Letters: Environmental justice for minorities

Re “A united front against Exide,” Sept. 10

Air-quality officials who warn of the dangers posed by Exide Technologies’ battery recycling plant in Vernon caution that, while 250,000 people in nearby communities such as Boyle Heights and Huntington Park do face a “chronic hazard” from exposure to certain chemicals, there is no evidence that residents have been harmed, only that they could be.

I wonder if a judge would have allowed a battery recycling plant near, say, Beverly Hills to continue operating, as one did for Exide in Vernon.

Native Americans have long fought against this kind of environmental racism, in which people in poor and mainly minority communities face these hazards disproportionately.

At a time when we are being asked by the president to be concerned about the gassing of children in Syria, just as valid should be the poisoning of our children in the United States, even if it is just a small community of mainly Latino immigrants.

Yolanda Alaniz

Los Angeles

ALSO:

Letters: Shutting off the prison pipeline

Letters: Defending California’s fracking bill

Letters: Washington’s education overreach