluting power plants in the United States."
With problems still in this community, the best thing organizers say to do is improve efficiency and think before building.
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