What is a sacrifice zone?

The term 'sacrifice zone' was used during the Cold War to identify areas contaminated by radioactive pollutants in the course of manufacturing nuclear weapons.  Author Steve Lerner has re purposed the term and applied it to low-income and minority neighborhoods located near heavy industrial pollution sites in Sacrifice zones:  The front lines of toxic chemical exposure in the United States.  Each chapter describes a zone affected by polluted air, water, or soil.  These areas are found nationwide but have several similarities.  Each neighborhood contains poor or ethnic communities and in these communities grass-roots organizations are being formed by residents to hold accountable the industries responsible for the pollution.  The statistics provided by the author are alarming, with many industrial sites releasing massive amounts of chemicals into residential areas.  The material in this book was gathered from interviews with the residents of these areas and offers a balance between personal stories and hard statistics.  The effects of living in sacrifice zones runs the gamut from skin irritations, ash and soot deposits, noxious odors, difficulty breathing, cancer clusters, and even death.  Some of the chapters seem a bit redundant, however each is important for the sake of all those living (and dying) in the sacrifice zones.