Erica Chung: Bringing Environmental Justice into the Public Health Sphere

Another short Minnesotan winter day was coming to a close when Erica Chung appeared in the waiting room for our Zoom meeting. Despite the distant nature of virtual communications, Chung’s infectious smile and upbeat personality transcended the Zoom screen. Throughout our conversation, Chung’s effectiveness for interpersonal connections and communication stood out. It is not surprising that she finds her passion as a health communications specialist at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). Through her work, Chung communicates the impact of environmental hazards that disproportionately affect the health of BIPOC communities throughout Minnesota. By approaching her work from an equity standpoint and using her voice to advocate for the entire community’s wellbeing, she has proven invaluable in the fight for environmental justice.

Chung’s background is telling of her path to health and environmental justice. After moving from New York City to Taiwan, civil unrest drew Chung’s family back to the United States. In a small Pennsylvanian town just outside of Pittsburgh, she experienced first-hand the intersectionality between environmental justice and public health – and she didn’t even realize it.

“Growing up, I was so sick all the time, with these crazy lung problems that no-one knew the answer to,” Chung said. “Similarly, my family got sick really often too. We were all chronically ill all the time.”

After moving to Minnesota when Chung was 8 or 9, her family found out that they lived on an old coal mine site. “My family was in the process of moving and selling homes,” she said. “They had to look into the history of the home to make sure the ground was stable, and that’s how we made the connection” Chung said.

According to the CDC, exposure to coal mine dust leads to a higher prevalence of pulmonary diseases like asthma. This exposure could result from working in a coal mine, or in Chung’s case – living on the site of one. This exposure is likely the reason Chung’s family saw respiratory health problems while living in the area.

Questions about environmental justice shape Chung’s work today, but she wasn’t always sure she wanted to pursue a career focused on combating social injustices. Instead, Chung thought she would be pursuing a more traditional career path in public health. She became interested in public health during her undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where she studied Biology and food science. This sparked her interest in two summer internships with the Department of Homeland Security, where Chung worked in food defense.

“Food defense is making sure that our food system is pure, not adulterated, and that things coming in are labeled actually as they are,” Chung said. “The salmon that you’re buying is actually salmon, the olive oil you’re buying is not canola oil, something like that.”

Work in food defense furthered her interest in public health. Chung was fascinated by the idea that there are different, everyday things in the environment that people take for granted – like clean drinking water, and clean air – and that there are people working in the background to make sure that we have a safe supply of these things. Chung didn’t tie these ideas of clean water and air as public health issues into questions about social inequality until a few years later when she was back in New York City at Columbia University.

“I didn’t hear about the term ‘environmental justice’ until my second year at my masters program,” Chung said. “And it was specifically because I sought out a class to take on environmental justice. That was basically the first time I had heard anyone talk about it.”

Now, Chung works for the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). She started working right when the COVID-19 virus was first hitting Minnesota. Like many other workers this year, her job was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The position I was originally hired for was a health communications position, specifically for chronic disease,” Chung said. “The day that I started working, they reassigned me to the COVID-19 Emergency Response Team, working in the communications sector.”

Chung’s day varies a lot. She wears many different hats, performing tasks like writing stories that showcase the work of the MDH, updating the MDH website with new signs and symptoms of COVID-19, working with diverse media contacts to present important MDH information, or helping to organize community testing events around the cities. Most importantly, Chung is tasked to ensure diversity and inclusion within health communication projects. Within this work, she focuses on reaching communities of color, who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

In addition to bearing the burden of COVID-19, BIPOC communities are more impacted by environmental hazards. According to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, 91% of communities of color experience pollution-related risks above health guidelines compared to 32% of all Minnesotans. This disproportionate exposure to pollution can be attributed to long-standing structural and social inequities that have placed undesirable polluting industries besides neighborhoods of color throughout Minnesota. These environmental hazards include but are not limited to highways, incinerators, dumps, pipelines, and toxic waste sites. The health impacts of persistent exposure to toxins are significant such as increased rates of cancer, asthma, and other chronic illnesses. The CDC reports that cancer, asthma, and other chronic illnesses are also risk factors for severe illness from the virus that causes COVID-19. It is easy to see the overlap between living near environmental hazards and poorer COVID-19 health outcomes. Through Chung’s work on the COVID-19 Emergency Response Team, she must communicate the risk factors of COVID-19 many of which are consequences of environmental injustices.

Chung thinks that the pandemic and the COVID-19 Emergency Response Team have actually helped“For the first time in a really long time, we are connecting with community members,” Chung said. “And we are really understanding, what are the disparities that exist?” the Department of Health gain a new justice and equity perspective that they may have been lacking. Through Chung’s work and life experiences, she has learned a lot about fostering equity through community involvement. She believes that this may have been a missing piece in the Minnesota Department of Health’s path towards health justice.

“For the first time in a really long time, we are connecting with community members,” Chung said. “And we are really understanding, what are the disparities that exist?”

Chung and the rest of the Emergency Response Team listen to personal stories around the community. The goal is to understand more than just overarching health inequalities surrounding different demographics. Listening to personal stories directly from impacted areas around the Twin Cities, Chung and her team can make more informed decisions about health justice and health equity.

One of the ways she brings environmental justice experience into her work in public health is communication. By making information accessible to everyone, Chung can help empower marginalized people to make the connection between environmental hazards and health risks. She fosters this skill generally in her work and especially in her current position, where she communicates information surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic to all Minnesotans.

Besides her work at the Minnesota Department of Health, Chung was also an advisor on the Environmental Justice Advisory Group of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). Chung heard about this position while working for Healthy Building Network, a national nonprofit campaigning for the use of sustainable, nontoxic building materials. Immediately, she was motivated to apply to bring her perspective to the table and uplift the voices of others within her community.

Once on the Environmental Justice Advisory Group, she and sixteen other environmental justice leaders met with the MPCA’s Commissioner, Laura Bishop, each month to advocate that the MPCA’s decisions be made using an equity framework. The advisory group intends to act as a voice for BIPOC communities to have a say in matters that they traditionally wouldn’t. However, under the current commissioner, their voices were often left unheard. Most recently, the Environmental Justice Advisory Group expressed concerns to commissioner Laura Bishop regarding the construction of a new Line 3 pipeline. In general, the group strongly opposed the construction of the pipeline. However, this did not deter the commissioner from approving its construction anyway.

On November 12th, 2020, despite opposition, commissioner Bishop decided to approve Line 3 water crossing permits. The approval of Line 3, a new tar sand pipeline that will traverse Northern Minnesota and Anishinaabe tribal lands, disproportionately disregards the health and futures of the Anishinaabe people. The pipeline is prone to oil spills and leaks, which can impact waterways, soil quality, and crops like wild rice that Indigenous people in Northern Minnesota rely on. The pipeline would be a replacement for an already existing Line 3 pipeline that intends to transport tar sands from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin.

The existing Line 3 pipeline was implemented by Candian energy transportation company, Enbridge, in 1968. Over the years, numerous leaks from the pipeline have polluted the surrounding land with tar sand oil. Concerns of structural integrity resulted in decreasing the amount of tar sand oil transported and eventually for the pipeline to halt transporting oil entirely. Enbridge, relying on the transportation of oil through the pipeline for the economic future of the company, proposed construction of a new Line 3 pipeline, which would increase their operating capacity. This proposal was met by strong opposition because of social and environmental consequences. Like the original pipeline, the new Line 3 would undoubtedly be prone to leaks and oil spills and it would run through a significant amount of Indigenous land. Besides polluting waterways and land, the pipeline violates treaties between Indigenous communities and the state of Minnesota that vow to protect the Indigenous land in Northern Minnesota. Line 3 is an injustice deeply intertwined with settler colonialism. Inevitable oil spills threaten the cultural heritage of the Anishinaabe people who rely on the land, water, and environment to exercise their culture, economy, and political self-determination. Additionally the “man camps” established by Enbridge that would house workers during construction traditionally have led to heightened gender-based violence and multiple accounts of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Construction of the pipeline, which has already begun in Northern Minnesota, is also occurring during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased traffic into Indigenous communities will also increase rates of COVID-19 transmission. This threatens their everyday lives and livelihoods, including putting the traditional knowledge of elders who are in high-risk categories for severe illness from COVID-19 at risk. Enbridge’s interest in profit over the environment and Indigenous peoples along with the government’s complacency continues the legacy of the erasure of Indigenous peoples. While Line 3 is a pressing environmental injustice in Minnesota, the consequences of the fossil fuels it transports will be felt on a broad scale.

Although Chung and her family do not directly live in an area that would be directly impacted by oil spills from the pipeline, she feels that she has a personal connection to the problem, along with the other members of the Environmental Justice Advisory Group. As part of a larger BIPOC community, Chung thinks that members of the advisory group have a responsibility to stand up to injustices against Indigenous people.

“Black, Indigenous, and People of Color really have to stand up for one another,” Chung said. “It’s so easy to be divided…but at the end of the day, I think change really comes when we’re able to use our voices collectively.”

To stand up for this larger community and to have a meaningful voice, Chung knew that she needed to take action – and she wasn’t alone. Many had a building frustration with the MPCA’s inability to hear BIPOC voices, and for most members of the Advisory Board, the commissioner’s decision to approve permits for construction of Line 3 was the last straw. On November 16th, 2020, twelve out of the seventeen advisors resigned en masse. In their resigning statement, the advisors said: “the decision to approve the permit sends a clear message that the Walz Administration and the MPCA hold no regard for the well-being of Minnesotans or our relatives around the world, who depend on us to dramatically, rapidly, and justly transition our economies away from fossil fuels.”

A lot of the people who decided to step down realized the battle was lost. Chung says “If we are not valued and if we are not listened to then we just become a pawn in the whole process.”“if we are not valued and if we are not listened to then we just become a pawn in the whole process”. The advisory board conveyed a similar message when they stated “we cannot continue to legitimize and provide cover for the MPCA’s war on black and brown people”.

Chung can’t speak to the future of the advisory board as she is no longer part of the communications channel, however, she does comment: “I am hoping that stepping down sends a powerful message, that there needs to be some serious relooking at the priorities of the MPCA and just exactly how this advisory board feeds into actual actions that are done. I am really hoping that folks in the leadership take a good hard look at what needs to change before they decide to recruit new members or whatever they start to do”.

Outside of work, Chung is in the process of starting an organization to diversify the medical field. Traditionally and currently, there is a lack of diversity in medicine. Doctors tend to be pretty overwhelmingly white, wealthy, and male. Communities of color, while being more likely to be exposed to environmental health risks like air and water pollution, are less likely to find a doctor that shares their identity. Without consulting with a doctor that truly understands one’s culture and experiences, the quality of the care that someone receives can suffer. This means that injustices against BIPOCs continue even when they need to visit a doctor.

Chung’s goal is to provide resources and a safe space for students interested in medicine to connect. Chung plans to pull in her writing and communications background to help students from traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds write their personal statements to demonstrate that they have so much to offer as a doctor. Chung hopes that this work will continue to chip away at the lack of diversity within the medical field.

“If anything, COVID-19 has shown that we need doctors that come from diverse communities, that can connect with different patients from different backgrounds, races, ethnicities,” Chung said.

Chung hopes to continue her work in health communications and equity, and has a lot of hope for the future of environmental justice. Her hope lies in the leadership coming from historically marginalized identities. She believes that 2020 has challenged the status quo of the dominant group and brought institutionalized injustices to the forefront. At the forefront of these discussions of justice are many BIPOC leaders.

“I think that we have a lot of powerful people. I am not saying powerful at leadership level, I am talking about people in communities that are really rallying together to make sure their voices are heard and are just so loud and overwhelming to the point that their voices cannot not be heard. You have to listen to them and change needs to happen” Chung commented.

While there has been no end to environmental, social, and health injustices, Chung reminds us of the importance of patience and sustained engagement. “Big changes happen slowly, but small changes can happen fast. So, working hard to make sure those small changes happen and then in time they add up into larger changes” Chung said.

Chung concluded our conversation by explaining what the term environmental justice meant to her. She said, “words matter… being able to succinctly sum up this historical racism, current racism, marginalization, and all these horrible things that are happening to people because of where they live and their environment into two words, and to get that message out, is so, so, important.”

After 57 minutes and 52 seconds of Chung’s positivity, enthusiasm, and wisdom, a sense of optimism and motivation to create change hung in the air. What Chung emphasized was the necessity to translate this energy into real change. She continuously wove the theme of using one’s voice into our conversation. “I think the biggest thing is using your voice and being that lone voice when no one else agrees or steps up for what is right” Chung stressed. This bravery to speak up, no matter how difficult, is a selfless trait held by so many environmental justice leaders – including Chung. Everyone has a voice, but how will you use it?

References

Chung, Erica. Personal interview. 3 December, 2020

CDC. (2011, April). Coal Mine Dust Exposures and Associated Health Outcomes. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2011-172/pdfs/2011-172.pdf

“Disproportionate impacts in Minnesota.” Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, www.pca.state.mn.us/air/disproportionate-impacts-minnesota.

St. George’s University. (2018, December 17). The Importance of Diversity in Health Care: Medical Professionals Weigh In. https://www.sgu.edu/blog/medical/pros-discuss-the-importance-of-diversity-in-health-care/