Subsistence fish consumption and environmental justice in Wisconsin

This one's part of a series for students in Geography 564: Urban Environmental Change and Social Justice.

Among other things, President Clinton's Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice directs federal agencies to research and address subsistence consumption of fish and wildlife (see Section 4-4). Here in Wisconsin, there are a number of communities that rely heavily on subsistence fishing, including Hmong and other southeastern Asian communities, American Indian communities, and low-income inner-city communities. As we'll see in some of our readings, subsistence fishing may put these populations at higher risk of exposure to toxic contamination in our lakes and waterways. How are the social and environmental justice dimensions of this issue being addressed in Wisconsin?

Here are a few links you should check to get started:

- This has been an important issue along the Fox River near Green Bay, the site of a major cleanup operation that has been ongoing for years. Take a look here and here and here, for instance. For more on the Fox River site in general, you can look here.

- This is also an issue at the Sheboygan River Superfund site - here's a video to check out.

- Here at UWM, the Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center has made this area of research a priority - take a look around this site (see, e.g., Michael Carvan and David Petering).

- An organization that has been very active on this issue in Madison is the Madison Environmental Justice Organization.

- These are just starting points - don't forget to google! (And feel free to look at nearby states and cities as well, such as Waukegan and Chicago.)

- And don't forget the EPA - here, for instance.