TSD Facilities Location and Environmental Justice

Stephan J Goetz,Donald J Kemlage

doi:10.52324/001c.8962

Abstract

After controlling for cost-and demand-related factors affecting the profitability of operating hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal (TSD) facilities, we find that higher shares of minority population and poverty rates are associated with a statistically higher probability that one or more TSD facilities are present in a county. Evidence regarding the relationship between minorities and the number of TSD facilities per capita is mixed. An inverse Kuznet’s U-type effect is found to exist between per capita income and the probability of TSD location.

Highlights

The term "environmental injustice" has been used recently to describe situations in which costs of environmental pollution are spread unevenly over the population
After controlling for each of these revenue- and cost-related variables affecting the profitability of operating a TSD facility, we may test whether any variation remains in the dependent variable that is associated with the share of different minorities and the poverty rate in the county
The probit estimation yields a positive coefficient estimate for the linear per capita income term, and a negative coefficient for the quadratic term, suggesting that an inverse-U effect exi'sts between TSD facilities and income. This implies that both low and high income groups are less likely to reside in counties with TSD facilities than are middle-income groups, which may suggest that low income groups on average consume fewer goods requiring large amounts of toxic waste disposal, while high-income groups are able to avoid having TSDs locate in their neighborhoods

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The term "environmental injustice" has been used recently to describe situations in which costs of environmental pollution are spread unevenly over the population. Economists have previously focused on trade-offs among policy instruments for controlling environmental externalities (Hahn and Stavins 1992; Helfand 1991 ), including measurement of benefits and costs of environmental programs and willingness to pay for abatement and effects of abatement on the consumption of market goods across income groups (Cropper and Oates 1992) They have paid less attention to identifying broader socioeconomic factors associated with the location of hazardous waste sites. This point is discussed in more detail at the end of the Results section Minorities and those living in poverty may migrate to communities with TSD sites to take advantage of lower-cost housing and (potentially) higher-paying jobs associated with the waste facility. A related discussion appears in Been (1994, pp. 1392-7)

A TSD FACILITIES LOCATION MODEL

RESULTS

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION