Race is the strongest predictor of hazardous waste facility siting in the US

Evidence

Bullard’s classic Dumping in Dixie (1990) was also thoroughly focused on distributional inequity. As noted earlier, the 1983 GAO report and the 1987 UCC study motivated and empowered the movement. The UCC study found race ‘to be the most significant among variables tested in association with the location of commercial hazardous waste facilities. This represented a consistent national pattern’ (UCC 1987: 9). Similar conclusions have been found in studies done with regard to hazardous waste disposal sites, various types of incinerators, polluted water, toxic releases from industry, lead poisoning, and other types of environmental dangers. This line of research continues; recently, an Associated Press analysis illustrated that African-Americans are ‘79% more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution is suspected of posing the greatest health danger’ (Pace 2005). — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice, 208

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete data grounding for the distributive-justice prong the reader will apply across Legal Systems and Soundscape readings. — connects to: Class and unequal political power also drive where environmental harms land — David Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice:…, 209; Race predicts environmental hazard exposure better than income does — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 294; Companies target hazardous waste expansions by low political activity, not race — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 801 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Race, not income, best predicts where toxic waste sites are located #corroborates (0.95) — Harriet A. Washington, A Terrible Thing to Waste, 465
• Race, not chance, determined toxic waste site placement in Houston #exemplifies (0.90) — Harriet A. Washington, A Terrible Thing to Waste, 1208
• U.S. military base environmental harms fall disproportionately on colonized, poorer people of color #expands (0.72)