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{{#Wiki_filter:Environmental Health Perspectives VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 277We analyze whether environmentally haz-ardous industrial facilities, power plants , municipal solid waste combustors (incinera-tors), toxic waste sites, land~lls of all types, an dtrash transfer stations are unequally distribute dregarding the income and/or racial composi-tion of communities in Massachusetts.
W eused demographic data from the 1990 U.S.Ce nsu s , as wel l a s data c oll ected in t h e sprin gand summer of 2000 from the Massachusett sDepartment of Environmental Protectio n(DEP), U.S. Environmental Protectio nAgency (U.S. EPA), and the Massachusett sToxics Use Reduction Institute, to analyze th eexposur e rates o f all 35 1 citie s a n d t own s(minor civil divisions, or MCDs) in the stat eto the environmentally hazardous industria lfacilities and sites listed above. Although 200 0U.S. Census data would have been mor eappropriate for us to use, it was not availabl eat the time. At least one study shows tha tbiases to the distribution of ecological hazard sworsen over time (1).In addition to these 351 cities and town sin Massachusetts, we also included seve nsubtowns or neighborhoods within the large rtown of Barnstable:
Barnstable, Centerville
,Cotuit, Hyannis, Marstons Mills, Osterville
,and West Barnstable.
We also includ e 1 2subtowns or neighborhoods within th elarger city of Boston: Allston/Brighton
,Charlestown, Dorchester, East Boston, Hyd ePark, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Roslindale
,Roxbury, South Boston, West Roxbury, an dDowntown Boston (for the purposes of th ereport, Downtown Boston encompasse sCentral Boston and Chinatown, Back Ba y a n d Beac o n Hil l , t h e South E nd, a n d th eFenway/Kenmore neighborhoods).
Becaus ethese more specic neighborhoods makin gup all of Boston and Barnstable are included ,summary data for all-Boston and all-Barnstable are excluded from the totals. As aresult, a total of 368 communities are ana-lyzed in this report. Only in Tables 1 and 2of this report, where the most overburdene dcommunities in the state are ranked, ar eBoston and Barnstable as "all neighborhood scombined" reintroduced to create a total o f370 communities.
)Each of the 368 communities is classi~e dby class and racial composition.
Media nhousehold income determines the clas sstatus of a community (1), low income ,$0-$29,999; (2) medium-low income ,$30,000-$39,999; (3) medium-high income ,$40,000-$49,999; and (4) high income ,$5 0 , 000 and above. Thes e cat egories r ee c treasonable cuto points in the data because ,rst, the data have no distinct gaps in th eincome distribution of towns, and second, th e$4 0 , 000 cuto p o i n t divid e s the lower- a n dhigher-income communities into roughl yequally sized halves (Table 3). The distribu-tion of incomes takes the shape of a relativel ynormal curve with a mean of $41,293 and astandard deviation of $11,742. We selected a$10,000 decrease/increase from $40,000 onthe basis of generating reasonably sized group swith easily recognizable boundaries.
Th elower-income groups are not intended t oindicate poverty conditions
.The percentage of total population mad eup of people of color determines the racia lcomposition of a community, which w ecoded as follows, (1) low minority, less tha n5% people of color; (2) moderately lo wminority, 5-14.99%; (3) moderately hig hminority, 15-24.99%;
and (4) high minor-ity, 25% and greater. The vast majority o ftowns in Massachusetts have very smal lminority populations of less than 5%.However, when we analyzed the remainin gtowns (Table 4), 10% increases in populatio nproportions seemed logical for generating rel-atively acceptable frequencies in each cate-gory. The distribution of non-Whit epopulations as percentage of total populatio nis extremely positively skewed, with a mea nof 4.5% and a standard deviation of 9.5.Only nine communities in the state hav ebetween 15 and 24.99% people of color, an d11 communities have 25% or more
.We made comparisons of low- and high-in come c ommunitie s and o f l o w-minority-and high-minority-status communities i nterms of exposure rates to environmentall yhazardous industrial facilities, waste sites ,power plants, incinerators, trash transfer sta-tions, and land~lls of all types. As illustrate din Table 5, we assigned a point total to eac hfacility or site based on our assessment of th erelative risks it typically represents to th ecommunity.
We then added these poin t t ota l s for each community and divid e d b ytotal area t o arriv e at a density g ure. T h edensity gure provides a more accurat eassessment of the environmental hazard sconfronting a given community because i tThis article is part of t h e monograph Advancin gEnvironmental Justice through Community-Base d Participatory Research.Address correspondence to E.J. Krieg, Dept. o fSociology, Bualo State College, 1300 Elmwoo dAv e., B ual o , NY 14222 U S A. Tele phon e: (71 6)878-6629. Fax: (716) 878-4009. E-mail: kriegej@bualostate.edu For their invaluable research assistance, we thankK. Fredricks, T. Zilliox, E. Bourgeois, A. Gross-man, H. Tenney, W. Hope, S. Peck, S. Weinstein,P. Bakely, P. Hunter, P. Loh, K. Smalls, V. Eady , and M. Wilson. The authors remain solely respon-sible for the content of this report.Received 13 August 2001; accepted 2 3 November 2001.Environmental Justic eThis study analyzes the social and geographic distribution of ecological hazards across 368 commu-nities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Combining census data with a variety of environ-mental data, we tested for and identi~ed both income-based and racially based biases to th egeographic distribution of 17 dierent types of environmentally hazardous sites and industria lfacilities.
We also developed a composite measure of cumulative exposure to compare the relativ eoverall risks characteristic of each community.
To the best of our knowledge, this point syste mmakes this the ~rst environmental justice study to develop a means for measuring and rankin gcumulative exposure for communities.
The study also controls for the intensity of hazards in eac hcommunity by accounting for the area across which hazards are distributed.
The ndings indicat e that ecologically hazardous sites and facilities are disproportionately located and concentrated incommunities of color and working-class communities.
The implication of this research for policy-makers and citizen advocates is that cumulative exposure of residents to environmentally hazardou sfacilities and sites should receive greater consideration regarding community demographics an denvironmental health indicators.
We conclude that the provision of additional resources for envi-ronmental monitoring and ranking, as well as yearly progress reports, is necessary for communitie sand state agencies to achieve equal access to clean and healthy environments for all residents.
Ke yword s: environmental justice, environmental policy, exposure assessment, hazardous waste sites ,public health, toxic release inventory.
Environ Health Perspect 110(suppl 2):277-288 (2002)
.http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2002/suppl-2/277-288faber/abstract.html Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Daniel R. Faber 1 and Eric J. Krieg 2 1 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; 2 Department of Sociology, Bu~alo State College, Bu~alo, New York, USA    Exhibit CLE000027    Submitted 12/22/11 controls for the size the community and the severity of the facility/site. Among our nd-
ings: low-income communities face a cumu-
lative exposure rate to environmentally
hazardous facilities and sites that is 3.134.04
times greater than that for all other commu-
nities (measured by median household
income) in the state. In addition, high-
minority communities face a cumulative
exposure rate to environmentally hazardous facilities and sites that is nearly nine times greater than that for low-minority communi-
ties. Clearly, not all communities in
Massachusetts are polluted equallyÑlower-
income communities and communities of
color are disproportionately impacted.We define environmental injustice as unequal access to healthy and clean envi-
ronments, including environmental ameni-
ties. We can better understand this broad definition in light of the definition of envi-ronmental justice, which we borrow from
Bryant (2).Although we do not limit our definitions of environmental racism and
environmental classism to conditions charac-
terized by an overburden of ecological haz-
ards, we consider such overburdens to be
indicators of both environmental racism and
environmental classism. We also stress that
this study makes no attempt to argue causal Environmental Justice
¥Faber and Krieg 278 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002
¥Environmental Health Perspectives Table 2. Most extensively overburdened communities in massachusetts (total points per town).
Points per RankTownTotal pointssquare mileClass status of townRacial status of town
1Boston (all)3,97284Low income ($29,180)High minority (37%)
2Worcester1,24832.4Low income ($28,955)Moderatelow minority (12.7%)
3 Downtown Boston a1,014224.8Low income ($29,468)High minority (31.9%)
4Springeld99930.1Low income ($25,656)High minority (31.2%)
5Cambridge820115.0Mediumlow income ($33,140)Moderatehigh minority (24.9%)
6New Bedford61925.8Low income ($22,647)Moderatelow minority (12.2%)
7Waltham61144.9Mediumlow income ($38,514)Moderatelow minority (8.7%)
8Lowell61142.0Low income ($29,351)Moderatehigh minority (18.8%)
9East Boston556123.3Low income ($22,925)Moderatehigh minority (23.6%)10Framingham53720.3Mediumhigh income ($42,948)Moderatelow minority (9.6%)
11Brockton50223.2Mediumlow income ($31,712)Moderatehigh minority (19.6%)
12Dorchester49081.3Low income ($29,468)High minority (50.7%)
13Pittseld49011.6Low income ($29,987)Low minority (4.6%)
14Lynn48836.2Low income ($28,553)Mod.high minority (17.0%)
15Fall River47712.5Low income ($22,452)Low minority (2.7%)
16Newton46725.6High income ($59,719)Moderatelow minority (7.0%)
17Woburn46135.7Mediumhigh income ($42,679)Low minority (3.0%)
18Chicopee45118.9Low income ($28,905)Low minority (4.4%)
19Natick44327.6Mediumhigh income ($49,229)Low minority (4.7%)
20Somerville442104.7Mediumlow income ($32,455)Moderatelow minority (11.3%)Total16 of 20 towns most extensively overburdened 9 of 20 towns most extensively overburdened towns are lower income status ($39,999 or less)are of higher minority status (15% or more) a For the purposes of this report, downtown Boston encompasses Central Boston and Chinatown, Back Bay and Beacon Hill, the South End, and the Fenway/Kenmore neighborhoods.
Cumulative data on the median household income is not available, but appears to fall below the $29,179 gure for Greater Boston as a whole (a low-income category).
Table 1. Most intensively overburdened communities in Massachusetts (total points per square mile).
Points per RankTown namesquare mileClass status of townRacial status of town 1 Downtown Boston a224.8Low income ($29,468)High minority (31.9%)
2Charlestown134.3Mediumlow ($35,706)Moderatelow minority (5.1%)
3Chelsea127.4Low income ($24,144)High minority (30.3%)
4South Boston126.2Low income ($25,539)Low minority population (4.2%)
5East Boston123.3Low income ($22,925)Moderatehigh minority (23.6%)
6Cambridge115.0Mediumlow income ($33,140)Moderatehigh minority (24.9%)
7Somerville104.7Mediumlow income ($32,455)Moderatelow minority (11.3%)
8Roxbury101.3Low income ($20,518)High minority (94.0%)
9Allston/Brighton100.0Low income ($25,262)High minority (26.9%)10Watertown98.6Mediumhigh income ($43,490)Low minority (3.8%)
11Everett98.1Mediumlow income ($30,786)Moderatelow minority (6.0%)
12Boston (all neighborhoods)84.0Low income ($29,180)High minority (37%)
13Dorchester81.3Low income ($29,468)High minority (50.7%)
14Lawrence59.3Low income ($22,183)High minority (34.9%)
15Malden57.8Mediumlow income ($34,244)Moderatelow minority (10.1%)Totals15 towns14 of the 15 most intensively overburdened towns 9 of the 15 most intensively overburdened towns are are of lower-income status (less than $40,000)of higher minority status (15% or more people of color) a Downtown Boston encompasses Central Boston and Chinatown, Back Bay and Beacon Hill, the South End, and the Fenway/Kenmore neigh borhoods.Table 3. Median household income.Income bracketFrequency%Valid %Cumulative %$0 to $29,9995013.613.613.6$30,000 to $39,99913737.237.250.8
$40,000 to $49,99911431.031.081.8
$50,000 or more6718.218.2100.0Total368100.0100.0 Table 4.Percentage of population that is non-White.Income bracketFrequency%Valid %Cumulative %Less than 5%29981.381.381.3514.99%4913.313.394.6 1524.99%92.42.497.0 25% or more113.03.0100.0Total368100.0100.0 associations between social and environmen-tal conditions. It is descriptive in its orienta-
tion alone, and neither the data nor the type
of analysis allows for discussions of causality.
Unequal Exposure toHazardous Waste Sites In thousands of communities across the United States, billions of pounds of highly
toxic chemicals, including mercury, dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls, arsenic, lead, and
heavy metals such as chromium, have been
dumped in the midst of unsuspecting neigh-
borhoods. These sites poison the land, cont-
aminate drinking water, and potentially
cause cancer, birth defects, nerve and liver
damage, and other illnesses. In a 1991 study, the National Research Council found that
over 41 million people lived within 4 miles
of at least one of the nations roughly 1,500 Superfund waste sites(3). Although these dumps are the worst of the worst, in 1993
the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment
estimated that the United States has as many
as 439,000 other hazardous waste sites (4).In Massachusetts, 32 sites, located (totally or partially) in 42 towns, are on the U.S. EPA
NPL, or Superfund, list. The Fort Devens site
encompasses parts of the towns of Ayer, Shirley, Lancaster, and Harvard. The Ford
DevensSudbury Training Annex site encom-
passes parts of the towns of Sudbury, Maynard, Hudson, and Stow. The Hanscom
Field/Hanscom Air Force Base site encom-
passes parts of Bedford, Concord, Lexington, and Lincoln. The Otis Air National Guard/
Camp Edwards site encompasses parts of
Falmouth, Bourne, Sandwich, and Mashpee.
The South Weymouth Naval Air Station site
encompasses parts of Weymouth, Abington, and Rockland. The W.R. Grace & Company, Inc., site encompasses parts of Acton and
Concord. The remaining 26 sites are located
in single towns (5). These towns are home to more than 1,072,017 residents, including 70,491 people of color. Approximately61,000 people live within a 3-mile radius of
the Iron Horse Park Superfund site in North
Billerica. In addition to these Superfund sites, Massachusetts has over 21,000 DEP haz-
ardous waste sites. Together, 3,389 of these
Superfund or DEP sites are considered to pre-
sent health risks.
For residents living near Superfund andother major toxic waste sites, the National
Research Council also found a disturbing pattern of elevated health problems, includ-
ing heart disease, spontaneous abortions and
genital malformations, and death rates;
infants and children suffer a higher inci-
dence of cardiac abnormalities, leukemia, kidneyurinary tract infections, seizures, learning disabilities, hyperactivity, skin dis-
orders, reduced weight, central nervous sys-
tem damage, and Hodgkins disease (68).Scientists also believe that exposure to indus-
trial chemicals contributed to the dramatic
increases since the 1950s in cancer of the
testis, prostate gland, kidney, breast, skin, and
lung, as well as malignant myeloma, non-
Hodgkins lymphoma, and numerous child-
hood cancers (911)Ñattributable to the death of half a million Americans each year.
In Massachusetts, elevated rates of leukemia (especially among children) have been linked
to the industrial chemical trichloroethylene
found in the town of Woburns drinking
water, as well as tetrachloroethylene in drink-
ing water on the Upper Cape (1214).Massachusetts now has one of the highest
rates of breast cancer in the countryÑsome
4,400 women are diagnosed and 1,000
women die each year. Women living on Cape
Cod are particularly vulnerable, with a 20%
higher rate of breast cancer than women liv-
ing elsewhere in the state (15).Many current policy initiatives may be intensifying problems they were designed to
cure. Most environmental laws require busi-
nesses to contain pollution sources for more
proper treatment and disposal (in contrast to
the previous practice of dumping on-site or
into nearby commons). Once the pollution is
trapped, the manufacturing industry pays
the state or a private company for its treat-ment and disposal. The waste, now com-
modified, becomes mobile, crossing local, state, and even national borders in search of
efcient (i.e., low-cost and politically feasi-
ble) areas for treatment, incineration, and/or
disposal. More often than not, the waste sites
and facilities are themselves hazardous and
located in poor or working-class neighbor-
hoods and communities of color (1618).In this respect, an environmental issue affecting
the general population has been addressed in
a manner that displaces the problem in a new
form onto more politically marginalized sec-
tors of the population (19).Hazardous waste sites nationwide are among the more concentrated environmen-
tal hazards confronting low-income neigh-
borhoods and communities of color.
According to a 1987 report by the United
Church of Christs Commission on Racial
Justice (20), three of every five African Americans and Latinos nationwide live in
communities that have illegal or abandoned toxic dumps. Communities with one haz-ardous waste facility have twice the percent-
age of people of color as those with none, and the percentage triples in communities
with two or more waste sites. A subsequent
follow-up study conducted in 1994 has now
found the risks for people of color to be even
greater than in 1987: they are 47% more
likely than Whites to live near these poten-
tially health-threatening facilities (21). In short, race and poverty are the two most crit-
ical demographic factors for determining
where commercial hazardous waste facilities
are located in the United States (including
hazardous waste generators of all sizes across
Massachusetts) (22). Industry itself often blatantly states that the disempowered of
American society should serve as the dump-
ing ground for American business. A 1984
report by Cerrell Associates for the
California Waste Management Board, for
instance, openly recommended that pollut-
ing industries and the state locate hazardous
waste facilities in lower socio-economic
neighborhoods because those communities
had a much lower likelihood of offering
political opposition (23).Federal governmental enforcement actions also appear to be uneven regarding
the class and racial composition of the
impacted community. According to a 1992
nationwide study, Superfund toxic waste
sites in communities of color are likely to be
cleaned 1242% later than are sites in White
communities. Communities of color also
witness average government penalties for
violations of hazardous waste laws ($55,318)
that are only one sixth the average penalty
assessed in predominantly White communi-
ties ($335,566). The study also concluded
that the government takes an average of
20% longer to place toxic waste dumps in
minority communities on the NPL, or
Superfund, list for cleanup than it does in
placing sites located in White areas (24).Massachusetts currently has over 21,038 hazardous waste sites, including 3,389 more
serious Tier III sites, according to March
2000 DEP data (25). As required under state law, hazardous waste sites must be ranked
according to the severity of their risk to
human health and the environment. The
DEP has developed a tier classification sys-
tem for determining the danger level of a
hazardous waste site to the public health and Environmental Justice
¥Unequal exposure to ecological hazards Environmental Health Perspectives
¥VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 279 Table 5.Environmental hazard point system.
Points for rating severity of each Type of hazardous facility or sitefacility or siteDEP hazardous waste site (general)1 DEP hazardous waste site (Tier III)5 U.S. EPA NPL (Superfund) waste site25 Large power plantÑtop ve polluter25 Small power plant10 Proposed power plant5 TURA industrial facility5 Municipal incinerator20 Resource recovery facility10 Incinerator ash landll5 Demolition landll3 Illegal site5 Sludge landll5 Tire pile5 Municipal solid waste landll5Trash transfer station5 the environment. Sites can be classified as Tier IA, IB, IC, or II, with Tier IA sites
requiring the most stringent oversight and
Tier II the least. We used a numerical rank-
ing sheet (NRS) to calculate the numerous
ecological and public health factors that
determine a sites classification. The NRS
has ve main sections (25): 1. The exposure pathways section evaluates the ways a person can be exposed to tox-
ics, specically the soil, groundwater, sur-
face water, and air.
: 2. The disposal site characteristics section evaluates the toxicity of the released mate-
rial(s).3. The human population and land uses sec-tion evaluates the potential risks based on
nearby population and land and water
uses.4. The ecological population section evaluates the potential risks posed to the environ-
ment based on the sites proximity to
sensitive areas such as wetlands and
endangered species.
: 5. The mitigating disposal site specic condi-tions section takes into account conditions at the site not otherwise factored into the
NRS.DEP ranks a large number of the most serious Tier IA sites in suburban areas rather than in urban areas such as Boston, citing
drinking water issues as one of the primary
reasons. The presence of a hazardous waste
site in a larger urban area where the drinking
water is transported from a distant reservoir
may not pose the same threat as it would in
a suburban/rural community dependent on
local groundwater sources.
As indicated in Table 6, a signicant con-centration of both Tier III and nontier sites appear to be concentrated in lower-income communities in Massachusetts. Communities
where median household income is less than
$30,000 contain an average of 120.9 DEP
hazardous waste sites, whereas communities
where the median household income is
$30,000 or greater contain an average of
41.950.2 hazardous waste sites. As a result, low-income communities average roughly
23 times more DEP hazardous waste sites
than higher-income communities.
However, if lower-income communities are typically larger in size, one would expect them to have a higher number of such sites.
To control for the size of the community, we
calculated the number of sites per square mile
to obtain a more accurate exposure rate. This
revealed an even more pronounced class bias.
Low-income communities, where median
household income is less than $30,000, aver-
age nearly 14 DEP hazardous waste sites per
square mile. In contrast, higher-income com-
munities, where median household income is
$30,000 or more, average 3.14.1 hazardous
waste sites per square mile. Thus, low-income
communities have approximately 3.54 more
hazardous waste sites per square mile than
higher-income communities. These figures
remain relatively consistent with comparisons
of the more serious Tier III hazardous waste
sites. In short, low-income communities in
Massachusetts experience a far higher expo-
sure rate to DEP hazardous waste sites than
higher-income communities.
These disparities repeat for communities of color. In Massachusetts, communities
where people of color compose less than 5%
of the population average 41.2 DEP haz-
ardous waste sites, whereas communities
where people of color compose 25% or more of the population average 162.5 sites.
Communities considered moderately high
minority (where people of color compose
1524.99% of the population) average nearly
190 sites. As a result, higher-minority com-
munities, where people of color compose
15% or more of the population, average well
over 4 times as many DEP hazardous waste
sites as low-minority communities.
To control for the size of the community, we calculated the number of sites per square
mile to obtain a more accurate exposure rate.
This revealed an even more pronounced
racial bias. High-minority communities aver-
age 27.2 DEP hazardous waste sites per
square mile, whereas low-minority commu-
nities average 2.9 hazardous waste sites per
square mile. Thus, high-minority communi-
ties have 9 times more hazardous waste sites
per square mile than low-minority communi-
ties. These figures remain consistent with
comparisons of the more serious Tier III
hazardous waste sites. In short, communities
of color experience a far higher exposure rate
to DEP hazardous waste sites than predomi-
nantly White communities, indicating that
race is strongly associated with the location of
tier and nontier hazardous waste sites in
Massachusetts (Table 7).
Only in the case of U.S. EPA Superfund sites do the class and racial biases associated
with DEP hazardous waste sites disappear.
This trend could be accounted for by the high number of Superfund sites on military
facilities often located in rural and suburban
locales near more afuent communities, par-
ticularly on Cape Cod. At least 47 Tier IA
sites are in Bourne because of contamination
from the Massachusetts Military Reservation (Figure 1).
Environmental Justice
¥Faber and Krieg 280 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002
¥Environmental Health Perspectives Table 6.Class-based disparities in the location of hazardous waste sites.DEP tier III Towns with Average number Average number Number DEP hazardoushazadous U.S. EPA of DEP hazardous of DEP hazardous Median household income of towns (% waste siteswaste sitesSuperfund siteswaste sites waste sites (1990 U.S. Census category) of all towns)Count(%)MeanCount(%)MeanCount(%)Meanper townper square mile$0 to $29,999 (low)50(13.6)6,044(28.7)120.9987(29.1)19.75(10.4)0.10120.913.9$30,000 to $39,999 (mediumlow)137 (37.2)6,863(32.6)50.11,101(32.5)8.014(29.2)0.1050.14.1
$40,000 to $49,999 (mediumhigh)114 (31.0)4,771(22.7)41.9742(21.9)6.517(35.4)0.1541.93.1
$50,000 or more (high)67(18.2)3,360(16.0)50.2559(16.5)8.312(25.0)0.1850.23.2Totals 368 (100)21,038(100)3,389(100)48(100)63.35.0 Information on all hazardous waste sites was provided by DEP and U.S. EPA databases in March 2000. All DEP waste site informati on provided above includes U.S. EPA Superfund sites as part of the count.
Table 7. Racially-based disparities in the location of hazardous waste sites.DEP tier III Towns with Average number Average number Number DEP hazardoushazadous U.S. EPA of DEP hazardous of DEP hazardous Non-White population of towns (% waste siteswaste sitesSuperfund siteswaste sites waste sites (1990 U.S. Census category) of all towns)Count(%)MeanCount(%)MeanCount(%)Meanper townper square mile514.99% (lowmoderate)49 (13.3)5,219(24.8)106.5849(25.1)17.316(33.3)0.33106.59.0 1524.99% (moderatehigh)9 (2.4)1,708(8.1)189.8257(7.6)28.63(6.3)0.33189.823.4 25% or more (high)11 (3.0)1,787(8.5)162.5314(9.3)28.60(0.0)0.00162.527.2Totals368 (100)21,038(100)3,389(100)48(100)63.0 Information on all hazardous waste sites was provided by DEP and U.S. EPA databases in March 2000. All DEP waste site informati on provided above includes U.S. EPA Superfund sites as part of the count.
Unequal Exposure to Landllsand Transfer Stations Landlls can also pose hazards to communi-ties. Seven former Massachusetts landlls are
now federal Superfund sites. Even newer land-
lls, which are lined with plastic, can threaten
underground water supplies. Tables 8 and 9
provide data on seven different types of land-
lls and related facilities: incinerator ash land-
lls, demolition landlls, illegal sites, sludge
landlls, tire piles, municipal solid waste land-lls (garbage dumps), and trash transfer sta-
tions. Of these sites, incinerator ash landlls are typically most hazardous, because y ash
wastes produced by incinerators and power
plants contain concentrated levels of heavy
metals such as arsenic, lead, and cadmium; radioactive elements; cancer-causing organic
compounds; and other contaminants.
Massachusetts has a total of 954 differentlandfill types, of which the majority (566)
are garbage dumps. As outlined in the
Tables 8 and 9, the states landlls and trash
transfer stations are concentrated in lower-
income communities and communities of
color. In communities where the median
household income is less than $30,000, there are 0.18 of these landfill-types per
square mile, a gure slightly higher than the
0.130.15 rates for higher-income commu-
nities. Municipal solid waste landfills make
up 57.5% of all landll types and are found
in 91.3% of all communities, making them relatively constant across all communities.
When municipal solid waste landfills are
removed from the analysis, it is clear that
lower-income communities (<$40,000 aver-
age income) have a much greater proportionof every other type of landfill than higher-income communities ($40,000 or above).
For instance, whereas lower-income commu-
nities make up 50.8% of all towns in the
state, they are home to 58.9% of all inciner-ator ash landfills, 66.7% of all demolition
landlls, 71.4% of all illegal sites, 74.5% of all sludge landfills, 69.5% of all tire piles, and 58.9% of all transfer stations.
Racially based biases to the distribution of landfill types are prominent. Analyzing all
landll types, communities where people of
color compose less than 5% of the population
average 0.13 of all landfill types per square mile, whereas communities where people of
color compose 25% or more of the population
average 0.36 landll types per square mile, a
rate nearly 3 times higher. These data clearly
reveal race biases and class biases to the loca-
tion of all landll types, with the exception of
municipal solid waste landlls.
Unequal Exposure to Polluting Industrial Facilities American industry produces enormous quantities of pollution and toxic waste each
year. According to the U.S. EPA Toxic
Release Inventory (TRI) for 1998, some
23,000 facilities reported a total of 7.3 bil-
lion pounds of chemical pollutants released
into the nations air, water, land, and under-
ground areas. The vast majority of these pollutants&#xd1;93.9% (or 6.9 billion pounds)
&#xd1;were released into the environment
directly on-site (26). Thus, citizens who work and reside in the communities in Environmental Justice
&#xa5;Unequal exposure to ecological hazards Environmental Health Perspectives
&#xa5;VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 281 Figure 1.Unequal exposure to hazardous waste sites, compared with an average of 4.94 sites per square mile for all 368 Massachusetts communities in 2000. (A) Exposure to hazardous waste sites by race. (B)Exposure to hazardous waste sites by class.
30 20 10 0 Less than 5%5 to 14.99%15 to 24.99%25% or more Mean number of sites per square mile Percentage of population that is non-White A 3 9 23 27 16 14 12 10 8 6
4 2
0$0 to$29,999$30,000 to
$39,999$50,000 or more$40,000 to
$49,999 Mean number of sites per square mile Median household income B 14 4 33 Table 8. Class-based disparities in the location of all landll types.Number IncineratorMunicipal Average AverageMedian householdof towns ashDemolitionIllegalSludgeTiresolid waste Transfernumber of all number of income (1990 U.S. (% of all landllslandllssiteslandllspileslandllsstationslandll types all landll types Census category) towns)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)per townper square mile$0 to $29,999 (low)50 (13.6)2 (11.8)8 (20.5)7 (33.3)12 (20.3)5 (21.7)69 (12.2)33 (14.4)2.90.18$30,000 to $39,999 137 (37.2)8 (47.1)18 (46.2)8 (38.1)32 (54.2)11 (47.8)203 (35.9)102 (44.5)2.80.13 (med.low)$40,000 to $49,999114 (31.0)7 (41.2)9 (23.1)5 (23.8)12 (20.3)5 (21.7)185 (32.7)62 (27.1)2.50.15 (med.high)$50,000 or more 67 (18.2)0 (0.0)4 (10.3)1 (4.1)3 (5.1)2 (8.7)109 (19.3)32 (14.0)2.30.14 (high)Totals368 (100)17 (100)39 (100)21 (100)59 (100)23 (100)566 (100)229 (100)2.60.15 Information on all landlls was provided by DEP databases in April 2000.
Table 9. Racially based disparities in the location of all landll types.Number IncineratorMunicipal Average AverageNon-White pop-of towns ashDemolitionIllegalSludgeTiresolid waste Transfernumber of all number of ulation (1990 U.S. (% of all landllslandllssiteslandllspileslandllsstationslandll types all landll types Census category) towns)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)per townper square mileLess than 5% (low)299 (81.3)11 (64.7)30 (76.9)14 (66.7)50 (84.7)21 (91.3)445 (78.6)180 (78.6)2.50.13514.99% 49 (13.3)5 (29.4)4 (10.3)3 (14.3)5 (8.5)2 (8.7)92 (16.3)35 (15.3)3.00.16 (lowmoderate)1524.99%9 (2.4)0 (0.0)3 (7.7)0 (0.0)4 (6.8)0 (0.0)17 (3.0)8 (3.5)3.60.30 (moderatehigh)25% or more (high)11 (3.0)1 (5.9)2 (5.1)4 (19.0)0 (0.0)0 (0.0)12 (2.1)6 (2.6)3.10.36 Totals368 (100)17 (100)39 (100)21 (100)59 (100)23 (100)566 (100)229 (100)2.60.15 Information on all landlls was provided by DEP databases in April 2000.
which these facilities are located typically experience much greater exposure rates to
industrial pollutants (27).Exposure to industrial pollution&#xd1;espe-cially air pollution&#xd1;is proving deadly to tens
of thousands of citizens. Human exposure to
hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) can result in
both acute and chronic health effects. Short-
term, acute effects can include eye irritation, nausea, difculty breathing, asthma, or even
death. Long-term, chronic effects include
damage to the respiratory or nervous systems, birth defects and damage to reproductive sys-
tems, neurological disorders, and cancer.
Aggravated by the exhaust from over 200 mil-
lion motor vehicles (particularly in larger met-
ropolitan areas), industrial air pollution kills
over 60,000 Americans each year. Half a mil-
lion people living in the most polluted areas
in 151 cities across the country face a risk of death that is 1517% higher than that for
those living in the least polluted areas (28).In Massachusetts, poor air quality poses aserious threat to public health. According to data provided by the U.S. EPA Cumulative
Exposure Project (CEP), every county in
Massachusetts has levels of key airborne toxic
chemicals in the form of volatile organic com-
pounds that exceed health-based state levels.
At least 16 toxic compounds exceed the
acceptable levels of concentration set by both
federal regulatory agencies and the Allowable
Ambient Limits, a health-based risk standard
of the DEP (29,30). For instance, concentra-tions of benzene, 1,3-butadiene, formalde-
hyde, and acrolein&#xd1;chemicals that are
known to cause numerous adverse health
effects, including neurological disorders, birth
defects, reproductive disorders, and respira-
tory diseases&#xd1;exceed Massachusetts allowable
ambient limits in all counties by up to 80
times. Nearly 1,300 deaths are caused by par-
ticulate air pollution in Massachusetts statisti-
cal metropolitan areas each year (31).In recent years, a number of studies have been conducted on the unequal exposure to
air pollution and other environmental haz-
ards. The ndings of these studies point to a
consistent pattern of environmental racism
and class-based ecological injustices (32).Within Americas urban areas, for instance, lower-income people (particularly those liv-
ing below the poverty level) are found to be
more exposed to combined concentrations
of air pollutants than higher-income popula-
tions. Similarly, people of color are consis-
tently exposed to significantly more air pollution nationwide than are Whites, with
a gap that is wider and more consistent than
that for income bias (33,34). According to the U.S. EPA, 57% of all Whites nationwide
live in areas with poor air quality, compared
to 80% of all Latinos (35). In Los Angeles, 71% of the citys African Americans and 50% of the Latinos are estimated to live in what are categorized as the most polluted
areas, compared to only 34% of Whites
(36). Unequal exposure to air pollutants for lower-income families and people of color is further aggravated by substandard housing, inadequate healthcare, a lack of public parks
and safe spaces, and a lack of social services.
In a previous study, Maxwell (37,38)explored whether polluting industrial land
uses were differentially distributed regarding
the racial (percentage of minority population)
and class (median family income and percent-age living in poverty) compositions of 351
cities and towns in Massachusetts. Maxwell also examined whether higher intensities of
polluting land uses were associated with
increased incidence of certain cancers. The
study used demographic and land use data
from three time points spanning the 35-year
period from 1950 to 1985, as well as historical
data on industry. The study sought to answer
two questions:
a) Are there inequities in the social distribution of polluting land uses across
Massachusetts communities?
b) Are higher intensities of polluting land uses associated
with increased cancer in Massachusetts com-
munities? This study found that traditional
manufacturing industries (associated with the
old economy) inequitably burdened lower-
income, higher-poverty, and higher-minority
communities. The results of the regression
analyses of land use and cancer also suggested that higher intensities of total manufacturing
and industrial/commercial land uses were asso-
ciated with a higher incidence of lung cancer (and probably also bladder cancer and non-
Hodgkins lymphoma) (39).A 1993 study of Essex, Hampden, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Worcester
counties in Massachusetts between 1987 and
1992 with data collected by the U.S. EPA
under the federal Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA) (40) found that the vast majority of people of color are concentrated in the counties where 82.7% of the states large quantity generators (LQG) of toxic materials
and all commercial hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal (TSD) facilities are
located. However, a closer analysis of Suffolk
County found that 13.2% of LQG/TSD facil-
ities were located in the mostly minority com-
munities (census block groups) and that 26.4% of the facilities were located in the
mostly White communities. Thus, it did not
appear that in Suffolk County LQG and TSD facilities were concentrated in minority com-
munities. Likewise, the study also found that
34% of these facilities were located in the
poorest communities (measured by quartiling
block groups)&#xd1;with a median income of
$21,615 or less&#xd1;whereas 22.6% of facilities
were found in the wealthiest communities
with a median income of $37,452 or more.
Here we summarize information from the states Large Quantity Toxics Users who
reported to the Massachusetts Toxics Use
Reduction Act (TURA) program from 1990
to 1998 (1998 is the most recent year that
TURA data are available) (41). TURA began in 1989 with the goal of reducing toxic waste
generation by 50% by 1997. The program
includes a database of toxic waste use similar
to that of the federal TRI but with more
detailed information. As required under
TURA, a company must report the quantity
and types of toxic chemicals it uses if it annu-
ally manufactures, processes, or uses 10,000
pounds of toxic chemicals or more. These
toxic chemicals pose a threat to nearby resi-
dents, workers, and the environment from
potential accidents, emissions on-site into the
immediate environment, worker handling, waste disposal, toxins in the product, and
product disposal.
Between 1990 and 1998, 1,029 distinct TURA facilities&#xd1;ranging from a high of 727 rms in 1991 to a low of 520 in 1998&#xd1;used
over 9.886 billion pounds of toxic chemicals
in production (values do not include quanti-
ties for chemicals considered trade secrets).
During this same time, these large industrial
facilities produced 370,163,204 pounds of
chemical waste byproduct that they reported
as transferred off-site for recycling, recovery, treatment, and/or disposal. Another 164,385,598 pounds of toxic chemical waste
byproduct they released on-site directly into
the environment (discharged into the air, ground, underground areas, or adjacent bod-
ies of water) of the communities in which
they were located&#xd1;an amount equivalent to
2,055 tractor-trailer trucks each loaded with
80,000 pounds of toxic waste (42,43). The electric, gas, and sanitary services sector is the
largest source of on-site releases to the envi-
ronment under TURA. In 1998, the 28 rms
in this sector accounted for 39% of all on-site
releases, 71% of which were hydrochloric
acid. The chemical and allied products sector, which represents a little over half of total
statewide use, accounted for 13% of total on-
site releases and 31% of off-site transfers.
As shown in Table 10, communities with a median household income of less than
$30,000 or between $30,000 to $39,999
compose 50.8% of all communities in
Massachusetts but are home to 66.2% of all
TURA facilities and 85.6% of all chemicals
used by TURA facilities between 1990 and 1998. More important, communities with
these median household incomes received
78.7% of all chemical emissions into the
local environment by TURA facilities during
this time. Although communities with
median household incomes of $40,000 or
more represent nearly half of all communities in the state (49.2%), they house only 33.8
%Environmental Justice
&#xa5;Faber and Krieg 282 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002
&#xa5;Environmental Health Perspectives of all TURA facilities, 21.3
%of all chemical emissions, and 14.4
%of all chemicals used by TURA facilities from 1990 to 1998.
In fact, as shown in Table 11, communi-ties with a median household income of less
than $30,000 average 6.3 TURA facilities per
town, 932,910 total pounds of chemical emis-
sions released into the environment per town, and 73,061 total pounds of chemical emis-
sions per square mile of town space for
19901998. This contrasts sharply with com-
munities with median household incomes of
40,000$49,999, which average 1.8 TURA
facilities per town, 161,028 total pounds of
chemical emissions per town, and 10,937
pounds of chemical emissions per square mile
of town space. In comparison with upper-
income communities (median household income $40,000 or more), low-income com-
munities average over three times as many
TURA industrial facilities, three times as
many TURA industrial facilities per squaremile, 3.755.79 times as many pounds of chemical emissions into the environment per
town, and roughly seven times as many
pounds of chemical emissions per square mile.
Thus, the data indicate that the class status of a community is a signicant predictor of the
level of exposure to TURA industrial facilities
and emissions. The data indicate that lower-
income communities bear a greatly dispropor-tionate burden of the pollution emitted by
these types of industrial facilities.
The data also show that communities of color are overburdened. Although communi-
ties where people of color compose less than
15%of the population account for 86.2
%ofall chemical emissions and 84.1
%of all TURA facilities, they also account for 94.6
%of all communities in the state. Although
communities where people of color compose
15%or more of the population receive only 13.8%of all TURA emissions and house 15.9% of all TURA facilities, they compose only 5.4%of towns in the state (Table 12).
Table 13 shows that communities where peo-
ple of color compose 25
%or more of thepopulation average 8.8 TURA facilities and
1.1 TURA facilities per square mile, com-
pared to an average of just 2 facilities and
0.12 facilities per square mile for communi-
ties where people of color compose less than
5% of the population. In short, high-minority
communities average over 4 times as many
TURA industrial facilities and over 9 times as
many TURA industrial facilities per square
mile as do low-minority communities in Massachusetts. Furthermore, higher-minority
communities (where 15% or more of the
population are people of color) average 1,061,0411,216,360 total pounds of chemi-
cal emissions from TURA industrial facilities and 110,718123,770 pounds of chemical
emissions from TURA facilities per square
mile for 19901998, compared to just
342,579 pounds of total chemical emissions Environmental Justice
&#xa5;Unequal exposure to ecological hazards Environmental Health Perspectives
&#xa5;VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 283 Table 13.
Racially based disparities in the exposure rate to TURA industrial facilities (19901998).Average number Average number Average total TURA Average total TURA Non-White population Number of town of TURA facilities of TURA facilities chemical emissions chemical emissions (1990 U.S. Census category) (% of all towns)per townper square mile(lb) per town(lb) per square mileLess than 5% (low)299 (81.3)2.00.12343,57922,735514.99% (lowmoderate)49 (13.3)5.40.40796,68986,014 1524.99% (moderatehigh)9 (2.4)7.40.751,216,369123,77025% or more (high)11 (3.0)8.81.11,061,041110,718 Table 10.
Class-based disparities in the location and emission levels of TURA industrial facilities (19901998).Median household Number of TURA total chemical TURA total chemicalTURA total Number of distinct income (1990 U.S. towns (% of emissions (lb)transfers (lb)chemical use (lb)TURA facilitiesCensus category) all towns)Count(%)MeanCount(%)MeanCount(%)MeanCount(%)Mean$0 to $29,999 (low)50 (13.6)46,645,477(28.4)932,910101,318,279(27.4)2,026,3664,476,070,293(45.3)89,521,406317(30.8)6.3$30,000 to $39,999 137 (37.2)82,734,924(50.3)603,905188,923,288(51.0)1,379,0023,981,354,062(40.3)29,060,979364(35.4)2.7 (medlow)$40,000 to $49,999 114 (31.0)18,357,199(11.2)161,02853,110,764(14.3)465,884734,856,631(7.4)6,446,111201(19.5)1.8 (medhigh)$50,000 or more (high)67 (18.2)16,647,998(10.1)248,47826,810,873(7.2)400,162693,992,469(7.0)10,358,097147(14.3)2.2Totals368 (100)164,385,598(100)370,163,204(100)9,886,273,455(100)1,029(100)
Table 11.
Class-based disparities in the exposure rate to TURA industrial facilities (19901998).Average number Average number of Average total TURA Average total TURA Median household income Number of towns of TURA facilities TURA facilities chemical emissions chemical emissions (lb) (1990 U.S. Census category)(% of all towns)per townper square mile(lb) per townper square mile$0 to $29,999 (low)50 (13.6)6.30.49932,91073,061$30,000 to $39,999 (medlow)137 (37.2)2.70.21603,90555,524
$40,000 to $49,999 (medhigh)114 (31.0)1.80.13161,02810,937$50,000 or more (high)67 (18.2)2.20.12248,47812,502 Table 12.Racially based disparities in the location and emission levels of TURA industrial facilities (19901998).Non-White pop-Number of TURA total chemicalTURA total chemical TURA total Number of distinctulation (1990 U.S. towns (% of emissions (lb)transfers (lb)chemical use (lb)TURA facilitiesCensus category) all towns)Count (%) MeanCount (%) MeanCount (%) MeanCount (%) MeanLess than 5% (low)299 (81.3)102,730,053(62.5)343,579219,844,801(59.4)735,2675,051,993,299(51.1)16,896,299601(58.4)2.0514.99%49 (13.3)39,036,778(23.7)796,669114,887,155(31.0)2,344,6361,885,264,731(19.1)38,474,790264(25.7)5.4 (lowmoderate)15 to 24.99%9 (2.4)10,947,318(6.7)1,216,36914,415,034(3.9)1,601,670182,564,805(1.8)20,284,97867(6.5)7.4 (moderatehigh)25% or more (high)11 (3.0)11,671,449(7.1)1,061,04121,016,214(5.7)1,910,5652,766,450,620(28.0)251,495,51197(9.4)8.8Totals368 (100)164,385,598(100)370,163,204(100)9,886,273,455(100)1,029(100) and 22,735 pounds of chemical emissions per square mile for low-minority communities.Thus, in comparison with low-minority communities, high-minority communities
average roughly 33.5 times as many pounds of chemical emissions into the environment from local TURA facilities and 4.865.44
times as many pounds of chemical emissions
per square mile. Thus, the racial status of a community once again appears to be a major
factor in the level of exposure to TURA indus-
trial facilities and pollution. The data indicate
that communities of color bear a greatly dis-
proportionate burden of the pollution emitted
by these types of facilities (Figure 2).
Unequal Exposure to Power Plants The electric power industry is one of the most polluting industries in New England and the
entire country. In 1998, electric utilities gen-
erated 1.1 billion pounds of toxic chemical
emissions nationwide, according to U.S.
EPATRI data. In fact, electric utilities emis-
sions of sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid
pushed them near the top of the toxic inven-
tory in many states (44). Power plants are also major contributors to the formation of smog.
Smog, also called ground-level ozone, is formed when nitrogen oxides, emitted as a
byproduct of burning fossil fuels at electric
power plants and in automobiles, mix with volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight. Smog is a major trigger of asthma, increased lung inammation, coughing, and
emergency hospitalization due to respiratory
distress. The unhealthiest levels of smog are
generally recorded during the summer (45).Power plants are also major contributors of
gases that cause global warming and toxic
mercury emissions that seriously threaten
public health and environmental quality.
In Massachusetts, nearly 1,300 residents of statistical metropolitan areas die each year
from particulate air pollution (46). Air qual-ity continues to deteriorate. During the
summer of 1999, Massachusetts recorded 21
unhealthy air days, where the ozone level of
those days surpassed the allowable limit set
by the U.S. EPA. The people currently most
vulnerable to the effects of breathing smoggy
air are children, the elderly, and people with
asthma or other respiratory diseases (47).Despite ongoing attempts to control smog
and soot-forming pollutants, the risk of
developing cancer or reproductive, develop-
mental, or neurological disorders due to
chemical exposures in the air necessitates fur-
ther efforts in controlling air pollutants.Coal and oil-burning power plants, specically those plants built prior to 1977, are a major source of air pollution in the
state. In fact, utilities in Massachusetts are
responsible for over 60
%of the states soot-forming sulfur dioxide emissions, 15
%of the states smog-causing nitrogen oxide
emissions, and 30
%of the states heat-trap-ping carbon dioxide emissions. Sulfur diox-
ide emissions are the main precursor to the
creation of soot&#xd1;tiny particles that pene-
trate deep into the throat and lungs. Fossil-
fuel power plants are also responsible for
more than 800 pounds of airborne mercury
emissions every year. Mercury causes severe
damage the neurological system and has
developmental effects on fetuses and small
children (48). Mercury is so toxic that a mere one third of a teaspoon is enough to
render the fish of a 25-acre lake unsuitable
for children and pregnant women to eat. As a result of a loophole in clean air laws, 14 plants in New England are legally polluting
at much higher levels than newer plants built
since 1977. The oldest fossil-fuel power
plants&#xd1;those built before 1977&#xd1;are not
required to meet the same emissions stan-
dards as newer, cleaner plants (49).As indicated in Table 14, the states power plants are disproportionately located
in communities of color and lower-income
communities. Although just 5.4
%of all communities in the state are communities
where people of color compose 15
%or more of the population, they are home to 18.2
%of all active power plants and 23.4
%of all proposed power plants in the state. Likewise, although 50.8
%of all towns in the state are communities where median household
income is less than $40,000, they are home
to 65.6%of all active power plants and 63
%of all proposed power plants.
Five of the dirtiest power plants in the state&#xd1;the Canal, Brayton Point, Salem
Harbor, Mount Tom, and Mystic plants&#xd1;
are legally emitting at 2.94.0 times the
emission rate of plants built after 1977. The
ve plants are responsible for 89
%of sulfur dioxide emissions and 57
%of nitrous oxide emissions from all stationary sources in
Massachusetts (the Brayton Point plant is the largest, most polluting power plant in all of
New England). In fact, these ve plants are
responsible for more than 50
%of the power plant pollution in all of New England, pro-
ducing more than 24 million tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions in 1998.
And pollution rates from these power plants
have been increasing substantially since 1996
(50,51). As a result, these ve power plants are the largest industrial sources of green-
house gasses in the state (52).As shown in Table 15, four of the five plants are located in low-income or moder-
ately low-income communities. Clearly, lower-income communities are disproportion-
ately burdened by the most polluting power
plants. In terms of racial bias, only the Mount
Tom power plant is located in a high-minority Environmental Justice
&#xa5;Faber and Krieg 284 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002
&#xa5;Environmental Health Perspectives Figure 2.
Unequal exposure to industrial pollution, compared with an average of 36,262 pounds of
chemical emissions per square mile during
19901998 for all 368 Massachusetts communi-
ties. (A) Exposure to chemical emissions by race.
(B) Exposure to chemical emissions by class.
140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0$0 to$29,999$30,000 to
$39,999$50,000 or more$40,000 to
$49,999 Less than 5%5 to 14.99%15 to 24.99%25% or more Mean emissions (lb) per square mile Mean emissions (lb) per square mile Median household income Percentage of population that is non-White A B 22,735 86,014 123,770 110,718 73,061 55,524 10,937 12,502 Table 14.
Racial and class-based disparities in the location of power plants.Number of DEP Number of DEP Number of active power proposed powertowns (% of plants (June 2000)plants (June 2000)1990 U.S. Census category all towns)Count(%)Count(%)
Non-White populationLess than 5% (low)299 (81.3)38(69.1)10(58.8) 514.99% (lowmoderate)49 (13.3)7(12.7)3(17.6) 1524.99% (moderatehigh)9 (2.4)7(12.7)3(17.6) 25% or more (high)11 (3.0)3(5.5)1(5.9)Totals368 (100)55(100)17(100)
Median household income$0 to $29,999 (low)50 (13.6)14(25.5)2(11.8)
$30,000 to $39,999 (mediumlow)137 (37.2)22(40.0)7(41.2)
$40,000 to $49,999 (mediumhigh)114 (31.0)16(29.1)7(41.2)
$50,000 and greater (high)67 (18.2)3(5.5)1(5.9)Totals368 (100)55(100)17(100) community (Holyoke); the remaining four power plants are located in low-minority or
moderately low-minority communities.
According to a 2000 report by the Harvard School of Public Health (53), cur-rent emissions from the 805 megawatt Salem
Harbor (Salem) and 1,611 megawatt Brayton
Point (Somerset) coal-fired power plants
alone can be linked to 43,300 asthma attacks
and nearly 300,000 daily incidents of upper
respiratory symptoms per year among the 32 million people residing in New England, eastern New York, and New Jersey. An addi-
tional 159 premature deaths can be attrib-
uted to this pollution each year. However, the health risks are greatest for those living in
communities adjacent to these plants.
Twenty percent of the total health impact
occurs in the 8
%of the population that lives within 30 miles of the facilities. The four
worst of these polluting power plants are all
located in communities where the median
household income is less than $40,000.
Thus, working-class communities once again appear to be unequally exposed to environ-mental hazards in Massachusetts.
Unequal Exposure to Incinerators Municipal solid waste combustors are facili-ties that combust solid waste derived in large
part from household wastes. In 19992000, Massachusetts had nine municipal solid waste combustors in operation, which burned
approximately 3.3 million tons of trash each
year. These incinerators contribute to massive
water and air pollution and related public
health problems. For instance, garbage incin-
erators emit more mercury than any other
source in the state (54). Mercury, which is especially toxic to children and pregnant
women, has been linked to kidney and ner-
vous system damage and developmental
defects. The U.S. EPA has identified these
facilities as being a major source of mercury
emissions to the environment, and DEP esti-
mates that these facilities emit approximately
6,040 pounds of mercury into the air each year. DEP testing of in-stack concentrations for mercury emissions from these facilities in
1994 detected averages twice the new U.S.
EPA limits (55). In addition to air emissions, mercury may also exit these facilities in the
form of ash, especially fly ash. As much as
another 6,000 pounds of mercury is captured
by the air pollution control devices installed at
these facilities.
As shown in Table 16, six of these nine incinerators are located in communities
where median household income is less than
$40,000. Only one of the nine incinerators
is located in a community where the average median household income is $50,000 or
more. Lower-income communities (less than
$40,000) have twice the number of incinera-
tors as do higher-income communities
($40,000 or more). Although class consider-
ations seem to be of some importance in the
siting of these facilities, only one of the nine
incinerators is located in a community where
people of color compose 15% or more of the
population. In fact, this is one of the few
types of environmentally hazardous facilities
in Massachusetts for which there does not
appear to be a racial bias.
Unequal Community Exposure to Cumulative
Environmental Hazards Many past studies on the disproportionate exposure of low-income communities and
communities of color have focused on single
indicators of environmental hazards. This
study provides a composite measure to assess
community exposure rates that includes all
hazardous facilities and sites. We have devel-
oped a point system that weighs the average
risks of each type of hazardous facility/site to arrive at a cumulative measure of commu-
nity exposure to all potential hazards, shown
in Table 17.
We recognize the potential threats to the validity of such a point system. One threat lies
in variations in the severity of similar hazard
types. For example, we assigned each
Superfund site 25 points, yet the risks posed by these sites are likely to vary depending on
types of materials they contain, environmen-
tal medium through which exposure occurs, size and proximity of nearby populations, and
so forth. Second, the relative weights we
assigned to different types of hazards may be
problematic. For example, one Superfund site
may not be equivalent to 25 DEP sites. To
assess how well our point system represents current opionion in the eld, we distributed
the point system to a number of authorities
including scholars and professionals at the
Massachusetts DEP, who responded that the
point system seemed valid to them.
To determine the cumulative exposure to environmentally hazardous facilities and sites, Environmental Justice
&#xa5;Unequal exposure to ecological hazards Environmental Health Perspectives
&#xa5;VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 285 Table 15.
Unequal exposure to the top ve power plant (fossil fuel) polluters in Massachusetts.Income status Racial status SO 2 rate in JanJune Power plantTownof townof town1999 (lb/mmBTU)Salem HarborSalemMediumlowModerately low minority 1.20Mount TomHolyokeLow High minority1.20 Brayton PointSomersetMediumlowLow minority1.10 MysticCharlestownMediumlowModerately low minority 1.03CanalSandwichMediumhighLow minority0.87 Table 16.
Unequal exposure to municipal solid waste combustors (MSWCs).Mercury in-stack Average annual Income statusRacial statusU.S. EPA limit 80amount of mercuryTownof townof town(&#xb5;g) (dscm)emitted (tons/year)N. AndoverHighLow minority297.01.11LawrenceLowHigh minority 276.00.41 MillburyMedium lowLow minority183.00.52 HaverhillMedium lowModerate163.00.35 low minorityAgawamMedium lowLow-minority153.10.08 PittseldLowLow minority61.40.01 RochesterMedium highLow minority61.00.11 Fall RiverLow incomeLow minority25.6N/A SaugusMedium highLow minority17.00.4Total6 of 9 towns 1 of 9 towns is 160.03.02 (6,040 lb)are lower incomehigher minority dscm, dry standard cubic meter. Some 117 medical waste incinerators are also listed in the DEP Division of Air Quality Control Stationary Source Enforcement Inventory System (56).Table 17.
Unequal exposure to all types of hazardous facilities/sites combined.Number of towns Average number of 1990 U.S. Census category (% of all towns)points per square mile Non-White populationLess than 5% (low)299 (81.3)6.4 514.99% (lowmoderate)49 (13.3)18.7 1524.99% (moderatehigh)9 (2.4)42.7 25% or more (high)11 (3.0)57.0Totals368 (100)
Median household income$0 to $29,999 (low)50 (13.6)27.9
$30,000 to $39,999 (mediumlow)137 (37.2)8.9
$40,000 to $49,999 (mediumhigh)114 (31.0)7.0
$50,000 or more (high)67 (18.2)6.9Totals368 (100) we totaled the points for each hazardous facil-ity and site in each community. Because geo-
graphically larger communities could have
more facilities and sites, we controlled for the geographic size of each community by calcu-
lating the average number of hazard points
per square mile, a more valid measure of
exposure rate. We found gross imbalances in
average point totals for lower-income com-
munities and communities of color based on
points per square mile. As shown in Table 17, communities where people of color compose
less than 5
%of the population average only 6.4 points per square mile, compared to 57
points per square mile for communities where
people of color compose 25% of the popula-
tion or more. In other words, high-minority
communities face a cumulative exposure rate
to environmentally hazardous facilities and
sites that is nearly nine times greater than that for low-minority communities. In fact, there
is a consistently sharp increase in the cumula-tive exposure rates to these hazardous facili-
ties/sites that directly corresponds to increases
in the size of the minority population in all communities. Without question, communi-
ties of color appear to be greatly overbur-
dened in comparison with low-minority
communities and are unequally exposed to
environmental hazards of almost every kind.
Likewise, communities where median household income is less than $30,000 average an exposure rate of 27.9 points per square mile, which dramatically contrasts with the
exposure rates for communities where median
household income is $30,000 or greater, which ranges from 6.9 to 8.9 points per square
mile. As a result, low-income communities
face a cumulative exposure rate to environ-
mentally hazardous facilities and sites that is
3.134.04 times greater than that for all other
communities in the state. As is the case with communities of color, low-income communi-
ties are disproportionately exposed to environ-mental hazards of all kinds. Ecological racism
and class-based environmental injustices
appear to be widespread in Massachusetts.
Table 1 conrms this claim, showing the communities that have the greatest densities of
environmentally hazardous industrial facilities
and sites. We have constructed an exposure
rate using the method described above (whereby the point totals for all hazards pre-
sent in the community are added together and
then divided by the total area). As shown in
Table 1, 14 of the 15 most intensively over-
burdened towns in Massachusetts have
median household incomes of less than
$40,000. In fact, 9 of the 15 towns have
median household incomes less than $30,000.
Likewise, 9 of the 15 most environmentally
overburdened towns in the state have popula-tions comprising 15% or more people of
color. And 6 of the 15 towns have populations
comprising 25% or more people of color. This
is signicant in light of the fact that only 20 communities in the entire state have popula-
tions comprising 15
%or more people of color&#xd1;and nearly half are among the 15 most
intensively overburdened communities.In Table 2, we analyze the 20 communi-ties with the greatest number of environmen-
tally hazardous industrial facilities and sites.
Using the same method described for Table
1(except that we do not control for size of the community or density of hazardous facili-
ties/sites), Table 2 reveals that 16 of the 20
most extensively overburdened towns in
Massachusetts have median household incomes of less than $40,000. In fact, 11 of
the worst 15 towns have median household
incomes less than $30,000. In terms of race, we similarly nd that 9 of the 15 most exten-
sively overburdened towns in the state are of
higher-minority status, where people of color
compose 15% or more of the population.
Again, this is significant in light of the fact
that only 20 communities in the entire state
have 15% or more racial minorities. In fact, when we combine Tables 1 and 2 and elimi-
nate overlapping towns, we find that 13 of
the 25 most environmentally overburdened
towns in the state are communities of color (where people of color compose 15% or
more of population). As a result, two of every
three communities of color in the state are among the 25 most environmentally over-burdened towns. In fact, citizens residing in a
community of color in Massachusetts are 19
times more likely to live in one of these 25
most overburdened communities.The conclusion to be drawn from this preliminary analysis is that the communities
most heavily burdened with environmentally
hazardous industrial facilities and sites are
overwhelmingly low-income towns and/or
communities of color. Clearly, not all
Massachusetts residents are polluted equally
&#xd1;working class and people of color popula-
tions are disproportionately impacted (Figure 3).
What Can Be Done?
Addressing Problems of
Environmental Injustice in
Massachusetts Massachusetts should be accountable to all of its residents and strive for equal protection from pollution and other environmental
threats. When any citizen is unwillingly
harmed by exposure to industrial toxic pollu-tants found in the environment, an injustice
is being perpetrated. So that no citizen of any
community be put at risk, government agen-
cies on all levels must deepen efforts to reduce
the overall level of dangerous pollutants cur-
rently found in the environment, as well as in
our schools, homes, and workplaces. In this
regard, TURA is a model program that should be expanded. Likewise, DEP should
take additional steps to reduce the overall
waste stream, increase recycling, and continue
a moratorium on new landlls and incinera-tors. Similarly,capping the cumulative emis-
sions of power plants will reduce emissions in
Massachusetts by tens of thousands of tons. It
would also ensure that newer, cleaner plants benet from a level playing eld by removing
the pollution subsidy old plants currently
enjoy. Major cleanups of these plants can take
place without major implications for jobs or
energy reliability.
In addition to working for an overall reduction in the amount of pollution, Massachusetts needs to undertake a series of
special initiatives to address the environ-
mental injustices that exist in the state. As
suggested by the evidence presented in this
report, all people are not polluted equally in
Massachusetts. Ecologically hazardous
industrial facilities and waste sites are instead
disproportionately located in communities of
color and lower-income communities. As a
result, citizens do not share the same access to
a healthy environment. Massachusetts needs
to develop and implement a plan to reduce
these disparities for ecologically overburdened
communities, beginning with public hearings
on environmental injustices so that those who Environmental Justice
&#xa5;Faber and Krieg 286 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002
&#xa5;Environmental Health Perspectives Figure 3.
Unequal exposure to all hazardous facili-ties and sites combined, compared with an aver-
age of 10.4 points per square mile cumulative
exposure rate for all 368 Massachusetts communi-
ties. (A) Exposure to cumulative hazards by race.
(B) Exposure to cumulative hazards by class.
30 20 10 0 60 50 40 30 20 10 0$0 to$29,999$30,000 to
$39,999$50,000 or more$40,000 to
$49,999 Less than 5%5 to 14.99%15 to 24.99%25% or more Mean total points per square mile Mean total points per square mile Median household income Percentage of population that is non-White A B 27 9 77 6 19 43 55 are affected can voice their concerns. As part of these efforts, the state must also begin to more
systematically address the environmental injus-
tices documented in this report. This includes
the establishment of local, state, and federal
government programs and policies that ensure
environmental equity; avoid the siting of
future hazardous facilities/sites in already over-
burdened lower-income communities and
communities of color; provide resources to
these overburdened communities to create
environmental amenities that can partly offset
other environmental risks; and promote
greater citizen participation in the problem-
solving and decision-making processes that
affect those communities. Elected officials, policymakers, government agency staff, com-
munity activists, and ordinary citizens must
work together to overcome the environmental
injustices that exist in Massachusetts.
Furthermore, it is important that any strategies
simultaneously address environmental injus-
tices in both the racial and class contexts.
Otherwise, efforts to redress one type of
inequity over others could serve to foster con-
tinued inequity in other groups.
Additional recommendations that the state could adopt for ensuring environmental jus-
tice in Massachusetts include the following:
a) Massachusetts should pass an environ-mental justice law that will ensure equal pro-
tection and additional resources for
overburdened areas. Such a new environ-
mental justice law, currently under consider-
ation by the Massachusetts legislature, should do the following:
&#xa5;Make environmental protection a civil
right protected under law.
&#xa5;Create regulations for Areas of Critical
Environmental Justice Concern (ACEJC)
that would qualify areas overburdened by
pollution, hazardous facilities, and sites
and/or suffering from poor health for
higher scrutiny in environmental permit-
ting and greater levels of resources for
cleanup and remediation. Such an act could
amend the duties and responsibilities of the
Executive Ofce of Environmental Affairs (chapter 21A, section 2) and call for the
development of statewide policies regarding
the protection and use of areas of critical
environmental concern to Massachusetts.
&#xa5;Establish toxic-free buffer zones around
sensitive receptors such as schools and day-
care and healthcare facilities.
b) Massachusetts should increase the level of resources for the DEP and the Executive
Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA).
The capacity of the DEP and EOEA to suc-
cessfully address issues of environmental
injustice would require the provision of addi-
tional funding, staff, and other resources to
adequate levels. Additional responsibilities
should not placed on already overburdened state agencies without the necessary funding
to successfully perform the work.
c) DEP should also maintain its morato-rium on new landfills and incinerators.
Incinerators and many landlls pose unaccept-
able health risks to local residents and nearby
communities and should be eliminated. The
state should furthermore incorporate environ-
mental justice into all existing regulations, which need to be enforced everywhere, espe-
cially in lower-income communities and com-
munities of color. In particular, the following
policies and regulations need to integrate an
environmental justice orientation:
&#xa5;Environmental reviews under the
Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) should include explicit considera-
tion of disproportionate impact on low-
income communities and communities ofcolor.&#xa5;There should be strong oversight and
enforcement of regulations for hazardous
waste site cleanup (Massachusetts
Contingency Plan 21E). More resources
should be granted to the DEP to ensure
rapid and thorough cleanups, especially in
overburdened areas.
d) Massachusetts should review and, when necessary, halt the provision of eco-
nomic development incentives for projects
that will contribute more pollution to
already overburdened areas. Development
incentives such as tax credits and low-cost
loans should not be offered to projects that
increase pollution in areas already overbur-
dened with pollution sources. To assist in
this process, the state should track and mon-
itor environmental disparities:
&#xa5;A number of factors, such as housing dis-crimination, bank lending policies, local
planning and zoning practices, licensing
and permitting processes, and the geo-
graphic distribution of public services, transportation networks, industries, and
so forth, play some role in creating envi-
ronmental injustices. The state should
undertake and/or sponsor additional
investigations to better understand the
sources of environmental injustice.
&#xa5;DEP does an excellent job of making its
databases available to the public. These
efforts can be further enhanced by keeping
track of its progress on reducing environ-
mental disparities. This information should
be accessible to the public over the internet.
Additionally, more health and environmen-
tal monitoring needs to be implemented in
areas of high concerns. The state should
ensure that the DEP receives adequate
resources to perform these functions.
e) Finally, Massachusetts should adopt the precautionary principle over standard
risk-assessment procedures when addressing
environmental issues in overburdened communities. The precautionary principle
says that if there is a strong possibility of
harm (instead of a scientically proven cer-
tainty of harm) to human health or the envi-
ronment from a substance or activity, precautionary measures should be taken.
Under current approaches to risk assessment
in the state, environmental policy is oriented
to promoting the dispersion of pollution to
what are considered safe levels of public
exposure. However, if pollution is instead
highly concentrated in certain communities, as we have shown, then this approach is inad-
equate. Overburdened communities must be
granted additional protections as offered by
the precautionary principle, which includes
promoting additional study of activities of
concern, shifting the burden of proof so that
a chemical/activity is proven safe, and provid-
ing incentives for preventive behavior, and/or
measures such as bans or phase-outs of sub-
stances suspected of causing harm. The time
has come for the legislature and state ofcials
to work hand in hand with the environmen-
tal justice movement and community repre-
sentatives to end environmental racism and
promote new models of clean production
and sustainable economic development.
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Racial Justice, 1994.
: 2. The following denition of environmental justice is taken
from Bryant B (ed). Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions Washington, DC:Island Press, 1995;6.
Environmental Justice: Environmental justice (EJ) is broader in scope that environmental equity. It refers to
those cultural norms and values, rules, regulations, behaviors, policies, and decisions to support sustainable
communities, where people can interact with condence
that their environment is safe, nurturing, and productive.
Environmental justice is served when people can realize
their highest potential, without experiencing the isms.
Environmental justice is supported by decent paying and
safe jobs; quality schools and recreation; decent housing
and adequate health care; democratic decision-making
and personal empowerment; and communities of vio-
lence, drugs, and poverty. These are communities where
both cultural and biological diversity and respected and
highly revered and where distributed justice prevails.3.National Research Council, Environmental Epidemiology:
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National Academy Press, 1991.
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number and type of hazardous waste facilities in the
approximately 35,5000 residential zip codes of the United States, along with data on percent minority population, mean household income, mean home value, number of uncontrolled toxic waste sites per 1,000 persons, and
pounds of hazardous waste generated per person.21. Goldman B, Fitton L. Toxic Waste and Race Revisited: An Update of the 1987 Report on the Racial and Socioeconomic Characteristics of Communities with
Hazardous Waste Sites. Washington, DC:Center for
Alternatives, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, and the United Church
of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 1994.
: 22. Spence L. Race, Class, and Environmental Hazards: A Study of Socio-economic Association with Hazardous
Waste Generators and Treatment/Storage/Disposal
Facilities in Massachusetts [Masters Thesis]. Medford, MA:Tufts University, 1995.23. Roque J. Review of EPA report: environmental equity:
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35(5):2528 (1993).24. Lavelle M, Coyle M. Unequal protection: the racial divide in environmental law. Natl Law J (September):212 (1992).25. For current data and definitions, see Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection website.
Available:
http://www.state.ma.us/dep/bwsc/sites/report 26. Of these on-site releases, 62.8% were to land, 29.9% were to air, 3.9% were to underground injection, and 3.4% were to surface water. There are now nearly 650 toxic chemi-
cals and chemical compounds on the list of chemicals
that must be reported to the U.S. EPA and the states
under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-
Know Act of 1986, which established the TRI program.
: 27. The 1998 TRI data and background information on the TRI program are available at http://www.epa.gov/tiinter/
tridata/index.htm
[accessed 15 March 2000].28. A study conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham Young University, and the
American Cancer Society, which was released on 10
March 1995 and appeared in the American Journal of
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mortality in ta prospective study of U.S. adults. Am J
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HAP and less than 24 tons per year of combined HAPs, emit 51% of all HAPs in the state. Examples include gas stations, dry cleaners, and small print shops. Point sources are stationary facilities that emit (or have the
potential to emit) 10 tons or more per year of any one of
the listed HAPs, or 25 tons or more per year of combined
HAPs. Point sources emit 7% of the total HAPs in the state. Examples of point sources include chemical plants, paper mills, power plants, and waste incinera-tors. Available:
http://www.state.ma.us/dep/bwp/daqc/
les/airtox.htm
[accessed 15 March 2001].
: 30. Toering M, Sargent R. Every Breath We Take: How Motor Vehicles Contribute to High Levels of Toxic Air
Pollution in Massachusetts. Boston:MASSPIRG
Education Fund, 8 July 1999;132.
: 31. Wiles R, Savitz J, Cohen B. Particulate Air Pollution in Boston: Human Mortality, Pollution Sources and the
Case for Tougher Clean Air Standards. Washington, DC:Environmental Working Group, 1997.
: 32. For a concise summary of these studies, see Mohai P, Bryant B. Demographic studies reveal a pattern of envi-
ronmental injustice. In: Environmental Justice (Petrikin J, ed). San Diego, CA:Greenhaven, 1995;1024.33. Gelobter M. Toward a model of environmental discrimi-nation. In: Race and the Incidence of Environmental
Hazards: A Time for Discourse (Mohai P, Bryant B, eds).
Boulder, CO:Westview, 1992;6481.34. Gianessi L, Peskin H, Wolff E. The distributional effects of uniform air pollution policy in the U.S. Q J Econom (May):281301 (1979). 35. Wernete D, Nieves L. Breathing polluted air: minorities are disproportionately exposed. EPA J(March/April):16 (1992).
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Strategy Center, 1991.37. Demographic data came from the U.S. Census; land use data are from a series of statewide aerial surveys, sup-
plemented by U.S. and Massachusetts Census of Manufactures data on manufacturing industry. Cancer
incidence data from 19821990 came from the
Massachusetts Cancer Registry. The cancers of con-
cern, selected on the basis of confirmed or tentative links to agricultural or industrial chemicals, are non-
Hodgkins lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, soft
tissue sarcoma, and cancers of the brain, stomach, prostate, bladder, kidney, lung, and breast.
: 38. Maxwell N. Land Use, Demographics, and Cancer Incidence in Massachusetts Communities [PhD Thesis].
Boston:Boston University, 1996.
: 39. The incidence of lung cancer was associated with industrial/commercial land use but only in specic years, which suggests that the high-tech industries dispropor-
tionately hosted by well-to-do suburbs do not cause the
same increase in lung cancer risk as does traditional, high-air-pollution manufacturing. 40. One can argue that towns are too large for detailed stud-ies of environmental injustice. The size of a town can
potentially mask racial or economic heterogeneity within
the town area. For instance, a town may have a 10%
minority population concentrated in a particular portion
of the town&#xd1;possibly the same section of town where
polluting industries and facilities are concentrated.
Analysis at the town level could mask the concentration
of hazards in minority neighborhoods.41. Some 520 large quantity toxics users reported to TURA dur-ing the 1998 calendar year (the latest year such data is cur-rently available). These companies reported using over
1.184 billion pounds of chemicals (not including trade secret
chemicals), of which over 132.6 million pounds were gener-
ated as waste by-product. Of this by-product, some 50.5 mil-
lion pounds of toxic chemicals were transferred off-site (for
recycling, recovery, treatment, or disposal), while another
12 million pounds were released on-site directly into the
environment (discharged into the air, ground, underground
areas, or adjacent bodies of water). When we incorporate
trade secret data into the 1998 TURA aggregate quantities, we nd that 1.380 billion pounds of chemicals were used by
state industry, 137 million pounds were generated as by-
product; and 64 million pounds of this by-product was either
released on-site into the environment or transferred off-site.42. TURA was enacted in 1989 and had a stated 10-year goal of reducing the generation of toxic waste by 50% from the base year of 1987 to 1997. From 1990, the first reporting year, to 1998, adjusted by-product production dropped 48%. Using the same adjustment method, TURA filers
have been equally successful in reducing their releases
of TRI reported on-site chemicals by 83% since 1990. 43. Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
1998 Toxics Use Reduction Information Release. Lowell, MA: A Report Developed in Conjunction with the Office
of Technical Assistance for Toxics Use Reduction, the
Toxics Use Reduction Institute, and the Executive Ofce
of Environmental Affair. Boston:Massachusetts
Department of Environmental Protection, Spring 2000.
: 44. For the first time, electric utilities and mining facilities were included in the Environmental Protection Agencys
annual toxic inventory 2000 report, which reviewed
seven industrial sectors.
: 45. Natural Resources Defense Council. Breathtaking:
Premature Mortality Due to Particulate Air Pollution in
239 American Cities. Washington, DC:Natural Resources
Defense Council, May 1996.46. Wiles R, Savitz J, Cohen BA. Particulate Air Pollution in Boston: Human Mortality, Pollution Sources and the Case for Tougher Clean Air Standards. Washington, DC:Environmental Working Group.
: 47. Stanfield B, Farleigh A, Porreco G. Danger in the Air:
Unhealthy Smog Days in 1999. Washington, DC:Clean Air
Network and U.S. Public Interest Research Group
Education Fund, January 2000;2.
: 48. Sargent R, Toering M. Dirty Power in the Northeast: A Report on the 1998 Emissions of the Northeasts Dirtiest
Power Plants. Boston:Campaign to Clean Up Polluting
Power Plants, 1999.
: 49. Older fossil-fuel power plants built during the 1940s through the 1960s create the vast majority of power plant
air pollution. In rewriting the 1970 Clean Air Act, amended in 1977 and 1990, electric industry lobbyists
successfully persuaded Congress that older plants
would soon be retired and therefore should be exempt
from strict, new emission standards. Instead, this loop-
hole has allowed owners of older, more polluting plants exempted from the modern standards to make bigger
profits and stay in operation longer compared with the
more expensive, cleaner, and newer power plants.50.Data for the rst half of 1999 show signicant increases in nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide and slight decreases for
sulfur dioxide (with the exception of the Brayton Point and
Canal plants, which showed considerable gains). However, it should be noted that the overall reductions in sulfur diox-
ide recorded during that time frame stemmed from the fact
that many units were shut down for repairs or mainte-
nance&#xd1;and not from improvement in air pollution control
technologies. Reports show that the Salem Harbor Plant in
Salem was in fact shut down for good amount of time due
to a re at the plant, thus resulting in lower emission out-
puts. Even taking this into account, the emission rate of sul-fur dioxide at Salem was still 4 times the emission rate of
new coal-re plants. The average emission rate of sulfur
dioxide for all of Massachusetts was 1.04 lb/mmBTU, 3.46
times the 0.3 lb/mmBTU rate for newer, cleaner coal plants.
: 51. Toering M, Sargent R, Luppi C. Pollution Rising: New England Power Plants Emissions Trends 1st Half 1998 vs.
1st Half 1999. Boston:A Report for the Campaign to Clean
Up Polluting Power Plants. Massachusetts Public
Interest Research Group, 1999.
: 52. Although they do not typically produce dangerous air pollution, the states nuclear power plants continue to
pose a threat of accidental radiation releases and are
responsible for 99% of the high-level radioactive waste.53. Levy J, Spengler J, Hlinka D, Sullivan D. Estimated PublicHealth Impacts of Criteria Pollutant Air Emissions from
the Salem Harbor and Brayton Point Power Plants.
Cambridge, MA:Harvard School of Public Health and
Sullivant Environmental Consulting, May 2000.
: 54. MASSPIRG urges cut in solid waste. MASSPIRG 17 (4):13 (Winter 2000).55. The DEP estimate is based on 19911994 stack test data.
Available:
http://www.state.ma.us/dep/files/mercury/
hgch3b.htm#table3x7
[accessed 15 March 2000].
: 56. For additional mercury data, see MassachusettsDepartment of Environmental Protection. Mercury in
Massachusetts: An Evaluation of Sources, Emissions, Impacts and Controls. Boston, MA, June 1996. Available:
http://www.state.ma.us/dep/files/mercury/
hgch3b.htm#table3x8
[accessed 15 March 2000].
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Environmental Health Perspectives VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 277We analyze whether environmentally haz-ardous industrial facilities, power plants , municipal solid waste combustors (incinera-tors), toxic waste sites, land~lls of all types, an dtrash transfer stations are unequally distribute dregarding the income and/or racial composi-tion of communities in Massachusetts.

W eused demographic data from the 1990 U.S.Ce nsu s , as wel l a s data c oll ected in t h e sprin gand summer of 2000 from the Massachusett sDepartment of Environmental Protectio n(DEP), U.S. Environmental Protectio nAgency (U.S. EPA), and the Massachusett sToxics Use Reduction Institute, to analyze th eexposur e rates o f all 35 1 citie s a n d t own s(minor civil divisions, or MCDs) in the stat eto the environmentally hazardous industria lfacilities and sites listed above. Although 200 0U.S. Census data would have been mor eappropriate for us to use, it was not availabl eat the time. At least one study shows tha tbiases to the distribution of ecological hazard sworsen over time (1).In addition to these 351 cities and town sin Massachusetts, we also included seve nsubtowns or neighborhoods within the large rtown of Barnstable:

Barnstable, Centerville

,Cotuit, Hyannis, Marstons Mills, Osterville

,and West Barnstable.

We also includ e 1 2subtowns or neighborhoods within th elarger city of Boston: Allston/Brighton

,Charlestown, Dorchester, East Boston, Hyd ePark, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Roslindale

,Roxbury, South Boston, West Roxbury, an dDowntown Boston (for the purposes of th ereport, Downtown Boston encompasse sCentral Boston and Chinatown, Back Ba y a n d Beac o n Hil l , t h e South E nd, a n d th eFenway/Kenmore neighborhoods).

Becaus ethese more specic neighborhoods makin gup all of Boston and Barnstable are included ,summary data for all-Boston and all-Barnstable are excluded from the totals. As aresult, a total of 368 communities are ana-lyzed in this report. Only in Tables 1 and 2of this report, where the most overburdene dcommunities in the state are ranked, ar eBoston and Barnstable as "all neighborhood scombined" reintroduced to create a total o f370 communities.

)Each of the 368 communities is classi~e dby class and racial composition.

Media nhousehold income determines the clas sstatus of a community (1), low income ,$0-$29,999; (2) medium-low income ,$30,000-$39,999; (3) medium-high income ,$40,000-$49,999; and (4) high income ,$5 0 , 000 and above. Thes e cat egories r ee c treasonable cuto points in the data because ,rst, the data have no distinct gaps in th eincome distribution of towns, and second, th e$4 0 , 000 cuto p o i n t divid e s the lower- a n dhigher-income communities into roughl yequally sized halves (Table 3). The distribu-tion of incomes takes the shape of a relativel ynormal curve with a mean of $41,293 and astandard deviation of $11,742. We selected a$10,000 decrease/increase from $40,000 onthe basis of generating reasonably sized group swith easily recognizable boundaries.

Th elower-income groups are not intended t oindicate poverty conditions

.The percentage of total population mad eup of people of color determines the racia lcomposition of a community, which w ecoded as follows, (1) low minority, less tha n5% people of color; (2) moderately lo wminority, 5-14.99%; (3) moderately hig hminority, 15-24.99%;

and (4) high minor-ity, 25% and greater. The vast majority o ftowns in Massachusetts have very smal lminority populations of less than 5%.However, when we analyzed the remainin gtowns (Table 4), 10% increases in populatio nproportions seemed logical for generating rel-atively acceptable frequencies in each cate-gory. The distribution of non-Whit epopulations as percentage of total populatio nis extremely positively skewed, with a mea nof 4.5% and a standard deviation of 9.5.Only nine communities in the state hav ebetween 15 and 24.99% people of color, an d11 communities have 25% or more

.We made comparisons of low- and high-in come c ommunitie s and o f l o w-minority-and high-minority-status communities i nterms of exposure rates to environmentall yhazardous industrial facilities, waste sites ,power plants, incinerators, trash transfer sta-tions, and land~lls of all types. As illustrate din Table 5, we assigned a point total to eac hfacility or site based on our assessment of th erelative risks it typically represents to th ecommunity.

We then added these poin t t ota l s for each community and divid e d b ytotal area t o arriv e at a density g ure. T h edensity gure provides a more accurat eassessment of the environmental hazard sconfronting a given community because i tThis article is part of t h e monograph Advancin gEnvironmental Justice through Community-Base d Participatory Research.Address correspondence to E.J. Krieg, Dept. o fSociology, Bualo State College, 1300 Elmwoo dAv e., B ual o , NY 14222 U S A. Tele phon e: (71 6)878-6629. Fax: (716) 878-4009. E-mail: kriegej@bualostate.edu For their invaluable research assistance, we thankK. Fredricks, T. Zilliox, E. Bourgeois, A. Gross-man, H. Tenney, W. Hope, S. Peck, S. Weinstein,P. Bakely, P. Hunter, P. Loh, K. Smalls, V. Eady , and M. Wilson. The authors remain solely respon-sible for the content of this report.Received 13 August 2001; accepted 2 3 November 2001.Environmental Justic eThis study analyzes the social and geographic distribution of ecological hazards across 368 commu-nities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Combining census data with a variety of environ-mental data, we tested for and identi~ed both income-based and racially based biases to th egeographic distribution of 17 dierent types of environmentally hazardous sites and industria lfacilities.

We also developed a composite measure of cumulative exposure to compare the relativ eoverall risks characteristic of each community.

To the best of our knowledge, this point syste mmakes this the ~rst environmental justice study to develop a means for measuring and rankin gcumulative exposure for communities.

The study also controls for the intensity of hazards in eac hcommunity by accounting for the area across which hazards are distributed.

The ndings indicat e that ecologically hazardous sites and facilities are disproportionately located and concentrated incommunities of color and working-class communities.

The implication of this research for policy-makers and citizen advocates is that cumulative exposure of residents to environmentally hazardou sfacilities and sites should receive greater consideration regarding community demographics an denvironmental health indicators.

We conclude that the provision of additional resources for envi-ronmental monitoring and ranking, as well as yearly progress reports, is necessary for communitie sand state agencies to achieve equal access to clean and healthy environments for all residents.

Ke yword s: environmental justice, environmental policy, exposure assessment, hazardous waste sites ,public health, toxic release inventory.

Environ Health Perspect 110(suppl 2):277-288 (2002)

.http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2002/suppl-2/277-288faber/abstract.html Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Daniel R. Faber 1 and Eric J. Krieg 2 1 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; 2 Department of Sociology, Bu~alo State College, Bu~alo, New York, USA Exhibit CLE000027 Submitted 12/22/11 controls for the size the community and the severity of the facility/site. Among our nd-

ings: low-income communities face a cumu-

lative exposure rate to environmentally

hazardous facilities and sites that is 3.134.04

times greater than that for all other commu-

nities (measured by median household

income) in the state. In addition, high-

minority communities face a cumulative

exposure rate to environmentally hazardous facilities and sites that is nearly nine times greater than that for low-minority communi-

ties. Clearly, not all communities in

Massachusetts are polluted equallyÑlower-

income communities and communities of

color are disproportionately impacted.We define environmental injustice as unequal access to healthy and clean envi-

ronments, including environmental ameni-

ties. We can better understand this broad definition in light of the definition of envi-ronmental justice, which we borrow from

Bryant (2).Although we do not limit our definitions of environmental racism and

environmental classism to conditions charac-

terized by an overburden of ecological haz-

ards, we consider such overburdens to be

indicators of both environmental racism and

environmental classism. We also stress that

this study makes no attempt to argue causal Environmental Justice

¥Faber and Krieg 278 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002

¥Environmental Health Perspectives Table 2. Most extensively overburdened communities in massachusetts (total points per town).

Points per RankTownTotal pointssquare mileClass status of townRacial status of town

1Boston (all)3,97284Low income ($29,180)High minority (37%)

2Worcester1,24832.4Low income ($28,955)Moderatelow minority (12.7%)

3 Downtown Boston a1,014224.8Low income ($29,468)High minority (31.9%)

4Springeld99930.1Low income ($25,656)High minority (31.2%)

5Cambridge820115.0Mediumlow income ($33,140)Moderatehigh minority (24.9%)

6New Bedford61925.8Low income ($22,647)Moderatelow minority (12.2%)

7Waltham61144.9Mediumlow income ($38,514)Moderatelow minority (8.7%)

8Lowell61142.0Low income ($29,351)Moderatehigh minority (18.8%)

9East Boston556123.3Low income ($22,925)Moderatehigh minority (23.6%)10Framingham53720.3Mediumhigh income ($42,948)Moderatelow minority (9.6%)

11Brockton50223.2Mediumlow income ($31,712)Moderatehigh minority (19.6%)

12Dorchester49081.3Low income ($29,468)High minority (50.7%)

13Pittseld49011.6Low income ($29,987)Low minority (4.6%)

14Lynn48836.2Low income ($28,553)Mod.high minority (17.0%)

15Fall River47712.5Low income ($22,452)Low minority (2.7%)

16Newton46725.6High income ($59,719)Moderatelow minority (7.0%)

17Woburn46135.7Mediumhigh income ($42,679)Low minority (3.0%)

18Chicopee45118.9Low income ($28,905)Low minority (4.4%)

19Natick44327.6Mediumhigh income ($49,229)Low minority (4.7%)

20Somerville442104.7Mediumlow income ($32,455)Moderatelow minority (11.3%)Total16 of 20 towns most extensively overburdened 9 of 20 towns most extensively overburdened towns are lower income status ($39,999 or less)are of higher minority status (15% or more) a For the purposes of this report, downtown Boston encompasses Central Boston and Chinatown, Back Bay and Beacon Hill, the South End, and the Fenway/Kenmore neighborhoods.

Cumulative data on the median household income is not available, but appears to fall below the $29,179 gure for Greater Boston as a whole (a low-income category).

Table 1. Most intensively overburdened communities in Massachusetts (total points per square mile).

Points per RankTown namesquare mileClass status of townRacial status of town 1 Downtown Boston a224.8Low income ($29,468)High minority (31.9%)

2Charlestown134.3Mediumlow ($35,706)Moderatelow minority (5.1%)

3Chelsea127.4Low income ($24,144)High minority (30.3%)

4South Boston126.2Low income ($25,539)Low minority population (4.2%)

5East Boston123.3Low income ($22,925)Moderatehigh minority (23.6%)

6Cambridge115.0Mediumlow income ($33,140)Moderatehigh minority (24.9%)

7Somerville104.7Mediumlow income ($32,455)Moderatelow minority (11.3%)

8Roxbury101.3Low income ($20,518)High minority (94.0%)

9Allston/Brighton100.0Low income ($25,262)High minority (26.9%)10Watertown98.6Mediumhigh income ($43,490)Low minority (3.8%)

11Everett98.1Mediumlow income ($30,786)Moderatelow minority (6.0%)

12Boston (all neighborhoods)84.0Low income ($29,180)High minority (37%)

13Dorchester81.3Low income ($29,468)High minority (50.7%)

14Lawrence59.3Low income ($22,183)High minority (34.9%)

15Malden57.8Mediumlow income ($34,244)Moderatelow minority (10.1%)Totals15 towns14 of the 15 most intensively overburdened towns 9 of the 15 most intensively overburdened towns are are of lower-income status (less than $40,000)of higher minority status (15% or more people of color) a Downtown Boston encompasses Central Boston and Chinatown, Back Bay and Beacon Hill, the South End, and the Fenway/Kenmore neigh borhoods.Table 3. Median household income.Income bracketFrequency%Valid %Cumulative %$0 to $29,9995013.613.613.6$30,000 to $39,99913737.237.250.8

$40,000 to $49,99911431.031.081.8

$50,000 or more6718.218.2100.0Total368100.0100.0 Table 4.Percentage of population that is non-White.Income bracketFrequency%Valid %Cumulative %Less than 5%29981.381.381.3514.99%4913.313.394.6 1524.99%92.42.497.0 25% or more113.03.0100.0Total368100.0100.0 associations between social and environmen-tal conditions. It is descriptive in its orienta-

tion alone, and neither the data nor the type

of analysis allows for discussions of causality.

Unequal Exposure toHazardous Waste Sites In thousands of communities across the United States, billions of pounds of highly

toxic chemicals, including mercury, dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls, arsenic, lead, and

heavy metals such as chromium, have been

dumped in the midst of unsuspecting neigh-

borhoods. These sites poison the land, cont-

aminate drinking water, and potentially

cause cancer, birth defects, nerve and liver

damage, and other illnesses. In a 1991 study, the National Research Council found that

over 41 million people lived within 4 miles

of at least one of the nations roughly 1,500 Superfund waste sites(3). Although these dumps are the worst of the worst, in 1993

the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment

estimated that the United States has as many

as 439,000 other hazardous waste sites (4).In Massachusetts, 32 sites, located (totally or partially) in 42 towns, are on the U.S. EPA

NPL, or Superfund, list. The Fort Devens site

encompasses parts of the towns of Ayer, Shirley, Lancaster, and Harvard. The Ford

DevensSudbury Training Annex site encom-

passes parts of the towns of Sudbury, Maynard, Hudson, and Stow. The Hanscom

Field/Hanscom Air Force Base site encom-

passes parts of Bedford, Concord, Lexington, and Lincoln. The Otis Air National Guard/

Camp Edwards site encompasses parts of

Falmouth, Bourne, Sandwich, and Mashpee.

The South Weymouth Naval Air Station site

encompasses parts of Weymouth, Abington, and Rockland. The W.R. Grace & Company, Inc., site encompasses parts of Acton and

Concord. The remaining 26 sites are located

in single towns (5). These towns are home to more than 1,072,017 residents, including 70,491 people of color. Approximately61,000 people live within a 3-mile radius of

the Iron Horse Park Superfund site in North

Billerica. In addition to these Superfund sites, Massachusetts has over 21,000 DEP haz-

ardous waste sites. Together, 3,389 of these

Superfund or DEP sites are considered to pre-

sent health risks.

For residents living near Superfund andother major toxic waste sites, the National

Research Council also found a disturbing pattern of elevated health problems, includ-

ing heart disease, spontaneous abortions and

genital malformations, and death rates;

infants and children suffer a higher inci-

dence of cardiac abnormalities, leukemia, kidneyurinary tract infections, seizures, learning disabilities, hyperactivity, skin dis-

orders, reduced weight, central nervous sys-

tem damage, and Hodgkins disease (68).Scientists also believe that exposure to indus-

trial chemicals contributed to the dramatic

increases since the 1950s in cancer of the

testis, prostate gland, kidney, breast, skin, and

lung, as well as malignant myeloma, non-

Hodgkins lymphoma, and numerous child-

hood cancers (911)Ñattributable to the death of half a million Americans each year.

In Massachusetts, elevated rates of leukemia (especially among children) have been linked

to the industrial chemical trichloroethylene

found in the town of Woburns drinking

water, as well as tetrachloroethylene in drink-

ing water on the Upper Cape (1214).Massachusetts now has one of the highest

rates of breast cancer in the countryÑsome

4,400 women are diagnosed and 1,000

women die each year. Women living on Cape

Cod are particularly vulnerable, with a 20%

higher rate of breast cancer than women liv-

ing elsewhere in the state (15).Many current policy initiatives may be intensifying problems they were designed to

cure. Most environmental laws require busi-

nesses to contain pollution sources for more

proper treatment and disposal (in contrast to

the previous practice of dumping on-site or

into nearby commons). Once the pollution is

trapped, the manufacturing industry pays

the state or a private company for its treat-ment and disposal. The waste, now com-

modified, becomes mobile, crossing local, state, and even national borders in search of

efcient (i.e., low-cost and politically feasi-

ble) areas for treatment, incineration, and/or

disposal. More often than not, the waste sites

and facilities are themselves hazardous and

located in poor or working-class neighbor-

hoods and communities of color (1618).In this respect, an environmental issue affecting

the general population has been addressed in

a manner that displaces the problem in a new

form onto more politically marginalized sec-

tors of the population (19).Hazardous waste sites nationwide are among the more concentrated environmen-

tal hazards confronting low-income neigh-

borhoods and communities of color.

According to a 1987 report by the United

Church of Christs Commission on Racial

Justice (20), three of every five African Americans and Latinos nationwide live in

communities that have illegal or abandoned toxic dumps. Communities with one haz-ardous waste facility have twice the percent-

age of people of color as those with none, and the percentage triples in communities

with two or more waste sites. A subsequent

follow-up study conducted in 1994 has now

found the risks for people of color to be even

greater than in 1987: they are 47% more

likely than Whites to live near these poten-

tially health-threatening facilities (21). In short, race and poverty are the two most crit-

ical demographic factors for determining

where commercial hazardous waste facilities

are located in the United States (including

hazardous waste generators of all sizes across

Massachusetts) (22). Industry itself often blatantly states that the disempowered of

American society should serve as the dump-

ing ground for American business. A 1984

report by Cerrell Associates for the

California Waste Management Board, for

instance, openly recommended that pollut-

ing industries and the state locate hazardous

waste facilities in lower socio-economic

neighborhoods because those communities

had a much lower likelihood of offering

political opposition (23).Federal governmental enforcement actions also appear to be uneven regarding

the class and racial composition of the

impacted community. According to a 1992

nationwide study, Superfund toxic waste

sites in communities of color are likely to be

cleaned 1242% later than are sites in White

communities. Communities of color also

witness average government penalties for

violations of hazardous waste laws ($55,318)

that are only one sixth the average penalty

assessed in predominantly White communi-

ties ($335,566). The study also concluded

that the government takes an average of

20% longer to place toxic waste dumps in

minority communities on the NPL, or

Superfund, list for cleanup than it does in

placing sites located in White areas (24).Massachusetts currently has over 21,038 hazardous waste sites, including 3,389 more

serious Tier III sites, according to March

2000 DEP data (25). As required under state law, hazardous waste sites must be ranked

according to the severity of their risk to

human health and the environment. The

DEP has developed a tier classification sys-

tem for determining the danger level of a

hazardous waste site to the public health and Environmental Justice

¥Unequal exposure to ecological hazards Environmental Health Perspectives

¥VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 279 Table 5.Environmental hazard point system.

Points for rating severity of each Type of hazardous facility or sitefacility or siteDEP hazardous waste site (general)1 DEP hazardous waste site (Tier III)5 U.S. EPA NPL (Superfund) waste site25 Large power plantÑtop ve polluter25 Small power plant10 Proposed power plant5 TURA industrial facility5 Municipal incinerator20 Resource recovery facility10 Incinerator ash landll5 Demolition landll3 Illegal site5 Sludge landll5 Tire pile5 Municipal solid waste landll5Trash transfer station5 the environment. Sites can be classified as Tier IA, IB, IC, or II, with Tier IA sites

requiring the most stringent oversight and

Tier II the least. We used a numerical rank-

ing sheet (NRS) to calculate the numerous

ecological and public health factors that

determine a sites classification. The NRS

has ve main sections (25): 1. The exposure pathways section evaluates the ways a person can be exposed to tox-

ics, specically the soil, groundwater, sur-

face water, and air.

2. The disposal site characteristics section evaluates the toxicity of the released mate-

rial(s).3. The human population and land uses sec-tion evaluates the potential risks based on

nearby population and land and water

uses.4. The ecological population section evaluates the potential risks posed to the environ-

ment based on the sites proximity to

sensitive areas such as wetlands and

endangered species.

5. The mitigating disposal site specic condi-tions section takes into account conditions at the site not otherwise factored into the

NRS.DEP ranks a large number of the most serious Tier IA sites in suburban areas rather than in urban areas such as Boston, citing

drinking water issues as one of the primary

reasons. The presence of a hazardous waste

site in a larger urban area where the drinking

water is transported from a distant reservoir

may not pose the same threat as it would in

a suburban/rural community dependent on

local groundwater sources.

As indicated in Table 6, a signicant con-centration of both Tier III and nontier sites appear to be concentrated in lower-income communities in Massachusetts. Communities

where median household income is less than

$30,000 contain an average of 120.9 DEP

hazardous waste sites, whereas communities

where the median household income is

$30,000 or greater contain an average of

41.950.2 hazardous waste sites. As a result, low-income communities average roughly

23 times more DEP hazardous waste sites

than higher-income communities.

However, if lower-income communities are typically larger in size, one would expect them to have a higher number of such sites.

To control for the size of the community, we

calculated the number of sites per square mile

to obtain a more accurate exposure rate. This

revealed an even more pronounced class bias.

Low-income communities, where median

household income is less than $30,000, aver-

age nearly 14 DEP hazardous waste sites per

square mile. In contrast, higher-income com-

munities, where median household income is

$30,000 or more, average 3.14.1 hazardous

waste sites per square mile. Thus, low-income

communities have approximately 3.54 more

hazardous waste sites per square mile than

higher-income communities. These figures

remain relatively consistent with comparisons

of the more serious Tier III hazardous waste

sites. In short, low-income communities in

Massachusetts experience a far higher expo-

sure rate to DEP hazardous waste sites than

higher-income communities.

These disparities repeat for communities of color. In Massachusetts, communities

where people of color compose less than 5%

of the population average 41.2 DEP haz-

ardous waste sites, whereas communities

where people of color compose 25% or more of the population average 162.5 sites.

Communities considered moderately high

minority (where people of color compose

1524.99% of the population) average nearly

190 sites. As a result, higher-minority com-

munities, where people of color compose

15% or more of the population, average well

over 4 times as many DEP hazardous waste

sites as low-minority communities.

To control for the size of the community, we calculated the number of sites per square

mile to obtain a more accurate exposure rate.

This revealed an even more pronounced

racial bias. High-minority communities aver-

age 27.2 DEP hazardous waste sites per

square mile, whereas low-minority commu-

nities average 2.9 hazardous waste sites per

square mile. Thus, high-minority communi-

ties have 9 times more hazardous waste sites

per square mile than low-minority communi-

ties. These figures remain consistent with

comparisons of the more serious Tier III

hazardous waste sites. In short, communities

of color experience a far higher exposure rate

to DEP hazardous waste sites than predomi-

nantly White communities, indicating that

race is strongly associated with the location of

tier and nontier hazardous waste sites in

Massachusetts (Table 7).

Only in the case of U.S. EPA Superfund sites do the class and racial biases associated

with DEP hazardous waste sites disappear.

This trend could be accounted for by the high number of Superfund sites on military

facilities often located in rural and suburban

locales near more afuent communities, par-

ticularly on Cape Cod. At least 47 Tier IA

sites are in Bourne because of contamination

from the Massachusetts Military Reservation (Figure 1).

Environmental Justice

¥Faber and Krieg 280 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002

¥Environmental Health Perspectives Table 6.Class-based disparities in the location of hazardous waste sites.DEP tier III Towns with Average number Average number Number DEP hazardoushazadous U.S. EPA of DEP hazardous of DEP hazardous Median household income of towns (% waste siteswaste sitesSuperfund siteswaste sites waste sites (1990 U.S. Census category) of all towns)Count(%)MeanCount(%)MeanCount(%)Meanper townper square mile$0 to $29,999 (low)50(13.6)6,044(28.7)120.9987(29.1)19.75(10.4)0.10120.913.9$30,000 to $39,999 (mediumlow)137 (37.2)6,863(32.6)50.11,101(32.5)8.014(29.2)0.1050.14.1

$40,000 to $49,999 (mediumhigh)114 (31.0)4,771(22.7)41.9742(21.9)6.517(35.4)0.1541.93.1

$50,000 or more (high)67(18.2)3,360(16.0)50.2559(16.5)8.312(25.0)0.1850.23.2Totals 368 (100)21,038(100)3,389(100)48(100)63.35.0 Information on all hazardous waste sites was provided by DEP and U.S. EPA databases in March 2000. All DEP waste site informati on provided above includes U.S. EPA Superfund sites as part of the count.

Table 7. Racially-based disparities in the location of hazardous waste sites.DEP tier III Towns with Average number Average number Number DEP hazardoushazadous U.S. EPA of DEP hazardous of DEP hazardous Non-White population of towns (% waste siteswaste sitesSuperfund siteswaste sites waste sites (1990 U.S. Census category) of all towns)Count(%)MeanCount(%)MeanCount(%)Meanper townper square mile514.99% (lowmoderate)49 (13.3)5,219(24.8)106.5849(25.1)17.316(33.3)0.33106.59.0 1524.99% (moderatehigh)9 (2.4)1,708(8.1)189.8257(7.6)28.63(6.3)0.33189.823.4 25% or more (high)11 (3.0)1,787(8.5)162.5314(9.3)28.60(0.0)0.00162.527.2Totals368 (100)21,038(100)3,389(100)48(100)63.0 Information on all hazardous waste sites was provided by DEP and U.S. EPA databases in March 2000. All DEP waste site informati on provided above includes U.S. EPA Superfund sites as part of the count.

Unequal Exposure to Landllsand Transfer Stations Landlls can also pose hazards to communi-ties. Seven former Massachusetts landlls are

now federal Superfund sites. Even newer land-

lls, which are lined with plastic, can threaten

underground water supplies. Tables 8 and 9

provide data on seven different types of land-

lls and related facilities: incinerator ash land-

lls, demolition landlls, illegal sites, sludge

landlls, tire piles, municipal solid waste land-lls (garbage dumps), and trash transfer sta-

tions. Of these sites, incinerator ash landlls are typically most hazardous, because y ash

wastes produced by incinerators and power

plants contain concentrated levels of heavy

metals such as arsenic, lead, and cadmium; radioactive elements; cancer-causing organic

compounds; and other contaminants.

Massachusetts has a total of 954 differentlandfill types, of which the majority (566)

are garbage dumps. As outlined in the

Tables 8 and 9, the states landlls and trash

transfer stations are concentrated in lower-

income communities and communities of

color. In communities where the median

household income is less than $30,000, there are 0.18 of these landfill-types per

square mile, a gure slightly higher than the

0.130.15 rates for higher-income commu-

nities. Municipal solid waste landfills make

up 57.5% of all landll types and are found

in 91.3% of all communities, making them relatively constant across all communities.

When municipal solid waste landfills are

removed from the analysis, it is clear that

lower-income communities (<$40,000 aver-

age income) have a much greater proportionof every other type of landfill than higher-income communities ($40,000 or above).

For instance, whereas lower-income commu-

nities make up 50.8% of all towns in the

state, they are home to 58.9% of all inciner-ator ash landfills, 66.7% of all demolition

landlls, 71.4% of all illegal sites, 74.5% of all sludge landfills, 69.5% of all tire piles, and 58.9% of all transfer stations.

Racially based biases to the distribution of landfill types are prominent. Analyzing all

landll types, communities where people of

color compose less than 5% of the population

average 0.13 of all landfill types per square mile, whereas communities where people of

color compose 25% or more of the population

average 0.36 landll types per square mile, a

rate nearly 3 times higher. These data clearly

reveal race biases and class biases to the loca-

tion of all landll types, with the exception of

municipal solid waste landlls.

Unequal Exposure to Polluting Industrial Facilities American industry produces enormous quantities of pollution and toxic waste each

year. According to the U.S. EPA Toxic

Release Inventory (TRI) for 1998, some

23,000 facilities reported a total of 7.3 bil-

lion pounds of chemical pollutants released

into the nations air, water, land, and under-

ground areas. The vast majority of these pollutantsÑ93.9% (or 6.9 billion pounds)

Ñwere released into the environment

directly on-site (26). Thus, citizens who work and reside in the communities in Environmental Justice

¥Unequal exposure to ecological hazards Environmental Health Perspectives

¥VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 281 Figure 1.Unequal exposure to hazardous waste sites, compared with an average of 4.94 sites per square mile for all 368 Massachusetts communities in 2000. (A) Exposure to hazardous waste sites by race. (B)Exposure to hazardous waste sites by class.

30 20 10 0 Less than 5%5 to 14.99%15 to 24.99%25% or more Mean number of sites per square mile Percentage of population that is non-White A 3 9 23 27 16 14 12 10 8 6

4 2

0$0 to$29,999$30,000 to

$39,999$50,000 or more$40,000 to

$49,999 Mean number of sites per square mile Median household income B 14 4 33 Table 8. Class-based disparities in the location of all landll types.Number IncineratorMunicipal Average AverageMedian householdof towns ashDemolitionIllegalSludgeTiresolid waste Transfernumber of all number of income (1990 U.S. (% of all landllslandllssiteslandllspileslandllsstationslandll types all landll types Census category) towns)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)per townper square mile$0 to $29,999 (low)50 (13.6)2 (11.8)8 (20.5)7 (33.3)12 (20.3)5 (21.7)69 (12.2)33 (14.4)2.90.18$30,000 to $39,999 137 (37.2)8 (47.1)18 (46.2)8 (38.1)32 (54.2)11 (47.8)203 (35.9)102 (44.5)2.80.13 (med.low)$40,000 to $49,999114 (31.0)7 (41.2)9 (23.1)5 (23.8)12 (20.3)5 (21.7)185 (32.7)62 (27.1)2.50.15 (med.high)$50,000 or more 67 (18.2)0 (0.0)4 (10.3)1 (4.1)3 (5.1)2 (8.7)109 (19.3)32 (14.0)2.30.14 (high)Totals368 (100)17 (100)39 (100)21 (100)59 (100)23 (100)566 (100)229 (100)2.60.15 Information on all landlls was provided by DEP databases in April 2000.

Table 9. Racially based disparities in the location of all landll types.Number IncineratorMunicipal Average AverageNon-White pop-of towns ashDemolitionIllegalSludgeTiresolid waste Transfernumber of all number of ulation (1990 U.S. (% of all landllslandllssiteslandllspileslandllsstationslandll types all landll types Census category) towns)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)Count (%)per townper square mileLess than 5% (low)299 (81.3)11 (64.7)30 (76.9)14 (66.7)50 (84.7)21 (91.3)445 (78.6)180 (78.6)2.50.13514.99% 49 (13.3)5 (29.4)4 (10.3)3 (14.3)5 (8.5)2 (8.7)92 (16.3)35 (15.3)3.00.16 (lowmoderate)1524.99%9 (2.4)0 (0.0)3 (7.7)0 (0.0)4 (6.8)0 (0.0)17 (3.0)8 (3.5)3.60.30 (moderatehigh)25% or more (high)11 (3.0)1 (5.9)2 (5.1)4 (19.0)0 (0.0)0 (0.0)12 (2.1)6 (2.6)3.10.36 Totals368 (100)17 (100)39 (100)21 (100)59 (100)23 (100)566 (100)229 (100)2.60.15 Information on all landlls was provided by DEP databases in April 2000.

which these facilities are located typically experience much greater exposure rates to

industrial pollutants (27).Exposure to industrial pollutionÑespe-cially air pollutionÑis proving deadly to tens

of thousands of citizens. Human exposure to

hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) can result in

both acute and chronic health effects. Short-

term, acute effects can include eye irritation, nausea, difculty breathing, asthma, or even

death. Long-term, chronic effects include

damage to the respiratory or nervous systems, birth defects and damage to reproductive sys-

tems, neurological disorders, and cancer.

Aggravated by the exhaust from over 200 mil-

lion motor vehicles (particularly in larger met-

ropolitan areas), industrial air pollution kills

over 60,000 Americans each year. Half a mil-

lion people living in the most polluted areas

in 151 cities across the country face a risk of death that is 1517% higher than that for

those living in the least polluted areas (28).In Massachusetts, poor air quality poses aserious threat to public health. According to data provided by the U.S. EPA Cumulative

Exposure Project (CEP), every county in

Massachusetts has levels of key airborne toxic

chemicals in the form of volatile organic com-

pounds that exceed health-based state levels.

At least 16 toxic compounds exceed the

acceptable levels of concentration set by both

federal regulatory agencies and the Allowable

Ambient Limits, a health-based risk standard

of the DEP (29,30). For instance, concentra-tions of benzene, 1,3-butadiene, formalde-

hyde, and acroleinÑchemicals that are

known to cause numerous adverse health

effects, including neurological disorders, birth

defects, reproductive disorders, and respira-

tory diseasesÑexceed Massachusetts allowable

ambient limits in all counties by up to 80

times. Nearly 1,300 deaths are caused by par-

ticulate air pollution in Massachusetts statisti-

cal metropolitan areas each year (31).In recent years, a number of studies have been conducted on the unequal exposure to

air pollution and other environmental haz-

ards. The ndings of these studies point to a

consistent pattern of environmental racism

and class-based ecological injustices (32).Within Americas urban areas, for instance, lower-income people (particularly those liv-

ing below the poverty level) are found to be

more exposed to combined concentrations

of air pollutants than higher-income popula-

tions. Similarly, people of color are consis-

tently exposed to significantly more air pollution nationwide than are Whites, with

a gap that is wider and more consistent than

that for income bias (33,34). According to the U.S. EPA, 57% of all Whites nationwide

live in areas with poor air quality, compared

to 80% of all Latinos (35). In Los Angeles, 71% of the citys African Americans and 50% of the Latinos are estimated to live in what are categorized as the most polluted

areas, compared to only 34% of Whites

(36). Unequal exposure to air pollutants for lower-income families and people of color is further aggravated by substandard housing, inadequate healthcare, a lack of public parks

and safe spaces, and a lack of social services.

In a previous study, Maxwell (37,38)explored whether polluting industrial land

uses were differentially distributed regarding

the racial (percentage of minority population)

and class (median family income and percent-age living in poverty) compositions of 351

cities and towns in Massachusetts. Maxwell also examined whether higher intensities of

polluting land uses were associated with

increased incidence of certain cancers. The

study used demographic and land use data

from three time points spanning the 35-year

period from 1950 to 1985, as well as historical

data on industry. The study sought to answer

two questions:

a) Are there inequities in the social distribution of polluting land uses across

Massachusetts communities?

b) Are higher intensities of polluting land uses associated

with increased cancer in Massachusetts com-

munities? This study found that traditional

manufacturing industries (associated with the

old economy) inequitably burdened lower-

income, higher-poverty, and higher-minority

communities. The results of the regression

analyses of land use and cancer also suggested that higher intensities of total manufacturing

and industrial/commercial land uses were asso-

ciated with a higher incidence of lung cancer (and probably also bladder cancer and non-

Hodgkins lymphoma) (39).A 1993 study of Essex, Hampden, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Worcester

counties in Massachusetts between 1987 and

1992 with data collected by the U.S. EPA

under the federal Resource Conservation and

Recovery Act (RCRA) (40) found that the vast majority of people of color are concentrated in the counties where 82.7% of the states large quantity generators (LQG) of toxic materials

and all commercial hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal (TSD) facilities are

located. However, a closer analysis of Suffolk

County found that 13.2% of LQG/TSD facil-

ities were located in the mostly minority com-

munities (census block groups) and that 26.4% of the facilities were located in the

mostly White communities. Thus, it did not

appear that in Suffolk County LQG and TSD facilities were concentrated in minority com-

munities. Likewise, the study also found that

34% of these facilities were located in the

poorest communities (measured by quartiling

block groups)Ñwith a median income of

$21,615 or lessÑwhereas 22.6% of facilities

were found in the wealthiest communities

with a median income of $37,452 or more.

Here we summarize information from the states Large Quantity Toxics Users who

reported to the Massachusetts Toxics Use

Reduction Act (TURA) program from 1990

to 1998 (1998 is the most recent year that

TURA data are available) (41). TURA began in 1989 with the goal of reducing toxic waste

generation by 50% by 1997. The program

includes a database of toxic waste use similar

to that of the federal TRI but with more

detailed information. As required under

TURA, a company must report the quantity

and types of toxic chemicals it uses if it annu-

ally manufactures, processes, or uses 10,000

pounds of toxic chemicals or more. These

toxic chemicals pose a threat to nearby resi-

dents, workers, and the environment from

potential accidents, emissions on-site into the

immediate environment, worker handling, waste disposal, toxins in the product, and

product disposal.

Between 1990 and 1998, 1,029 distinct TURA facilitiesÑranging from a high of 727 rms in 1991 to a low of 520 in 1998Ñused

over 9.886 billion pounds of toxic chemicals

in production (values do not include quanti-

ties for chemicals considered trade secrets).

During this same time, these large industrial

facilities produced 370,163,204 pounds of

chemical waste byproduct that they reported

as transferred off-site for recycling, recovery, treatment, and/or disposal. Another 164,385,598 pounds of toxic chemical waste

byproduct they released on-site directly into

the environment (discharged into the air, ground, underground areas, or adjacent bod-

ies of water) of the communities in which

they were locatedÑan amount equivalent to

2,055 tractor-trailer trucks each loaded with

80,000 pounds of toxic waste (42,43). The electric, gas, and sanitary services sector is the

largest source of on-site releases to the envi-

ronment under TURA. In 1998, the 28 rms

in this sector accounted for 39% of all on-site

releases, 71% of which were hydrochloric

acid. The chemical and allied products sector, which represents a little over half of total

statewide use, accounted for 13% of total on-

site releases and 31% of off-site transfers.

As shown in Table 10, communities with a median household income of less than

$30,000 or between $30,000 to $39,999

compose 50.8% of all communities in

Massachusetts but are home to 66.2% of all

TURA facilities and 85.6% of all chemicals

used by TURA facilities between 1990 and 1998. More important, communities with

these median household incomes received

78.7% of all chemical emissions into the

local environment by TURA facilities during

this time. Although communities with

median household incomes of $40,000 or

more represent nearly half of all communities in the state (49.2%), they house only 33.8

%Environmental Justice

¥Faber and Krieg 282 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002

¥Environmental Health Perspectives of all TURA facilities, 21.3

%of all chemical emissions, and 14.4

%of all chemicals used by TURA facilities from 1990 to 1998.

In fact, as shown in Table 11, communi-ties with a median household income of less

than $30,000 average 6.3 TURA facilities per

town, 932,910 total pounds of chemical emis-

sions released into the environment per town, and 73,061 total pounds of chemical emis-

sions per square mile of town space for

19901998. This contrasts sharply with com-

munities with median household incomes of

40,000$49,999, which average 1.8 TURA

facilities per town, 161,028 total pounds of

chemical emissions per town, and 10,937

pounds of chemical emissions per square mile

of town space. In comparison with upper-

income communities (median household income $40,000 or more), low-income com-

munities average over three times as many

TURA industrial facilities, three times as

many TURA industrial facilities per squaremile, 3.755.79 times as many pounds of chemical emissions into the environment per

town, and roughly seven times as many

pounds of chemical emissions per square mile.

Thus, the data indicate that the class status of a community is a signicant predictor of the

level of exposure to TURA industrial facilities

and emissions. The data indicate that lower-

income communities bear a greatly dispropor-tionate burden of the pollution emitted by

these types of industrial facilities.

The data also show that communities of color are overburdened. Although communi-

ties where people of color compose less than

15%of the population account for 86.2

%ofall chemical emissions and 84.1

%of all TURA facilities, they also account for 94.6

%of all communities in the state. Although

communities where people of color compose

15%or more of the population receive only 13.8%of all TURA emissions and house 15.9% of all TURA facilities, they compose only 5.4%of towns in the state (Table 12).

Table 13 shows that communities where peo-

ple of color compose 25

%or more of thepopulation average 8.8 TURA facilities and

1.1 TURA facilities per square mile, com-

pared to an average of just 2 facilities and

0.12 facilities per square mile for communi-

ties where people of color compose less than

5% of the population. In short, high-minority

communities average over 4 times as many

TURA industrial facilities and over 9 times as

many TURA industrial facilities per square

mile as do low-minority communities in Massachusetts. Furthermore, higher-minority

communities (where 15% or more of the

population are people of color) average 1,061,0411,216,360 total pounds of chemi-

cal emissions from TURA industrial facilities and 110,718123,770 pounds of chemical

emissions from TURA facilities per square

mile for 19901998, compared to just

342,579 pounds of total chemical emissions Environmental Justice

¥Unequal exposure to ecological hazards Environmental Health Perspectives

¥VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 283 Table 13.

Racially based disparities in the exposure rate to TURA industrial facilities (19901998).Average number Average number Average total TURA Average total TURA Non-White population Number of town of TURA facilities of TURA facilities chemical emissions chemical emissions (1990 U.S. Census category) (% of all towns)per townper square mile(lb) per town(lb) per square mileLess than 5% (low)299 (81.3)2.00.12343,57922,735514.99% (lowmoderate)49 (13.3)5.40.40796,68986,014 1524.99% (moderatehigh)9 (2.4)7.40.751,216,369123,77025% or more (high)11 (3.0)8.81.11,061,041110,718 Table 10.

Class-based disparities in the location and emission levels of TURA industrial facilities (19901998).Median household Number of TURA total chemical TURA total chemicalTURA total Number of distinct income (1990 U.S. towns (% of emissions (lb)transfers (lb)chemical use (lb)TURA facilitiesCensus category) all towns)Count(%)MeanCount(%)MeanCount(%)MeanCount(%)Mean$0 to $29,999 (low)50 (13.6)46,645,477(28.4)932,910101,318,279(27.4)2,026,3664,476,070,293(45.3)89,521,406317(30.8)6.3$30,000 to $39,999 137 (37.2)82,734,924(50.3)603,905188,923,288(51.0)1,379,0023,981,354,062(40.3)29,060,979364(35.4)2.7 (medlow)$40,000 to $49,999 114 (31.0)18,357,199(11.2)161,02853,110,764(14.3)465,884734,856,631(7.4)6,446,111201(19.5)1.8 (medhigh)$50,000 or more (high)67 (18.2)16,647,998(10.1)248,47826,810,873(7.2)400,162693,992,469(7.0)10,358,097147(14.3)2.2Totals368 (100)164,385,598(100)370,163,204(100)9,886,273,455(100)1,029(100)

Table 11.

Class-based disparities in the exposure rate to TURA industrial facilities (19901998).Average number Average number of Average total TURA Average total TURA Median household income Number of towns of TURA facilities TURA facilities chemical emissions chemical emissions (lb) (1990 U.S. Census category)(% of all towns)per townper square mile(lb) per townper square mile$0 to $29,999 (low)50 (13.6)6.30.49932,91073,061$30,000 to $39,999 (medlow)137 (37.2)2.70.21603,90555,524

$40,000 to $49,999 (medhigh)114 (31.0)1.80.13161,02810,937$50,000 or more (high)67 (18.2)2.20.12248,47812,502 Table 12.Racially based disparities in the location and emission levels of TURA industrial facilities (19901998).Non-White pop-Number of TURA total chemicalTURA total chemical TURA total Number of distinctulation (1990 U.S. towns (% of emissions (lb)transfers (lb)chemical use (lb)TURA facilitiesCensus category) all towns)Count (%) MeanCount (%) MeanCount (%) MeanCount (%) MeanLess than 5% (low)299 (81.3)102,730,053(62.5)343,579219,844,801(59.4)735,2675,051,993,299(51.1)16,896,299601(58.4)2.0514.99%49 (13.3)39,036,778(23.7)796,669114,887,155(31.0)2,344,6361,885,264,731(19.1)38,474,790264(25.7)5.4 (lowmoderate)15 to 24.99%9 (2.4)10,947,318(6.7)1,216,36914,415,034(3.9)1,601,670182,564,805(1.8)20,284,97867(6.5)7.4 (moderatehigh)25% or more (high)11 (3.0)11,671,449(7.1)1,061,04121,016,214(5.7)1,910,5652,766,450,620(28.0)251,495,51197(9.4)8.8Totals368 (100)164,385,598(100)370,163,204(100)9,886,273,455(100)1,029(100) and 22,735 pounds of chemical emissions per square mile for low-minority communities.Thus, in comparison with low-minority communities, high-minority communities

average roughly 33.5 times as many pounds of chemical emissions into the environment from local TURA facilities and 4.865.44

times as many pounds of chemical emissions

per square mile. Thus, the racial status of a community once again appears to be a major

factor in the level of exposure to TURA indus-

trial facilities and pollution. The data indicate

that communities of color bear a greatly dis-

proportionate burden of the pollution emitted

by these types of facilities (Figure 2).

Unequal Exposure to Power Plants The electric power industry is one of the most polluting industries in New England and the

entire country. In 1998, electric utilities gen-

erated 1.1 billion pounds of toxic chemical

emissions nationwide, according to U.S.

EPATRI data. In fact, electric utilities emis-

sions of sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid

pushed them near the top of the toxic inven-

tory in many states (44). Power plants are also major contributors to the formation of smog.

Smog, also called ground-level ozone, is formed when nitrogen oxides, emitted as a

byproduct of burning fossil fuels at electric

power plants and in automobiles, mix with volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight. Smog is a major trigger of asthma, increased lung inammation, coughing, and

emergency hospitalization due to respiratory

distress. The unhealthiest levels of smog are

generally recorded during the summer (45).Power plants are also major contributors of

gases that cause global warming and toxic

mercury emissions that seriously threaten

public health and environmental quality.

In Massachusetts, nearly 1,300 residents of statistical metropolitan areas die each year

from particulate air pollution (46). Air qual-ity continues to deteriorate. During the

summer of 1999, Massachusetts recorded 21

unhealthy air days, where the ozone level of

those days surpassed the allowable limit set

by the U.S. EPA. The people currently most

vulnerable to the effects of breathing smoggy

air are children, the elderly, and people with

asthma or other respiratory diseases (47).Despite ongoing attempts to control smog

and soot-forming pollutants, the risk of

developing cancer or reproductive, develop-

mental, or neurological disorders due to

chemical exposures in the air necessitates fur-

ther efforts in controlling air pollutants.Coal and oil-burning power plants, specically those plants built prior to 1977, are a major source of air pollution in the

state. In fact, utilities in Massachusetts are

responsible for over 60

%of the states soot-forming sulfur dioxide emissions, 15

%of the states smog-causing nitrogen oxide

emissions, and 30

%of the states heat-trap-ping carbon dioxide emissions. Sulfur diox-

ide emissions are the main precursor to the

creation of sootÑtiny particles that pene-

trate deep into the throat and lungs. Fossil-

fuel power plants are also responsible for

more than 800 pounds of airborne mercury

emissions every year. Mercury causes severe

damage the neurological system and has

developmental effects on fetuses and small

children (48). Mercury is so toxic that a mere one third of a teaspoon is enough to

render the fish of a 25-acre lake unsuitable

for children and pregnant women to eat. As a result of a loophole in clean air laws, 14 plants in New England are legally polluting

at much higher levels than newer plants built

since 1977. The oldest fossil-fuel power

plantsÑthose built before 1977Ñare not

required to meet the same emissions stan-

dards as newer, cleaner plants (49).As indicated in Table 14, the states power plants are disproportionately located

in communities of color and lower-income

communities. Although just 5.4

%of all communities in the state are communities

where people of color compose 15

%or more of the population, they are home to 18.2

%of all active power plants and 23.4

%of all proposed power plants in the state. Likewise, although 50.8

%of all towns in the state are communities where median household

income is less than $40,000, they are home

to 65.6%of all active power plants and 63

%of all proposed power plants.

Five of the dirtiest power plants in the stateÑthe Canal, Brayton Point, Salem

Harbor, Mount Tom, and Mystic plantsÑ

are legally emitting at 2.94.0 times the

emission rate of plants built after 1977. The

ve plants are responsible for 89

%of sulfur dioxide emissions and 57

%of nitrous oxide emissions from all stationary sources in

Massachusetts (the Brayton Point plant is the largest, most polluting power plant in all of

New England). In fact, these ve plants are

responsible for more than 50

%of the power plant pollution in all of New England, pro-

ducing more than 24 million tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions in 1998.

And pollution rates from these power plants

have been increasing substantially since 1996

(50,51). As a result, these ve power plants are the largest industrial sources of green-

house gasses in the state (52).As shown in Table 15, four of the five plants are located in low-income or moder-

ately low-income communities. Clearly, lower-income communities are disproportion-

ately burdened by the most polluting power

plants. In terms of racial bias, only the Mount

Tom power plant is located in a high-minority Environmental Justice

¥Faber and Krieg 284 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002

¥Environmental Health Perspectives Figure 2.

Unequal exposure to industrial pollution, compared with an average of 36,262 pounds of

chemical emissions per square mile during

19901998 for all 368 Massachusetts communi-

ties. (A) Exposure to chemical emissions by race.

(B) Exposure to chemical emissions by class.

140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0$0 to$29,999$30,000 to

$39,999$50,000 or more$40,000 to

$49,999 Less than 5%5 to 14.99%15 to 24.99%25% or more Mean emissions (lb) per square mile Mean emissions (lb) per square mile Median household income Percentage of population that is non-White A B 22,735 86,014 123,770 110,718 73,061 55,524 10,937 12,502 Table 14.

Racial and class-based disparities in the location of power plants.Number of DEP Number of DEP Number of active power proposed powertowns (% of plants (June 2000)plants (June 2000)1990 U.S. Census category all towns)Count(%)Count(%)

Non-White populationLess than 5% (low)299 (81.3)38(69.1)10(58.8) 514.99% (lowmoderate)49 (13.3)7(12.7)3(17.6) 1524.99% (moderatehigh)9 (2.4)7(12.7)3(17.6) 25% or more (high)11 (3.0)3(5.5)1(5.9)Totals368 (100)55(100)17(100)

Median household income$0 to $29,999 (low)50 (13.6)14(25.5)2(11.8)

$30,000 to $39,999 (mediumlow)137 (37.2)22(40.0)7(41.2)

$40,000 to $49,999 (mediumhigh)114 (31.0)16(29.1)7(41.2)

$50,000 and greater (high)67 (18.2)3(5.5)1(5.9)Totals368 (100)55(100)17(100) community (Holyoke); the remaining four power plants are located in low-minority or

moderately low-minority communities.

According to a 2000 report by the Harvard School of Public Health (53), cur-rent emissions from the 805 megawatt Salem

Harbor (Salem) and 1,611 megawatt Brayton

Point (Somerset) coal-fired power plants

alone can be linked to 43,300 asthma attacks

and nearly 300,000 daily incidents of upper

respiratory symptoms per year among the 32 million people residing in New England, eastern New York, and New Jersey. An addi-

tional 159 premature deaths can be attrib-

uted to this pollution each year. However, the health risks are greatest for those living in

communities adjacent to these plants.

Twenty percent of the total health impact

occurs in the 8

%of the population that lives within 30 miles of the facilities. The four

worst of these polluting power plants are all

located in communities where the median

household income is less than $40,000.

Thus, working-class communities once again appear to be unequally exposed to environ-mental hazards in Massachusetts.

Unequal Exposure to Incinerators Municipal solid waste combustors are facili-ties that combust solid waste derived in large

part from household wastes. In 19992000, Massachusetts had nine municipal solid waste combustors in operation, which burned

approximately 3.3 million tons of trash each

year. These incinerators contribute to massive

water and air pollution and related public

health problems. For instance, garbage incin-

erators emit more mercury than any other

source in the state (54). Mercury, which is especially toxic to children and pregnant

women, has been linked to kidney and ner-

vous system damage and developmental

defects. The U.S. EPA has identified these

facilities as being a major source of mercury

emissions to the environment, and DEP esti-

mates that these facilities emit approximately

6,040 pounds of mercury into the air each year. DEP testing of in-stack concentrations for mercury emissions from these facilities in

1994 detected averages twice the new U.S.

EPA limits (55). In addition to air emissions, mercury may also exit these facilities in the

form of ash, especially fly ash. As much as

another 6,000 pounds of mercury is captured

by the air pollution control devices installed at

these facilities.

As shown in Table 16, six of these nine incinerators are located in communities

where median household income is less than

$40,000. Only one of the nine incinerators

is located in a community where the average median household income is $50,000 or

more. Lower-income communities (less than

$40,000) have twice the number of incinera-

tors as do higher-income communities

($40,000 or more). Although class consider-

ations seem to be of some importance in the

siting of these facilities, only one of the nine

incinerators is located in a community where

people of color compose 15% or more of the

population. In fact, this is one of the few

types of environmentally hazardous facilities

in Massachusetts for which there does not

appear to be a racial bias.

Unequal Community Exposure to Cumulative

Environmental Hazards Many past studies on the disproportionate exposure of low-income communities and

communities of color have focused on single

indicators of environmental hazards. This

study provides a composite measure to assess

community exposure rates that includes all

hazardous facilities and sites. We have devel-

oped a point system that weighs the average

risks of each type of hazardous facility/site to arrive at a cumulative measure of commu-

nity exposure to all potential hazards, shown

in Table 17.

We recognize the potential threats to the validity of such a point system. One threat lies

in variations in the severity of similar hazard

types. For example, we assigned each

Superfund site 25 points, yet the risks posed by these sites are likely to vary depending on

types of materials they contain, environmen-

tal medium through which exposure occurs, size and proximity of nearby populations, and

so forth. Second, the relative weights we

assigned to different types of hazards may be

problematic. For example, one Superfund site

may not be equivalent to 25 DEP sites. To

assess how well our point system represents current opionion in the eld, we distributed

the point system to a number of authorities

including scholars and professionals at the

Massachusetts DEP, who responded that the

point system seemed valid to them.

To determine the cumulative exposure to environmentally hazardous facilities and sites, Environmental Justice

¥Unequal exposure to ecological hazards Environmental Health Perspectives

¥VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 285 Table 15.

Unequal exposure to the top ve power plant (fossil fuel) polluters in Massachusetts.Income status Racial status SO 2 rate in JanJune Power plantTownof townof town1999 (lb/mmBTU)Salem HarborSalemMediumlowModerately low minority 1.20Mount TomHolyokeLow High minority1.20 Brayton PointSomersetMediumlowLow minority1.10 MysticCharlestownMediumlowModerately low minority 1.03CanalSandwichMediumhighLow minority0.87 Table 16.

Unequal exposure to municipal solid waste combustors (MSWCs).Mercury in-stack Average annual Income statusRacial statusU.S. EPA limit 80amount of mercuryTownof townof town(µg) (dscm)emitted (tons/year)N. AndoverHighLow minority297.01.11LawrenceLowHigh minority 276.00.41 MillburyMedium lowLow minority183.00.52 HaverhillMedium lowModerate163.00.35 low minorityAgawamMedium lowLow-minority153.10.08 PittseldLowLow minority61.40.01 RochesterMedium highLow minority61.00.11 Fall RiverLow incomeLow minority25.6N/A SaugusMedium highLow minority17.00.4Total6 of 9 towns 1 of 9 towns is 160.03.02 (6,040 lb)are lower incomehigher minority dscm, dry standard cubic meter. Some 117 medical waste incinerators are also listed in the DEP Division of Air Quality Control Stationary Source Enforcement Inventory System (56).Table 17.

Unequal exposure to all types of hazardous facilities/sites combined.Number of towns Average number of 1990 U.S. Census category (% of all towns)points per square mile Non-White populationLess than 5% (low)299 (81.3)6.4 514.99% (lowmoderate)49 (13.3)18.7 1524.99% (moderatehigh)9 (2.4)42.7 25% or more (high)11 (3.0)57.0Totals368 (100)

Median household income$0 to $29,999 (low)50 (13.6)27.9

$30,000 to $39,999 (mediumlow)137 (37.2)8.9

$40,000 to $49,999 (mediumhigh)114 (31.0)7.0

$50,000 or more (high)67 (18.2)6.9Totals368 (100) we totaled the points for each hazardous facil-ity and site in each community. Because geo-

graphically larger communities could have

more facilities and sites, we controlled for the geographic size of each community by calcu-

lating the average number of hazard points

per square mile, a more valid measure of

exposure rate. We found gross imbalances in

average point totals for lower-income com-

munities and communities of color based on

points per square mile. As shown in Table 17, communities where people of color compose

less than 5

%of the population average only 6.4 points per square mile, compared to 57

points per square mile for communities where

people of color compose 25% of the popula-

tion or more. In other words, high-minority

communities face a cumulative exposure rate

to environmentally hazardous facilities and

sites that is nearly nine times greater than that for low-minority communities. In fact, there

is a consistently sharp increase in the cumula-tive exposure rates to these hazardous facili-

ties/sites that directly corresponds to increases

in the size of the minority population in all communities. Without question, communi-

ties of color appear to be greatly overbur-

dened in comparison with low-minority

communities and are unequally exposed to

environmental hazards of almost every kind.

Likewise, communities where median household income is less than $30,000 average an exposure rate of 27.9 points per square mile, which dramatically contrasts with the

exposure rates for communities where median

household income is $30,000 or greater, which ranges from 6.9 to 8.9 points per square

mile. As a result, low-income communities

face a cumulative exposure rate to environ-

mentally hazardous facilities and sites that is

3.134.04 times greater than that for all other

communities in the state. As is the case with communities of color, low-income communi-

ties are disproportionately exposed to environ-mental hazards of all kinds. Ecological racism

and class-based environmental injustices

appear to be widespread in Massachusetts.

Table 1 conrms this claim, showing the communities that have the greatest densities of

environmentally hazardous industrial facilities

and sites. We have constructed an exposure

rate using the method described above (whereby the point totals for all hazards pre-

sent in the community are added together and

then divided by the total area). As shown in

Table 1, 14 of the 15 most intensively over-

burdened towns in Massachusetts have

median household incomes of less than

$40,000. In fact, 9 of the 15 towns have

median household incomes less than $30,000.

Likewise, 9 of the 15 most environmentally

overburdened towns in the state have popula-tions comprising 15% or more people of

color. And 6 of the 15 towns have populations

comprising 25% or more people of color. This

is signicant in light of the fact that only 20 communities in the entire state have popula-

tions comprising 15

%or more people of colorÑand nearly half are among the 15 most

intensively overburdened communities.In Table 2, we analyze the 20 communi-ties with the greatest number of environmen-

tally hazardous industrial facilities and sites.

Using the same method described for Table

1(except that we do not control for size of the community or density of hazardous facili-

ties/sites), Table 2 reveals that 16 of the 20

most extensively overburdened towns in

Massachusetts have median household incomes of less than $40,000. In fact, 11 of

the worst 15 towns have median household

incomes less than $30,000. In terms of race, we similarly nd that 9 of the 15 most exten-

sively overburdened towns in the state are of

higher-minority status, where people of color

compose 15% or more of the population.

Again, this is significant in light of the fact

that only 20 communities in the entire state

have 15% or more racial minorities. In fact, when we combine Tables 1 and 2 and elimi-

nate overlapping towns, we find that 13 of

the 25 most environmentally overburdened

towns in the state are communities of color (where people of color compose 15% or

more of population). As a result, two of every

three communities of color in the state are among the 25 most environmentally over-burdened towns. In fact, citizens residing in a

community of color in Massachusetts are 19

times more likely to live in one of these 25

most overburdened communities.The conclusion to be drawn from this preliminary analysis is that the communities

most heavily burdened with environmentally

hazardous industrial facilities and sites are

overwhelmingly low-income towns and/or

communities of color. Clearly, not all

Massachusetts residents are polluted equally

Ñworking class and people of color popula-

tions are disproportionately impacted (Figure 3).

What Can Be Done?

Addressing Problems of

Environmental Injustice in

Massachusetts Massachusetts should be accountable to all of its residents and strive for equal protection from pollution and other environmental

threats. When any citizen is unwillingly

harmed by exposure to industrial toxic pollu-tants found in the environment, an injustice

is being perpetrated. So that no citizen of any

community be put at risk, government agen-

cies on all levels must deepen efforts to reduce

the overall level of dangerous pollutants cur-

rently found in the environment, as well as in

our schools, homes, and workplaces. In this

regard, TURA is a model program that should be expanded. Likewise, DEP should

take additional steps to reduce the overall

waste stream, increase recycling, and continue

a moratorium on new landlls and incinera-tors. Similarly,capping the cumulative emis-

sions of power plants will reduce emissions in

Massachusetts by tens of thousands of tons. It

would also ensure that newer, cleaner plants benet from a level playing eld by removing

the pollution subsidy old plants currently

enjoy. Major cleanups of these plants can take

place without major implications for jobs or

energy reliability.

In addition to working for an overall reduction in the amount of pollution, Massachusetts needs to undertake a series of

special initiatives to address the environ-

mental injustices that exist in the state. As

suggested by the evidence presented in this

report, all people are not polluted equally in

Massachusetts. Ecologically hazardous

industrial facilities and waste sites are instead

disproportionately located in communities of

color and lower-income communities. As a

result, citizens do not share the same access to

a healthy environment. Massachusetts needs

to develop and implement a plan to reduce

these disparities for ecologically overburdened

communities, beginning with public hearings

on environmental injustices so that those who Environmental Justice

¥Faber and Krieg 286 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002

¥Environmental Health Perspectives Figure 3.

Unequal exposure to all hazardous facili-ties and sites combined, compared with an aver-

age of 10.4 points per square mile cumulative

exposure rate for all 368 Massachusetts communi-

ties. (A) Exposure to cumulative hazards by race.

(B) Exposure to cumulative hazards by class.

30 20 10 0 60 50 40 30 20 10 0$0 to$29,999$30,000 to

$39,999$50,000 or more$40,000 to

$49,999 Less than 5%5 to 14.99%15 to 24.99%25% or more Mean total points per square mile Mean total points per square mile Median household income Percentage of population that is non-White A B 27 9 77 6 19 43 55 are affected can voice their concerns. As part of these efforts, the state must also begin to more

systematically address the environmental injus-

tices documented in this report. This includes

the establishment of local, state, and federal

government programs and policies that ensure

environmental equity; avoid the siting of

future hazardous facilities/sites in already over-

burdened lower-income communities and

communities of color; provide resources to

these overburdened communities to create

environmental amenities that can partly offset

other environmental risks; and promote

greater citizen participation in the problem-

solving and decision-making processes that

affect those communities. Elected officials, policymakers, government agency staff, com-

munity activists, and ordinary citizens must

work together to overcome the environmental

injustices that exist in Massachusetts.

Furthermore, it is important that any strategies

simultaneously address environmental injus-

tices in both the racial and class contexts.

Otherwise, efforts to redress one type of

inequity over others could serve to foster con-

tinued inequity in other groups.

Additional recommendations that the state could adopt for ensuring environmental jus-

tice in Massachusetts include the following:

a) Massachusetts should pass an environ-mental justice law that will ensure equal pro-

tection and additional resources for

overburdened areas. Such a new environ-

mental justice law, currently under consider-

ation by the Massachusetts legislature, should do the following:

¥Make environmental protection a civil

right protected under law.

¥Create regulations for Areas of Critical

Environmental Justice Concern (ACEJC)

that would qualify areas overburdened by

pollution, hazardous facilities, and sites

and/or suffering from poor health for

higher scrutiny in environmental permit-

ting and greater levels of resources for

cleanup and remediation. Such an act could

amend the duties and responsibilities of the

Executive Ofce of Environmental Affairs (chapter 21A, section 2) and call for the

development of statewide policies regarding

the protection and use of areas of critical

environmental concern to Massachusetts.

¥Establish toxic-free buffer zones around

sensitive receptors such as schools and day-

care and healthcare facilities.

b) Massachusetts should increase the level of resources for the DEP and the Executive

Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA).

The capacity of the DEP and EOEA to suc-

cessfully address issues of environmental

injustice would require the provision of addi-

tional funding, staff, and other resources to

adequate levels. Additional responsibilities

should not placed on already overburdened state agencies without the necessary funding

to successfully perform the work.

c) DEP should also maintain its morato-rium on new landfills and incinerators.

Incinerators and many landlls pose unaccept-

able health risks to local residents and nearby

communities and should be eliminated. The

state should furthermore incorporate environ-

mental justice into all existing regulations, which need to be enforced everywhere, espe-

cially in lower-income communities and com-

munities of color. In particular, the following

policies and regulations need to integrate an

environmental justice orientation:

¥Environmental reviews under the

Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) should include explicit considera-

tion of disproportionate impact on low-

income communities and communities ofcolor.¥There should be strong oversight and

enforcement of regulations for hazardous

waste site cleanup (Massachusetts

Contingency Plan 21E). More resources

should be granted to the DEP to ensure

rapid and thorough cleanups, especially in

overburdened areas.

d) Massachusetts should review and, when necessary, halt the provision of eco-

nomic development incentives for projects

that will contribute more pollution to

already overburdened areas. Development

incentives such as tax credits and low-cost

loans should not be offered to projects that

increase pollution in areas already overbur-

dened with pollution sources. To assist in

this process, the state should track and mon-

itor environmental disparities:

¥A number of factors, such as housing dis-crimination, bank lending policies, local

planning and zoning practices, licensing

and permitting processes, and the geo-

graphic distribution of public services, transportation networks, industries, and

so forth, play some role in creating envi-

ronmental injustices. The state should

undertake and/or sponsor additional

investigations to better understand the

sources of environmental injustice.

¥DEP does an excellent job of making its

databases available to the public. These

efforts can be further enhanced by keeping

track of its progress on reducing environ-

mental disparities. This information should

be accessible to the public over the internet.

Additionally, more health and environmen-

tal monitoring needs to be implemented in

areas of high concerns. The state should

ensure that the DEP receives adequate

resources to perform these functions.

e) Finally, Massachusetts should adopt the precautionary principle over standard

risk-assessment procedures when addressing

environmental issues in overburdened communities. The precautionary principle

says that if there is a strong possibility of

harm (instead of a scientically proven cer-

tainty of harm) to human health or the envi-

ronment from a substance or activity, precautionary measures should be taken.

Under current approaches to risk assessment

in the state, environmental policy is oriented

to promoting the dispersion of pollution to

what are considered safe levels of public

exposure. However, if pollution is instead

highly concentrated in certain communities, as we have shown, then this approach is inad-

equate. Overburdened communities must be

granted additional protections as offered by

the precautionary principle, which includes

promoting additional study of activities of

concern, shifting the burden of proof so that

a chemical/activity is proven safe, and provid-

ing incentives for preventive behavior, and/or

measures such as bans or phase-outs of sub-

stances suspected of causing harm. The time

has come for the legislature and state ofcials

to work hand in hand with the environmen-

tal justice movement and community repre-

sentatives to end environmental racism and

promote new models of clean production

and sustainable economic development.

REFERENCESAND N OTES 1.Goldman B, Fitton L. Toxic Wastes and Race Revisited Washington, DC:United Church of Christ Commission for

Racial Justice, 1994.

2. The following denition of environmental justice is taken

from Bryant B (ed). Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions Washington, DC:Island Press, 1995;6.

Environmental Justice: Environmental justice (EJ) is broader in scope that environmental equity. It refers to

those cultural norms and values, rules, regulations, behaviors, policies, and decisions to support sustainable

communities, where people can interact with condence

that their environment is safe, nurturing, and productive.

Environmental justice is served when people can realize

their highest potential, without experiencing the isms.

Environmental justice is supported by decent paying and

safe jobs; quality schools and recreation; decent housing

and adequate health care; democratic decision-making

and personal empowerment; and communities of vio-

lence, drugs, and poverty. These are communities where

both cultural and biological diversity and respected and

highly revered and where distributed justice prevails.3.National Research Council, Environmental Epidemiology:

Public Health and Hazardous Wastes. Washington, DC:

National Academy Press, 1991.

4.Environmental Research Foundation. Rachels Hazardous Waste News, No.332. 8 April 1993;12.

5.U.S. EPA. Superfund Remedial Sites, National Priorities

List. Washington, DC:U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency, 11 April 2000.6.Numerous other studies have documented similar health impacts as the NRC report. [For example, see Goldberg

S. An association of human congenital cardiac malfor-

mations and drinking water contaminants. J Am Coll

Cardiol 16(1):155164 (1990).] 7.Hoover R, Fraumeni R. Cancer mortality in U.S. counties with chemical industries. Environ Res 9:196207 (1975).

8. Andelman J, Underhill D, eds. Health Effects from

Hazardous Waste Sites. Chelsea, MI:Lewis, 1987.9. For a discussion of the environmental impacts on cancer rates, see Krieg, E. Toxic Wastes, Race, and Class: A

Historical Interpretation of Greater Boston [PhD Thesis].

Boston:Northeastern University, 1995. 10. Steingraber S. Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment. New York:Addison-Wesley, 1997.Environmental Justice

¥Unequal exposure to ecological hazards Environmental Health Perspectives

¥VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002 287

11. Clapp R. The decline in U.S. cancer mortality from 1991-1995: whats behind the numbers? New Solutions: Am J

Environ Occup Health Policy 7 (4):3034 (1997).

12. Cutler J, Parker G, Rosen S, Prenney B, Healey R,Caldwell G. Childhood leukemia in Woburn, Massachusetts. Public Health Rep 101(2):201205 (1986).13. Lagakos S, Wessen B, Zelen M. An analysis of contami-nated well water and health effects in Woburn, Massachussets. J Am Stat Assoc 81:583614 (1986).14. Aschengrau A, Ozonoff D, Paulu C, Coogan P, Vezina R, Heeren T, Zhang Y. Cancer risk and tetrachloroethylene-

contaminated drinking water in Massachusetts. Arch

Environ Health 48(5):284292 (1993).

15. The Silent Spring Institute is conducting an extensive investigation of the possible environmental causes of the

breast cancer epidemic on Cape Cod. See Silent Spring

Institute. The Cape Code Breast Cancer and Environment

Study: Results of the First Three Years of Study. Newton, MA:Silent Spring Institute, 1998.

16. For studies that examine the inequitable distribution of hazardous waste facilities in specific regions of the

country, see Bullard R. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality. Boulder, CO:Westview, 1990.

17. Bullard R, ed. Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color. San Francisco:Sierra Club, 1994.
18. Bryant B, Mohai P, eds. Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards: A Time for Discourse. Boulder, CO:Westview, 1992.
19. Faber D, ed. The Struggle for Ecological Democracy:

Environmental Justice Movements in the United States.

New York:Guilford, 1998.

20. Chavis B, Lee C. Toxic Wastes and Race in the UnitedStates: A National Report on the Racial and Socioeconomic

Characteristics of Communities Surrounding Hazardous

Waste Sites. New York:United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 1987. This study analyzed data on the

number and type of hazardous waste facilities in the

approximately 35,5000 residential zip codes of the United States, along with data on percent minority population, mean household income, mean home value, number of uncontrolled toxic waste sites per 1,000 persons, and

pounds of hazardous waste generated per person.21. Goldman B, Fitton L. Toxic Waste and Race Revisited: An Update of the 1987 Report on the Racial and Socioeconomic Characteristics of Communities with

Hazardous Waste Sites. Washington, DC:Center for

Alternatives, the National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People, and the United Church

of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, 1994.

22. Spence L. Race, Class, and Environmental Hazards: A Study of Socio-economic Association with Hazardous

Waste Generators and Treatment/Storage/Disposal

Facilities in Massachusetts [Masters Thesis]. Medford, MA:Tufts University, 1995.23. Roque J. Review of EPA report: environmental equity:

reducing risk for all communities. Environment

35(5):2528 (1993).24. Lavelle M, Coyle M. Unequal protection: the racial divide in environmental law. Natl Law J (September):212 (1992).25. For current data and definitions, see Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection website.

Available:

http://www.state.ma.us/dep/bwsc/sites/report 26. Of these on-site releases, 62.8% were to land, 29.9% were to air, 3.9% were to underground injection, and 3.4% were to surface water. There are now nearly 650 toxic chemi-

cals and chemical compounds on the list of chemicals

that must be reported to the U.S. EPA and the states

under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-

Know Act of 1986, which established the TRI program.

27. The 1998 TRI data and background information on the TRI program are available at http://www.epa.gov/tiinter/

tridata/index.htm

[accessed 15 March 2000].28. A study conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham Young University, and the

American Cancer Society, which was released on 10

March 1995 and appeared in the American Journal of

Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, estimated some

60,000 annual air pollution deaths [Pope CA III, Thun MJ, Namboodiri MM, Dockery DW, Evans JS, Speizer FE, Heath CW Jr. Particulate air pollution as a predictor of

mortality in ta prospective study of U.S. adults. Am J

Respir Crit Care Med151:(3):669674 (1995)].29. In Massachusetts, mobile sources (primarily motor vehi-cles) are responsible for 42% of the total HAP emissions in the state. Area sources, which are smaller air sources that release less than 10 tons per year of any individual

HAP and less than 24 tons per year of combined HAPs, emit 51% of all HAPs in the state. Examples include gas stations, dry cleaners, and small print shops. Point sources are stationary facilities that emit (or have the

potential to emit) 10 tons or more per year of any one of

the listed HAPs, or 25 tons or more per year of combined

HAPs. Point sources emit 7% of the total HAPs in the state. Examples of point sources include chemical plants, paper mills, power plants, and waste incinera-tors. Available:

http://www.state.ma.us/dep/bwp/daqc/

les/airtox.htm

[accessed 15 March 2001].

30. Toering M, Sargent R. Every Breath We Take: How Motor Vehicles Contribute to High Levels of Toxic Air

Pollution in Massachusetts. Boston:MASSPIRG

Education Fund, 8 July 1999;132.

31. Wiles R, Savitz J, Cohen B. Particulate Air Pollution in Boston: Human Mortality, Pollution Sources and the

Case for Tougher Clean Air Standards. Washington, DC:Environmental Working Group, 1997.

32. For a concise summary of these studies, see Mohai P, Bryant B. Demographic studies reveal a pattern of envi-

ronmental injustice. In: Environmental Justice (Petrikin J, ed). San Diego, CA:Greenhaven, 1995;1024.33. Gelobter M. Toward a model of environmental discrimi-nation. In: Race and the Incidence of Environmental

Hazards: A Time for Discourse (Mohai P, Bryant B, eds).

Boulder, CO:Westview, 1992;6481.34. Gianessi L, Peskin H, Wolff E. The distributional effects of uniform air pollution policy in the U.S. Q J Econom (May):281301 (1979). 35. Wernete D, Nieves L. Breathing polluted air: minorities are disproportionately exposed. EPA J(March/April):16 (1992).

36. Mann E. L.A.s Lethal Air: New Strategies for Policy, Organizing, and Action. Los Angeles:Labor/Community

Strategy Center, 1991.37. Demographic data came from the U.S. Census; land use data are from a series of statewide aerial surveys, sup-

plemented by U.S. and Massachusetts Census of Manufactures data on manufacturing industry. Cancer

incidence data from 19821990 came from the

Massachusetts Cancer Registry. The cancers of con-

cern, selected on the basis of confirmed or tentative links to agricultural or industrial chemicals, are non-

Hodgkins lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, soft

tissue sarcoma, and cancers of the brain, stomach, prostate, bladder, kidney, lung, and breast.

38. Maxwell N. Land Use, Demographics, and Cancer Incidence in Massachusetts Communities [PhD Thesis].

Boston:Boston University, 1996.

39. The incidence of lung cancer was associated with industrial/commercial land use but only in specic years, which suggests that the high-tech industries dispropor-

tionately hosted by well-to-do suburbs do not cause the

same increase in lung cancer risk as does traditional, high-air-pollution manufacturing. 40. One can argue that towns are too large for detailed stud-ies of environmental injustice. The size of a town can

potentially mask racial or economic heterogeneity within

the town area. For instance, a town may have a 10%

minority population concentrated in a particular portion

of the townÑpossibly the same section of town where

polluting industries and facilities are concentrated.

Analysis at the town level could mask the concentration

of hazards in minority neighborhoods.41. Some 520 large quantity toxics users reported to TURA dur-ing the 1998 calendar year (the latest year such data is cur-rently available). These companies reported using over

1.184 billion pounds of chemicals (not including trade secret

chemicals), of which over 132.6 million pounds were gener-

ated as waste by-product. Of this by-product, some 50.5 mil-

lion pounds of toxic chemicals were transferred off-site (for

recycling, recovery, treatment, or disposal), while another

12 million pounds were released on-site directly into the

environment (discharged into the air, ground, underground

areas, or adjacent bodies of water). When we incorporate

trade secret data into the 1998 TURA aggregate quantities, we nd that 1.380 billion pounds of chemicals were used by

state industry, 137 million pounds were generated as by-

product; and 64 million pounds of this by-product was either

released on-site into the environment or transferred off-site.42. TURA was enacted in 1989 and had a stated 10-year goal of reducing the generation of toxic waste by 50% from the base year of 1987 to 1997. From 1990, the first reporting year, to 1998, adjusted by-product production dropped 48%. Using the same adjustment method, TURA filers

have been equally successful in reducing their releases

of TRI reported on-site chemicals by 83% since 1990. 43. Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.

1998 Toxics Use Reduction Information Release. Lowell, MA: A Report Developed in Conjunction with the Office

of Technical Assistance for Toxics Use Reduction, the

Toxics Use Reduction Institute, and the Executive Ofce

of Environmental Affair. Boston:Massachusetts

Department of Environmental Protection, Spring 2000.

44. For the first time, electric utilities and mining facilities were included in the Environmental Protection Agencys

annual toxic inventory 2000 report, which reviewed

seven industrial sectors.

45. Natural Resources Defense Council. Breathtaking:

Premature Mortality Due to Particulate Air Pollution in

239 American Cities. Washington, DC:Natural Resources

Defense Council, May 1996.46. Wiles R, Savitz J, Cohen BA. Particulate Air Pollution in Boston: Human Mortality, Pollution Sources and the Case for Tougher Clean Air Standards. Washington, DC:Environmental Working Group.

47. Stanfield B, Farleigh A, Porreco G. Danger in the Air:

Unhealthy Smog Days in 1999. Washington, DC:Clean Air

Network and U.S. Public Interest Research Group

Education Fund, January 2000;2.

48. Sargent R, Toering M. Dirty Power in the Northeast: A Report on the 1998 Emissions of the Northeasts Dirtiest

Power Plants. Boston:Campaign to Clean Up Polluting

Power Plants, 1999.

49. Older fossil-fuel power plants built during the 1940s through the 1960s create the vast majority of power plant

air pollution. In rewriting the 1970 Clean Air Act, amended in 1977 and 1990, electric industry lobbyists

successfully persuaded Congress that older plants

would soon be retired and therefore should be exempt

from strict, new emission standards. Instead, this loop-

hole has allowed owners of older, more polluting plants exempted from the modern standards to make bigger

profits and stay in operation longer compared with the

more expensive, cleaner, and newer power plants.50.Data for the rst half of 1999 show signicant increases in nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide and slight decreases for

sulfur dioxide (with the exception of the Brayton Point and

Canal plants, which showed considerable gains). However, it should be noted that the overall reductions in sulfur diox-

ide recorded during that time frame stemmed from the fact

that many units were shut down for repairs or mainte-

nanceÑand not from improvement in air pollution control

technologies. Reports show that the Salem Harbor Plant in

Salem was in fact shut down for good amount of time due

to a re at the plant, thus resulting in lower emission out-

puts. Even taking this into account, the emission rate of sul-fur dioxide at Salem was still 4 times the emission rate of

new coal-re plants. The average emission rate of sulfur

dioxide for all of Massachusetts was 1.04 lb/mmBTU, 3.46

times the 0.3 lb/mmBTU rate for newer, cleaner coal plants.

51. Toering M, Sargent R, Luppi C. Pollution Rising: New England Power Plants Emissions Trends 1st Half 1998 vs.

1st Half 1999. Boston:A Report for the Campaign to Clean

Up Polluting Power Plants. Massachusetts Public

Interest Research Group, 1999.

52. Although they do not typically produce dangerous air pollution, the states nuclear power plants continue to

pose a threat of accidental radiation releases and are

responsible for 99% of the high-level radioactive waste.53. Levy J, Spengler J, Hlinka D, Sullivan D. Estimated PublicHealth Impacts of Criteria Pollutant Air Emissions from

the Salem Harbor and Brayton Point Power Plants.

Cambridge, MA:Harvard School of Public Health and

Sullivant Environmental Consulting, May 2000.

54. MASSPIRG urges cut in solid waste. MASSPIRG 17 (4):13 (Winter 2000).55. The DEP estimate is based on 19911994 stack test data.

Available:

http://www.state.ma.us/dep/files/mercury/

hgch3b.htm#table3x7

[accessed 15 March 2000].

56. For additional mercury data, see MassachusettsDepartment of Environmental Protection. Mercury in

Massachusetts: An Evaluation of Sources, Emissions, Impacts and Controls. Boston, MA, June 1996. Available:

http://www.state.ma.us/dep/files/mercury/

hgch3b.htm#table3x8

[accessed 15 March 2000].

Environmental Justice

¥Faber and Krieg 288 VOLUME 110 lSUPPLEMENT 2 lApril 2002

¥Environmental Health Perspectives

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