Abstract
BackgroundAccording to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Superfund is a federal government program implemented to clean up uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. Twenty-six sites in South Carolina (SC) have been included on the National Priorities List (NPL), which has serious human health and environmental implications. The purpose of this study was to assess spatial disparities in the distribution of Superfund sites in SC.MethodsThe 2000 US census tract and block level data were used to generate population characteristics, which included race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), education, home ownership, and home built before 1950. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used to map Superfund facilities and develop choropleth maps based on the aforementioned sociodemographic variables. Spatial methods, including mean and median distance analysis, buffer analysis, and spatial approximation were employed to characterize burden disparities. Regression analysis was performed to assess the relationship between the number of Superfund facilities and population characteristics.ResultsSpatial coincidence results showed that of the 29.5% of Blacks living in SC, 55.9% live in Superfund host census tracts. Among all populations in SC living below poverty (14.2%), 57.2% were located in Superfund host census tracts. Buffer analyses results (0.5mi, 1.0mi, 5.0mi, 0.5km, 1.0km, and 5.0km) showed a higher percentage of Whites compared to Blacks hosting a Superfund facility. Conversely, a slightly higher percentage of Blacks hosted (30.2%) a Superfund facility than those not hosting (28.8%) while their White counterparts had more equivalent values (66.7% and 67.8%, respectively). Regression analyses in the reduced model (Adj. R2 = 0.038) only explained a small percentage of the variance. In addition, the mean distance for percent of Blacks in the 90th percentile for Superfund facilities was 0.48mi.ConclusionBurden disparities exist in the distribution of Superfund facilities in SC at the block and census tract levels across varying levels of demographic composition for race/ethnicity and SES.
Highlights
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Superfund is a federal government program implemented to clean up uncontrolled hazardous waste sites
In order for a Superfund site to be placed on the National Priorities List (NPL), the following procedures must be implemented: 1) an alleged hazardous waste site must be proposed to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), 2) public comments must be accepted for the site, and 3) the USEPA must respond to the comments and places the sites on the NPL that meet certain inclusion criteria [1]
While there were some limitations in the methodology, the study found significant differences in the proportion of populations living within a Superfund host and non-host census tract for Black and NonWhite populations, populations below povertyline, populations with less than a high school education, populations with a home built before 1950, unemployed persons, Black and White populations in poverty, as well as Black and White populations with less than a high school education
Summary
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Superfund is a federal government program implemented to clean up uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. The Superfund program was established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to address abandoned hazardous waste sites [1]. These abandoned sites are thought to pose a significant threat to human health and the environment, and as a result, may qualify for placement on the USEPA’s Superfund list to receive federal cleanup funds [2]. Environmental justice The geographic distribution of Superfund sites has always been a controversial issue because research has shown that hazardous waste sites are differentially located in predominately Non-White and low-income communities. The aforementioned results suggest that race/ethnicity may be the principal driver of environmental inequity
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