The Sociological Mapping of On-Site Releases and Off-Site Transfersof US Industrial Toxic Wastes, 1998-2005*

John K. ThomasProgram in Rural Sociology and Community StudiesDarrell FanninCenter for Socioeconomic Research and EducationDepartment of Recreation, Park and Tourism SciencesTexas A&M UniversityCollege Station, Texas 77843-2261

Abstract

Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) of 1986and the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 require certain facilities that manufacture, process or otherwiseuse certain chemicals in quantities that exceed threshold amounts within a calendar year to report thequantities that they released into the environment or otherwise managed as waste (e.g., transferred off-sitefor destruction) to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and to state and tribalgovernments by July 1 of the following year. These chemicals are identified on the EPCRA section 313list of toxic chemicals. EPA makes the reported data available to the public in its Toxics ReleaseInventory (TRI) database. Approximately 23,000 facilities file about 80,000 or more reports annually toEPA. In this paper we address the on-site release and off-site transfer quantities pertaining to the periodfrom 1998 through 2005. We mapped the origin and destination of these transfers and profiled thesocioeconomic characteristics of US counties where toxic chemical releases occurred and counties of origin and destination for the toxic chemical transfers that occurred. We find that TRI chemical releasesand transfers are not evenly distributed among counties and populations throughout the United States. Afew states and counties were significant and regular contributors to the TRI database. Metropolitancounties account for largest volumes of on-site toxic chemical releases, exported transfers, and importedtransfers. Because of the sizeable industrial footprint in these counties, wages and thus median familyincomes are greater, while income inequality is slightly less than in other counties. Our findings furtherindicate different environmental justice accounts for Blacks and Hispanics. Although counties with largepercentages of both minorities are likely to suffer income inequality, their population and residentialpatterns are slightly different relative to the presence of TRI wastes. Blacks experience more segregationthan Hispanics when compared to Whites, and they are more likely than Hispanics (and Whites) to live incounties that release, export and import transferred wastes.

Key words:

toxic chemical releases, Toxic Release Inventory, off-site transfers

*Revision of the paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association/ Southwestern Sociological Association in Denver, CO, April 9-11, 2009. This research contributes to theproject “Transitional Urban Environments and the Organization of Agriculture and Other US Industries(H8571)” funded by the US Department of Agriculture and the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.We appreciate the assistance of Stephen DeVito at the US Environmental Protection Agency/TRIProgram for data acquisition and Kamau Njuguna at Lockheed Martin and Catherine Miller at theHampshire Research Institute for advice on properly processing the TRI transfer data. The authors aresolely responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation. Please direct correspondence to John K.Thomas, Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences, Program in Rural Sociology andCommunity Studies, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-2261.

The Sociological Mapping of On-Site Releases and Off-Site Transfersof US Industrial Toxic Wastes, 1998-2005Introduction

Socioeconomic and risk inequities related to the placement and operation of pollutingindustrial and waste management facilities have garnered much scientific and political attentionin the past twenty-five years (Bullard, Mohai, Saha, and Wright 2007). Since the 1990s, socialscientists and others have increasingly turned to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s(EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) as a useful data source for what many term theenvironmental justice (EJ) debate. They have advanced this debate both conceptually andmethodologically by combining annual TRI data with Geographical Information System (GIS)procedures to investigate the spatial unevenness of racial/ethnic and other socioeconomicdisparities related to human exposure risks posed by hazardous wastes (Cutter and Solecki1996); Downey 2006; Daniels and Friedman 1999; Glickman and Hersh 1995; Perlin et al. 1995;Maantay 2002; Sicotte and Swanson 2007; Stockwell et al. 1993).

The findings of these studiesare, however, often contentious and based entirely on “end-point” analyses, regardless of whether the investigations are pollution-dispersion or site-proximity assessments (Mohai andSaha 2007).With few exceptions (Howell et al. 2005), scientists have focused on either on-sitereleases of toxic wastes by manufacturing facilities or on commercial facilities that receivehazardous wastes for processing and disposal. This practice has resulted in little knowledgeabout: trends in how off-site transfers compare to on-site releases of industrial toxic wastes;where waste transfers are sent; or about the demographic characteristics of the counties thatexport

and

import these wastes. In this study, we used TRI data to distinguish on-site releasefrom off-site transfers, to describe national off-site transfer patterns from 1998 to 2005, and toexamine the demographic profiles of counties that are major recipients or destinations forindustrial toxic wastes.

Racial Inequity

Environmental justice advocates center the inequity debate on several claims. They assertthat racial/ethnic minorities bear a disproportionate share of the risks and consequences of exposure to industrial toxic waste (Commission on Racial Injustice 1987; Ringquist 1997; Boaret al. 1997; Bullard 1990, 2001; Bullard et al. 2007). Second, they charge that poor, minorityneighborhoods are targeted by hazardous waste producers and processors because theseneighborhoods lack the political and economic influence to oppose the construction andoperation of such facilities. Third, they claim that people of color, who live in theseneighborhoods, are prisoners of their own neighborhoods because they are unable relocate tosafer neighborhoods, and often are unable to attain immediate governmental enforcement andreclamation responses (Bullard et al. 2007).Several scholars have suggested broadening the EJ perspective by including historicalprocesses and relationships in our understanding of racism in general and environmental racismin particular (Bullard 2001; Bullard et al. 2007; Park and Pellow 2004; Pulido 2000). For

3example, Pulido (2000) and others (Park and Pellow 2004) employ Omi and Winant’s (1994: 15)ideas regarding racial formation in America to distinguish racialism as “…those practices andideologies carried out by structures, institutions, and individuals, that reproduce racial inequalityand systematically undermine the well-being of racially subordinated populations. Pulido arguesthat narrow emphases on individual facility siting, intentionality (i.e., siting decisions thatintentionally discriminate against people of color), and scale (i.e., places such as neighborhoods,census tracts, class-based suburbs, inner cities, industrial zones, etc.) have restricted racism andspace as discrete conceptual objects in the environmental justice debate rather than portray themas social processes that define, are defined by, and interconnect dynamic social relationships.These relationships, or the socio-spaciality of racism according to Pulido, involve geographicaland temporal patterns of industrialization, suburbanization, decentralization, migration andsegregation wherein being white confers real and insidious economic, social and other statusprivileges that are traditionally absent among people of color (Freudenberg 2005). Pulido’s(2000) analysis of Los Angeles, California illustrates the historical complexity of such patternsas they have reshaped the urban landscape and environmental inequity for Black and Latinogroups since the 1920s (see also Grineski et al. 2007; Park and Pellow 2004).Portraying and analyzing these patterns over time and geo-units is not an easy or welldocumented consistent task (Lester et al. 2001). Scholars caution that the demonstration of environmental inequity as a national pattern is wrought with methodological inconsistencies thatcomplicates the accumulation of evidence (Zimmerman 1994). Most past studies of treatment,storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs), for example, have found statistically significant racialand socioeconomic disparities between geo-units that host and lack such facilities (Boar et al.1997; Government Accounting Office 1983; Mohai and Bryant 1992; Commission for RacialJustice 1987). Still other studies report few or no racial and socioeconomic differences betweenhost and non-host geo-units (Hamilton 1995; Yandle and Burton 1996) or raise questions aboutthe chronology of industrial-ethnic neighborhood transition (Been and Gupta 1997; Mitchell etal. 1999).These differences in research findings have provoked considerable debate leadingresearchers to scrutinize the analytical methods applied in EJ studies (Lester et al. 2001). Theysurmise that study findings vary because of: the type of selected unit of study (e.g., firms,facilities, or sites), the adequacy and universes of data (e.g., treatment, storage, and disposalfacilities or TSDFs, TRI facilities, landfills, or land disposal units), cross-sectional versuslongitudinal study designs, choices of areal or geo-units (e.g., zip codes, census tracts or blocks,county, or region), and population characteristics selected (e.g., density; racial/ethniccomposition; and economic and class profiles) for compared geo-units (Anderton 1996; Danielsand Friedman 1999; Fisher et al. 2005; Mohai 1996; Pastor et al. 2005; Ringquist 1997; andZimmerman 1994). Furthermore, others note that studies based on geographical informationsystems (GIS) technology have become increasingly sophisticated and argue for the superiorityof distance-based proximity methods (Mohai and Saha 2007).Mohai and Saha (2007) assessed the national distribution of TSDFs to demonstrate theextent to which the use of distance-based methods (DBM) are more precise than otherprocedures for controlling distances around waste facilities.

They investigated whether theirDBM would alter previous estimations by other studies of racial, economic and sociopolitical