ANN ARBOR—Bunyan Bryant, a University of Michigan professor who has devoted his career to environmental justice and social activism, has donated $100,000 to the School of Natural Resources and Environment’s Environmental Justice Fund.

The School of Natural Resources and Environment offers a master of science degree specializing in environmental justice, the study of the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color and residents of low-income communities. Bryant’s gift will assist students who are conducting research, organizing conferences and disseminating information to communities and policymakers on environmental justice issues. Rosina M. Bierbaum, dean of the school, will administer the gift.

“Today’s environmental crises demand that we as a nation become more visionary,” Bryant said.” If we fail to plan, we will blunder into the future with a host of environmental problems. The City of New Orleans and the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina is a case in point.”

Bryant cites the effects of global warming as another example.” Global warming may be the greatest environmental injustice of all,” he said,” because the mass migration of people across national boundaries in search of dry land, food, water, shelter and work will trigger regional conflicts as people compete for scarce resources. As with the effects of Hurricane Katrina, and the resultant flooding, it will be the poor and people of color who will lack the resources to protect themselves.”

Twelve natural resources and environment scholars are involved in the environmental justice specialization,” however issues of environmental justice are central to everything we do,” Dean Bierbaum explained.” Bunyan’s gift extends his significant scholar-activist contributions and expands opportunities for students to work on-the-ground in communities near and far.”

In October 2005, for example, a team of five students began an 18-month project to assist the residents of Chalmette in Saint Bernard Parish to rebuild their community in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Working with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a nonprofit environmental health and justice organization that assists communities sharing a boundary with an oil refinery or chemical plant, the students bring expertise in environmental justice as well as environmental restoration and remediation, public health, law and landscape design.

Chalmette has an oil refinery in its backyard. As a result of the hurricane, the holding tanks of crude oil were breached, releasing excessive levels of carcinogens into the homes of community members. The project, which is being done for a master’s degree program, will continue through winter 2007. Bryant serves as faculty advisor along with Elaine Hockman, research director of the Environmental Justice Initiative, and Gregory Button, adjunct lecturer in the School of Public Health.

Within the master’s program, Bryant is coordinator of the environmental justice specialization. He also is the founder and director of the Environmental Justice Initiative, a research program at the School of Natural Resources and Environment that helps formulate environmental justice policies at the local and national levels.

Last year, with a grant from the Ford Foundation to the Environmental Justice Initiative, master’s students conducted an environmental justice analysis of the Arab community in and around Dearborn for ACCESS, the Arab Community Center for Economic & Social Services. Their report concluded the community was being overburdened by toxins.

Another project now being developed” this time with the U-M School of Social Work’s Family Development Project and the Environmental Justice Initiative” will train mothers of Detroit area Head Start children to identify and address environmental problems in their schools and neighborhoods. They also are in the process of combining ecological data in specific zip codes where Head Start children live and comparing data about the children’s development to see if there is a relationship between where children live and their cognitive ability. Graduate students will be involved in the data analysis.

In 1990, Bryant and colleague Paul Mohai organized the nation’s first academic environmental justice conference to examine the links between race, class and environmental hazards. The event brought together scholars, state and federal officials, and governmental agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency.

The conference led to one of the first major scholarly books on the subject, which Bryant edited with Mohai. The conference, Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards: A Time for Discourse, was one of the initiatives instrumental in President Bill Clinton’s signing of the Environmental Justice Executive Order 12898, which required all federal agencies to design and implement programs to address environmental justice issues. In 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice recognized Bryant for his” outstanding contributions of service on the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.”

Bryant, a supporter of recruiting and retaining underrepresented students, grew up in Flint and earned his bachelor’s degree at Eastern Michigan University. He received his master’s degree in social work and doctorate in education at U-M. Bryant is a professor of natural resources and environment, and of urban planning, and has been on the U-M faculty since 1972. He currently is editing a book with Hockman, titled” Michigan: A State of Environmental Crisis?” The book chronicles the differential impact of environmental hazards on people of color and low-income groups in Michigan. They hope to expand their work into a national study.

The School of Natural Resources and Environment celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2003. With faculty representing 17 disciplines spanning the natural sciences, social sciences and landscape design, the school is the hub for interdisciplinary environmental research and education at the University of Michigan.

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