A third run­way in the Lon­don Heathrow Air­port is to be built for increas­ing the air­port car­ry­ing capac­i­ty and resilience to flight changes. It’s vital to secure the air­port’s hub posi­tion in the whole Europe but it has been so hard to go ahead because of all the issues behind the plan, such as the com­mu­ni­ty dimin­ish­ment, noise and oppo­si­tion to car­bon neu­tral­i­ty plan. Still, at present, the ban has been removed.

Lown­des Coun­ty in rur­al Alaba­ma faces inad­e­quate san­i­ta­tion prac­tices result­ing in 90% of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers hav­ing fail­ing sewage sys­tems pol­lut­ing their liv­ing spaces. Cur­rent poli­cies in place fur­ther exac­er­bate the prob­lem. A hope­ful solu­tion to the issue is a USDA fund to help the com­mu­ni­ty replace the cur­rent sep­tic tanks.

In 2022, Pow­er Con­struc­tion Cor­po­ra­tion of Chi­na (Pow­erchi­na) announced its plan to build a mega dam along Yarlung Tsang­po Riv­er (Brahma­pu­tra Riv­er). The dam is esti­mat­ed to have 3 times the pow­er gen­er­a­tion as the Three Gorges Dam but it also goes along with many con­erns like dam­age to ecosys­tem, future flood poten­tial and geopol­i­tics con­flicts etc.

The Berke­ley Pit in Butte, Mon­tana is a for­mer open-pit cop­per mine that has tran­si­tioned from an engine of eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty to a site of envi­ron­men­tal and human­i­tar­i­an con­cern due to its trans­for­ma­tion into a tox­ic lake fol­low­ing the clo­sure of min­ing oper­a­tions. The Berke­ley Pit illus­trates the press­ing need for sus­tain­able min­ing prac­tices and robust post-min­ing strate­gies to address envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and pol­lu­tant expo­sure to local communities.

The I‑375 Recon­nect­ing Com­mu­ni­ties Project in down­town Detroit is on pause to address con­cerns about its scale and repar­a­tive efforts.

Res­i­dents of Mount Ver­non, New York, pre­dom­i­nant­ly from minor­i­ty back­grounds, have suf­fered for decades under a fail­ing waste­water infra­struc­ture that is now being addressed with a sig­nif­i­cant $150 mil­lion invest­ment plan. Chron­ic sewage back­ups have cre­at­ed a per­pet­u­al state of envi­ron­men­tal injus­tice, adverse­ly impact­ing the health and qual­i­ty of life of the com­mu­ni­ty. This long-await­ed inter­ven­tion, cham­pi­oned by May­or Shawyn Pat­ter­son-Howard, rep­re­sents a piv­otal move towards restor­ing pub­lic health, envi­ron­men­tal qual­i­ty, and social equi­ty in Mount Vernon.

The NEOM project, Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s futur­is­tic $500 bil­lion urban devel­op­ment, faces inter­na­tion­al scruti­ny for human rights vio­la­tions involv­ing the indige­nous Huwai­t­at tribe.

New Jer­sey’s Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Law helps pro­tect under­rep­re­sent­ed and dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties from envi­ron­men­tal impacts by lim­it­ing indus­tri­al and waste facil­i­ties in those com­mu­ni­ties. Addi­tion­al­ly, greater atten­tion has been focused on clean­ing up con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed waste sites and hold­ing those account­able for pol­lut­ing these communities.

A new canal in Nicaragua will be built under the agree­ment of the Nicaragua gov­ern­ment and Chi­nese busi­ness­man Wang Jing, with his com­pa­ny HK Nicaragua Canal Devel­op­ment Invest­ment Com­pa­ny (HKND). The project is intend­ed to lift the poor coun­try out of pover­ty, just as what the Pana­ma Canal has done to its res­i­dents, but its con­struc­tion may ruin the ecosys­tem of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. Besides, there are more poten­tial issues like polit­i­cal ten­sions, exag­ger­at­ed con­struc­tion speed and ambigu­ous finance etc

Philly’s Chi­na­town has been divid­ed by a sunken high­way for the past three decades which has result­ed in social and eco­nom­ic dis­con­nects in its com­mu­ni­ty. Despite this chal­lenge, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers have gained pub­lic sup­port for a change and have been grant­ed fund­ing through the U.S. Depart­ment of Transportation’s Recon­nect­ing Com­mu­ni­ties Pilot Pro­gram to reshape the trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture for more ben­e­fi­cial use. The project will empha­size com­mu­ni­ty input through­out the plan­ning process.

Sasol announced a project of build­ing gas-to-liq­uid facil­i­ty and ethane crack­er in Lake Charles Louisiana after long-term nego­ti­a­tion with the Louisiana gov­ern­ment offi­cials. How­ev­er, its pol­lu­tion lev­el seems not to be as sat­is­fy­ing as it claims. What’s more, the relo­ca­tion of local res­i­dents in Mossville is insuf­fi­cient and racial­ly discriminative.

Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Karl Racine is suing Vel­si­col Chem­i­cal for decades of man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion of the car­cino­gen chlor­dane even though the com­pa­ny knew of its risks to human and envi­ron­men­tal health. The law­suit says stud­ies have linked long-term expo­sure to chlor­dane to liv­er can­cer, as well as mis­car­riages, depres­sion and bone-mar­row dis­eases. Short­er-term expo­sure, it says, has been linked to blurred vision, headaches, tremors and insom­nia, among oth­er cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem symp­toms. Flanked by envi­ron­men­tal­ists and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the local NAACP, Racine (D) said at a news con­fer­ence that the effects of Vel­si­col Chemical’s alleged con­t­a­m­i­na­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly hit “low-income Black and Brown” res­i­dents, in a case that bridges envi­ron­men­tal and racial justice.

Rochester, NY is sur­round­ed by an Inner Loop of high­way. This loop is not lev­el with the sur­round­ing build­ings and streets. A por­tion of this loop was replaced with infill devel­op­ment to encour­age down­town invest­ment and con­nec­tion between the two com­mu­ni­ties sur­round­ing it. Actions tak­en after the ini­tial removal were met with mixed interests.

Lead-con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in drink­ing water in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., became a cri­sis in 2004, with lead con­cen­tra­tions exceed­ing those in Flint, MI. In the decades since, very few pipes were replaced. Prop­er­ty own­ers were required to share the replace­ment cost, result­ing in replace­ments being con­cen­trat­ed in afflu­ent areas. Lead expo­sure con­tin­ued in under-resourced neigh­bor­hoods, dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ing D.C.‘s Black res­i­dents. In 2019, a new plan was insti­tut­ed in which D.C. Water will be pro­vid­ed with funds to cov­er the full pipe replace­ment cost and con­struc­tion will pro­ceed on a block-by-block basis. Two pre­dom­i­nant­ly Black wards will be first up for replacements.

In recent years, D.C. has added exten­sive bike paths to increase cycling safe­ty and cycling options to allow chil­dren to bike to school to increase phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. Lack of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty is a con­cern in the D.C. school area that serves under­rep­re­sent­ed com­mu­ni­ties whose stu­dents may not be able to par­tic­i­pate in extracur­ric­u­lar sports. The addi­tion of bike paths can help decrease air pol­lu­tion and offer a chance to decrease child health inequities in the community.

In the ear­ly 90’s, the town of Hol­ly Springs was pre­dom­i­nant­ly African Amer­i­can, and was cho­sen for a site for a land­fill to be built. Over time, the area shift­ed demo­graph­ics until it was pre­dom­i­nant­ly white, at which time the per­mit for the site was issued, denied, and re-issued. This is in spite of the fact that there appeared to be no such con­cerns when the area was pre­dom­i­nant­ly African American.

Syra­cuse’s 1.4‑mile stretch of the I‑81, which is raised above the city and cuts through down­town, is posed for a new tran­si­tion. While once dis­plac­ing dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties, offi­cials have draft­ed plans to tear down the crum­bling inter­state and cre­ate a street-lev­el grid to repair bro­ken com­mu­ni­ties and cre­ate a revi­tal­ized urban core. The project is cur­rent­ly paused due to law­suits from local groups ques­tion­ing the impacts of such a deci­sion and if it will real­ly improve the area or cause more gen­er­a­tional impacts.

The Tar Creek Super­fund site is locat­ed in north­east­ern Okla­homa on Qua­paw trib­al land and is the site of for­mer zinc and lead min­ing site. The acid mine drainage from this site has been pol­lut­ing the local com­mu­ni­ty and water­shed for over 50 years and is still tox­ic despite being a super­fund site since 1983. Local com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers have been fight­ing to con­tin­ue the cleanup of the site despite the slow progress made by the EPA.