Daily Recco, December 3: There’s Something in the Water. It’s called environmental racism

Racism is of all kinds, from institutional to structural to individual to interpersonal, as sociology will tell you. There is yet another kind of racism — environmental racism, that forms the core of the Canadian documentary There's Something in the Water (2019).

From being exposed to toxic water to the health of the marginalised communities being put at stake in Nova Scotia, Canada, the film explores how the black community in the area has to pay the price for white people’s excesses. The film is made by Oscar-nominated Hollywood star and native Nova Scotian — Elliot Page. A long-standing environmentalist themselves, Page is also the narrator in the documentary, detailing the environmental crimes against the indigenous (First Nation) and the minority communities in the neighbourhood they grew up in. They have co-written and co-directed the documentary with their friend and filmmaker Ian Daniel.

The nature of environmental racism is such that the toxins are directed towards the poor, marginalised and the minorities, and away from the affluent and the influential dwellings. Those who have to pay the price for the bias with their health and wellbeing usually don’t have the political or economic clout to protect themselves. As a result, there is an ever-widening gap where the perpetrators are normally not penalised, with someone else bearing the burden of keeping them rich and safe. This is the gap that the documentary seeks to explore and expose.

The documentary opens with exploring the neighbourhood right outside Shelburne in Nova Scotia, which has the largest concentration of black Canadians. The dumpsite here has leached large amounts of toxins in the ground that has contaminated the groundwater and the well here. This well is the primary source of potable water for the black residents — the water that is rich in arsenic and E Coli bacteria to start with. The other elements in the water include all kinds of carcinogens including and not limited to lead. The death rates due to cancer have been spiralling over the years in the neighbourhood, and you surely don’t need a genius to make the connection between the water quality and the spike in cancer cases. With apathetic politicians, industrialists and authorities shuffling between the race and money cards, the grim reality is as toxic as the water that the residents have no choice but to ingest and internalise.

The documentary is based on the eponymous book by Canadian social scientist — Ingrid Waldron — that was published in 2018. The book examines the racial bias with a map of Nova Scotia. The map shows that the black and indigenous communities have been housed in neighbourhoods adjoining the dumpsites, unlike their white counterparts. Just this fact seals the argument and offers clinching evidence of how the administration, industry and the society decide the worth of non-white lives — the lives that are at a disproportionate disadvantage when it comes to environmental disasters.

There’s Something in the Water does not mince words to suit your finer sensibilities. It makes you sit up and take a hard look at your own backyard and neighbourhood for intentional and inadvertent biases against the have-nots, marginalised and the underprivileged. Watch it to see for yourself if you are unintentionally guilty of this. The documentary is streaming on Netflix.

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