2018 was one of the wettest years on record in Virginia, causing catastrophic floods and landslides, as well as unexpectedly high levels of pollution in the Commonwealth’s waterways and the Chesapeake Bay. While the last waterlogged year is only a recent memory for Virginians, seemingly unremarkable snow and rainfall at the end of February caused the James River to crest last week at its highest level in Richmond in almost ten years. Climate change has clearly transformed our experience with weather and our relationship with water. In a new report published today, the Center for Progressive Reform explores how this drives environmental injustice in Virginia through toxic flooding and the increasing risk of chemical exposures.
Over the last two years, plant explosions in Texas and flooded coal ash impoundments in North Carolina have reminded us about an unmet need to adapt our approach to chemical safety. And before the chemical disasters of Hurricanes Harvey and Florence, there were the chemical spills and devastation of Sandy and Katrina. In each instance, the most vulnerable populations – the impoverished, elderly, children, and people of color – suffered the worst of the flooding and the resulting toxic contamination. Waterfront industrial areas containing hazardous and toxic chemicals are exposed to flood risks throughout the United States, but it is the fenceline neighborhoods – those recognized as environmental and climate justice communities – that are most vulnerable to resulting toxic exposures and harm.
Over the last two years, the Center for Progressive Reform, the James River Association, and Chesapeake Commons have investigated the threat of toxic floodwaters – uncontrolled chemical spills induced by climate impacts that contaminate downstream homes, schools, public spaces, and water systems. We created a novel method for assessing the threat of toxic floodwaters and adopted Virginia’s James River watershed as our first case study. We examined more than 2,700 hazardous chemical facilities in Virginia; their exposure to river flooding, hurricane storm surge, and sea-level rise; and the fenceline communities that are among the most vulnerable to potential disaster.
READ OUR REPORT: Toxic Floodwaters: The Threat of Climate-Driven Chemical Disaster in Virginia’s James River Watershed
We found more than 1,000 industrial facilities located in the most socially vulnerable communities that are exposed to flood risk. More than 473,000 Virginians – residents of census tracts that are among the most socially vulnerable to disaster – live where these flood-exposed industrial facilities are located. While we found most of the exposed facilities and communities in Hampton Roads, we saw others located in more upland and rural parts of the state.
Check out our toxic floodwaters report to learn more about our findings and review our policy recommendations for Virginia’s regulators and lawmakers. The report also includes a section for community members and citizen advocates that outlines opportunities to hold regulators and industrial facility owners accountable for preventing toxic floodwaters.
You can retweet this report by clicking here. You can also visit our Facebook page and share it there.
For even more on toxic floodwaters in Virginia and beyond, read CPR's blog series on the topic and listen to the related Connect the Dots podcast episode below.
Showing 2,837 results
David Flores | March 6, 2019
2018 was one of the wettest years on record in Virginia, causing catastrophic floods and landslides, as well as unexpectedly high levels of pollution in the Commonwealth’s waterways and the Chesapeake Bay. While the last waterlogged year is only a recent memory for Virginians, seemingly unremarkable snow and rainfall at the end of February caused the James River to crest last week at its highest level in Richmond in almost ten years. Climate change has clearly transformed our experience with weather and our relationship with water. In a new report published today, the Center for Progressive Reform explores how this drives environmental injustice in Virginia through toxic flooding and the increasing risk of chemical exposures.
Daniel Farber | March 4, 2019
Originally published on Legal Planet. I have a confession: When I started thinking about the possibility of a climate emergency declaration, it was mostly as a counterpoint to Trump's possible (now certain) declaration of an immigration emergency. As I've thought about it, however, it seems to me that there are enough potential benefits to make the […]
James Goodwin | February 28, 2019
The return of divided government promises to bring with it a welcome, albeit temporary, reprieve from the unprecedented abuse of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) that we witnessed during the 115th Congress. As I argue in an article featured in the March/April edition of The Environmental Forum, published by the Environmental Law Institute, the CRA […]
James Goodwin | February 21, 2019
For affected indigenous communities in the United States and Canada, new oil and gas pipelines snaking across their lands represent a new kind of attack. Dirty, polluting, dangerous, and built without the communities' consent, these pipelines are the inevitable outcome of North America's hydraulic fracturing and tar sands oil "revolutions" that have played out in […]
David Driesen | February 20, 2019
Originally published in The Regulatory Review. Reprinted with permission. President Donald J. Trump has declared a national emergency to justify building a wall on the U.S. southern border, which Congress refused to fund. But Mexicans and Central Americans coming to our country in search of a better life does not constitute an emergency. Immigration at the […]
Joel A. Mintz | February 19, 2019
This op-ed was originally published in The Hill. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an annual report Feb. 8 on its enforcement activities in fiscal 2018. After wading through a bushel full of cherry-picked case studies and a basket of bureaucratic happy talk, the report paints a dismal picture of decline in a crucially important […]
Daniel Farber | February 18, 2019
Originally published on Legal Planet. Trump finally pulled the trigger and declared a national emergency so he can build his wall. But if illegal border crossings are a national emergency, then there's a strong case for viewing climate change in similar terms. That point has been made by observers ranging from Marco Rubio to Legal Planet's […]
Frank Ackerman | February 14, 2019
Originally published on Triple Crisis. Second in a series of posts on climate policy. Find Part 1 here. According to scientists, climate damages are deeply uncertain but could be ominously large (see the previous post). Alternatively, according to the best-known economic calculation, lifetime damages caused by emissions in 2020 will be worth $51 per metric ton of […]
Frank Ackerman | February 11, 2019
Originally published on Triple Crisis. The damages expected from climate change seem to get worse with each new study. Reports from the IPCC and the U.S. Global Change Research Project, and a multi-author review article in Science, all published in late 2018, are among the recent bearers of bad news. Even more continues to arrive […]