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Abstract
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.
Highlights
The issue of environmental inequality has sparked a high volume of research since the late 1980s
The aim of this study is to identify communities in Lubbock County that exist within relatively close proximity to environmental hazard sites
Using GIS and spatial analysis, we examine the relationship between distance to facilities releasing hazardous substances and the spatial distribution of income, race across Lubbock County
Summary
The issue of environmental inequality has sparked a high volume of research since the late 1980s. Waste sites, intermodal rail yards and chemical processing plants are examples of facilities that pose a health risk to local residents due to the hazardous materials processed and stored there Many such facilities have historically been located in industrial zones adjacent to or occupied by low-income communities.[1,2] When low-income and high minority concentrations overlap with exposure to hazardous waste this situation has been termed environmental inequality.[3,4,5]. The 1920s cotton boom drew the first significant numbers of Hispanics and Blacks as agricultural laborers In these early years, Hispanics were largely an itinerant population, whiles Blacks began to settle on the city’s outskirts.[15,16] As early as 1909, anti-Black sentiment in Lubbock was exemplified in Whites fear that the African-American population would cause an increase in crime and a decrease in property values.[16] This hostile sentiment towards the Black community came before the city had permanent African-American residents. This, changed when the first African Americans purchased property in Lubbock County between 1913 and 1915.16 Both the City of Lubbock and smaller surrounding communities had codified housing segregation ordinances, yet these small communities did not gain significant minority populations until the later 20th century
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