Nuclear Waste Transport and Residential Property Values: Estimating the Effects of Perceived Risks

Abstract

Spent nuclear fuel shipments have raised concerns that property values along the shipment route will be reduced due to the real or perceived risks from the shipments. While prior research has identified property value losses associated with proximity to certain environmental disamenities, findings on the effects of nuclear facilities is ambiguous and virtually no research has focused on the effects of transitory nuclear waste shipments. The initiation of radioactive waste shipments to New Mexico, and the prospect of shipments of high-level nuclear waste from across the U.S. to Nevada, make consideration of possible property value impacts of substantial concern for federal policymakers. This study employs data on 9432 real estate transactions in South Carolina to model the effects of a series of highly publicized shipments of spent nuclear fuel to a storage facility at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site. Using a model that corrects for spatial autocorrelation, we obtain results with important implications for the kinds of effects that nuclear waste shipments may have on property values. In areas with lower risk perception and more experience with nuclear materials management, we find that the shipments did not affect property values. In more populous urban areas, property values appear to have been lowered in a substantive manner. Limitations in the data leave uncertainties, however, which must be addressed in future research.