Toxic Waste and Race in Twenty-First Century America

In 1987, the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice released its groundbreaking study, Toxic Waste and Race in the United States. The report found race to be the most significant predictor of where hazardous waste facilities were located in the United States. We review this and other studies of environmental racism in an effort to explain the relationship between race and the proximity to hazardous waste facilities. More recent research provides some evidence that the effect is causal, where polluting industries follow the path of least resistance. To date, the published work using Census data ends in 2000, which neglects the period when economic and political changes may have worsened the relationship between race and toxic exposure. Thus, we replicate findings using data from 2010 to show that racial disparities remain persistent in 2010. We conclude with a call for further research on how race and siting have changed during the 2010s.

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.