‘Hit First And Worst’: Region’s Communities Of Color Brace For Climate Change Impacts
In the “Live Or Die Garden” on Ellington Street, Kenisha Allen of Mattapan (r) and Keema Green of Dorchester pick up trash that has blown around the raised garden beds from around the neighborhood. Photo by Jesse Costa for WBUR
The consequences of climate change, experts say, will disproportionately affect low-income communities and communities of color.
And those same communities often already are located among environmental hazards like trash incinerators, fuel storage tanks and the toxic remains that come with them.
PORT Park, in Chelsea, is located at the site of a former asphalt storage facility.
“Just on the other side of this beautiful park is Chelsea’s neighborhood most impacted by environmental injustice,” says Roseann Bongiovanni, executive director of the group GreenRoots. “So it’s the lowest income, most ethnically diverse, most densely populated neighborhood in the entire city of Chelsea and the one that is located the closest to the environmental impacts.”