The injustice of risk avoidance: the limitations of fish consumption restrictions as institutional controls for superfund sites

Abstract

Abstract The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) is a landmark environmental policy. It broadly empowers the federal government to manage hazardous waste sites to ensure the protection of human and environmental health. In many ways, CERCLA is the result of the environmental justice movement, and public concern about hazardous sites. Because the goal of CERCLA is explicitly managing risk from hazardous sites, it is central to the regulatory structure for management of environmental injustice in the United States of America. However, CERCLA does not fully consider the full scope of environmental justice, and may fail to fully ensure environmental justice for communities impacted directly by proximity to hazardous sites. Specifically, the use of institutional controls such as fish consumption advisories as long terms risk management strategies may prolong and compound environmental injustice as a matter of policy.