A socio-historical interpretation of toxic waste sites: the case of Greater Boston

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Jan, 1995 by Eric J. Krieg

I

Introduction

The most insidious form of toxic exposure is the waste site. According to the National Research Council, over 41 million Americans live within 4 miles of at least one of 1,177 Superfund sites nationwide.(1) In 1991, the NRC published a review of studies empirically linking increased health risks to the presence of toxic waste sites, specifically National Priority List Superfund sites.

Empirical studies have demonstrated that minorities bear a disproportionate share of the burden from the effects of toxic wastes (Bullard, 1983; Lee, 1987; Lavelle and Coyle, 1991; White, 1992; EPA, 1992; Gelobter, 1992; Perfecto, 1992; Mohai and Bryant, 1993; Szasz, 1993; Zimmerman, 1993). Generally, race biases are present for all types of toxic hazards (including landfills and incinerators, National Priority List Superfund sites and other waste sites, Toxic Release Inventories), and also are relevant to air and water quality, and government responses to toxic wastes. Other studies have yielded disparate results. Some have detected class biases to Toxic Release Inventory data (Gould, 1986; Charlier, 1993), some found no signs of race bias to waste sites and Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facility locations (Gould, 1986; Anderton, 1994), and others identified reverse race biases in them (Bowen and Sailing, 1994).(2)

These studies demonstrate that while some areas are characterized by environmental racism, others are not. The interpretation of associations between minorities and toxic waste is dependent upon defining race as a social category. Therefore, an understanding of the conditions which lead to environmental racism is requisite to understanding race differences in public health. Key to understanding these conditions are the spatio-temporal relations of toxic wastes to their environment. For landfills and incinerators, the spatio-temporal relations are easy to interpret - generally, people (usually minorities) are present before toxic wastes are disposed. Bullard (1983) found this to be the case in Houston where incinerator sitings are in predominantly black communities.

While spatio-temporal analyses of disposal facilities are common, they are lacking in studies of other types of toxic wastes, particularly industrial waste sites.(3) Sometimes, as Bullard (1983) demonstrates, wastes are placed in existing communities. Because many communities need to increase their tax base, polluting industries generally face little opposition locating in low income areas. Other times, wastes are present long before the present community existed. Gentrification processes and public housing sitings relocate poor and many minority populations in neighborhoods with low land values (Logan and Molotch, 1987). A cyclical process of falling land values, toxic waste generating industries, and low income public housing sitings results in a treadmill effect that continuously brings toxic wastes, the poor, and minorities together.

Not only are analyses of waste sites necessary, they are more revealing than the study of landfill and incinerator sitings for two reasons: First, they represent a majority of communities nationwide. Most communities do not have toxic waste landfills and incinerators. Second, they focus on toxic waste production rather than disposal.(4) Waste site analyses are analyses of economic processes and the political economy of toxic wastes.

II

Methodology

Unlike facilities, toxic waste sites tend to be places where producers, knowingly or unknowingly, dispose(d) of wastes in an environmentally unsafe manner that threatens environmental and human health.(5) These sites usually exist because: 1) there were (are) no laws regarding waste handling and management, 2) the producer deliberately dumped hazardous waste in the area to escape the high costs of waste handling industries, or 3) previous to its discovery, the presence of wastes and/or their dangers were unknown. The forces that concentrate waste handling facilities in particular areas require radically different explanations than the forces that generate hazardous waste sites. This study differentiates these two typologies as sites and facilities.

Findings from facility biases cannot be generalized to include site biases. Facility case studies are generally incapable of describing the history of wastes over the larger geographic region in which they are embedded. Second, they offer little insight to interaction between race, class, and demographic trends. Therefore, research that incorporates a historical approach to the political economy of place is necessary.

Greater Boston is an excellent place for such a study. It is a city with a long history of industrial activity that has generated wastes for hundreds of years. Its large racially/ethnically diverse population allows for a reliable empirical analysis of race and class associations with waste sites. Finally, as a large city in the Northeast, it represents much of America.

III

The Geographic History of Industrial Activity