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While Americans are diverted by war and millions of job losses, the Bush administration is quietly stripping protections from our air, water and lands, seriously threatening our health and heritage.

The Sierra Club's 2004 Latino Communities at Risk Report details the cumulative impact of the Bush administration's environmental actions on Hispanic communities throughout the country. The report looks behind the policy and the numbers to tell the stories of 12 individuals and families whose health and livelihoods have been directly affected by the Bush administration's devastating environmental policies.

The Hispanic community is disproportionately at risk. Study after study has shown that Hispanic communities are located in the most polluted areas of cities.1 Three out of every five Latinos live in communities near uncontrolled toxic waste sites.2 Eighty percent of Latinos live in the 437 counties with the country's worst air, compared to 57 percent of Anglos and 65 percent of African Americans.3 And 90 percent of farm workers are Hispanic and are still exposed to extremely dangerous pesticides.4

César Chávez 1927-1993 United Farm Workers This report is dedicated to the memory of César Chávez and the movement he inspired. The cry for a safe environment is deeply rooted in the Hispanic tradition. Beginning in the 1960s, Cesar Chavez led a movement to protect workers from pesticides that were literally raining down on them in the fields. Chavez's movement linked people and the environment and taught us that we all have a right to live in a healthy and safe environment - no matter who we are or where we are from. The work of Chavez and members of the environmental movement resulted in passage of landmark laws that protected our air, water, land and - most importantly - people.

The Sierra Club's report tells the stories of Latinos throughout the United States who are suffering unnecessarily. Guillermo Ruiz and Jorge Fernández are farm workers incapacitated by their exposure to toxic pesticides. Michael Vallejo, Thania Delgado, and Nicholas Jaramillo are all suffering from the asthma epidemic that plagues our nation. Zeida Santana and Maria Nolasco are worried about exposing their children to dangerous toxins like mer

Instead of protecting Michael and Thania, Miguel and Zeida, the Bush administration is dismantling laws that were meant to protect them. The administration asked and won exemptions this year from an international treaty that would have banned the pesticide that made Jorge and Guillermo sick.

Changes to the Clean Air Act proposed by the Bush administration will allow more air pollution that is linked to asthma. The EPA warned us not to eat certain kinds of fish because of mercury contamination the same week it proposed allowing polluters to emit more mercury for at least a decade longer. These and other stories are detailed in the following pages.

There is a better way. We have the technology and the knowledge needed to clean up and prevent the poisoning of our air, water and land. Every community, every person deserves that protection. The Bush administration should protect all of our communities - for our families, for our future.

For more information contact ecocentro@sierraclub.org.

1. Ash, Michael and Fetter, T. Robert, "Who Lives on the Wrong Side of the Tracks? Evidence from the EPA's Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators Model," Social Science Quarterly, 2004.
2. "Toxic Waste and Race in the United States," UCC-CRJ, 1987.
3. EPA Factsheet, available at, www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/faqs/ej/index.html#faq20.
4. See #3