Community resilience and critical transformations: the case of St. Gabriel, Louisiana

Introduction Community resilience, the ability of a community to respond positively to adverse situations, is an increasingly important topic in public health. Many resilience frameworks are grounded in concepts initially developed by ecologists to describe and explain the capacity of complex systems, such as a community, to persist or return to its original state following disturbances. As a result, much of the research on resilience is concerned with maintaining systems in their current form, preventing degradation, or promoting recovery. However, for a system that is stuck in a trap, or an unfavorable state, deliberate efforts to build the components that contribute to resilience, called adaptive capacities, may enable that system to reorganize after a disturbance to reach a more favorable state. Objective The purpose of this research was to apply a resilience framework to analyze how the community of St. Gabriel, Louisiana adapted in response to environmental change. Methods We used qualitative case-study methodologies to systematically collect newspaper articles, which served as primary data sources to examine how resilience and adaptive capacity evolved in the community of St. Gabriel, Louisiana. Results Key events in the recent history of St. Gabriel include industrial development, growing concern about environmental health and pollution, the environmental justice (EJ) movement, and the incorporation of the community as a self-governing municipality. Two events, the community’s organized resistance to a large hazardous waste facility and the change in government structure, represent critical transformations, or fundamental changes in how the community functions. Conclusion The incorporation of St. Gabriel gave community members more input in planning and development decisions. As a result, the community has taken steps to improve public health in the form of zoning ordinances to prevent new exposure risks and building community infrastructure, such as a new sewer system and a recreation center.

Environmental Regulations and Trade Patterns in Hazardous Waste: Facility-level Analysis

This paper offers a fresh look at the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH) in the context of the waste management industry. Unlike previous research examining trade in waste products, the present study distinguishes between waste destined for final disposal and waste destined for recovery. Furthermore, it combines very disaggregated data with the highly flexible mixed logit model and a reliable measure of environmental policy stringency. Including all those elements in one analysis allowed for the uncovering of the dramatic differences in the reactions of waste generators to the environmental policy stringency of the destination country, depending on the treatment option their waste is slated for. Although there is no evidence confirming the PHH, a significant pollution haven effect has been found. This effect is apparent in the case of waste destined for final disposal. In contrast, facilities exporting waste for recovery are often attracted by the stringency of environmental policy.

Spatial Environmental Inequality in Lubbock, Texas

Environmental inequality assumes a near proximity of environmental health hazards, hazardous waste processing and releasing facilities to minority and low-income communities. Research in environmental inequality and environment justice over the past twenty years suggests that hazardous waste facilities are often located near minority and low-income neighborhoods. We conducted a study evaluating and quantifying environmental inequality in Lubbock County, Texas. Our study analyzed both spatial and statistical relationships between population demographics and spatial proximity to hazardous waste releasing facilities. Hazardous waste facility data used in the study were collected from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). Population statistics from the U.S. Census comprise the demographic data for this analysis. Spatial regression models were estimated to evaluate the relationship between distance from TRI sites and neighborhood / census block group demographics. A statistically significant relationship with proximity to hazardous waste facilities was found in communities having significant minority populations.