Environmental sacrifice zones: Risk and transport in southern California

Activists against environmental racism claim that low-income and minority communities become "environmental sacrifice zones"---places where toxic or hazardous industries concentrate. Despite activists' claims, significant empirical questions remain in defining environmental sacrifice zones (ESZs), and in understanding what such zones mean to risk. Although communities may react strongly against hosting unwanted land uses, it is not necessarily true that more facilities lead to more spills, more human exposure to toxics, or more health risk, even though community members tend to assume that proximity to firms handling toxic and hazardous substances translates to greater health risk. This dissertation addresses these problems by answering the question: is the risk of a toxic release during transport greater in poor and minority neighborhoods because of ESZs? In addition, the research examines how the spatial location of spills overlaps with industry clusters to test empirically the supposition that spill risk increases with industry concentration. The study uses a combination of mapping and statistical methods. A geographical information system (GIS) is used to locate toxic spills and handlers on a digital map. Cluster analysis methods examine the density of facilities and transport spill events as well as tests for the spatial covariance between facilities and spills. Cluster analysis demonstrates strong clustering of transport and on-site spills, as well as clustering between factory sites and transport spills. A Cox proportional hazard model demonstrates that a history of past spills is a good predictor of future on-site spills. Another model demonstrates raised rates of transport spills surrounding clusters of toxic firms. The last step of the analysis compares risk and facility clustering between neighborhoods and socio-economic groups, finding that hazmat spills during transport disproportionately occur in minority neighborhoods in LA. The results of this study help planners understand the spatial distribution of risk and nuisance from industrial production in urban landscapes.