Communities at Risk. Joel L. Lindsey and Lynda Shoalmire, Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, P.O. Box 9764, Southern University, Baton Rouge, LA 70813
This project evaluates the potential impacts of toxic air emissions on river communities in Louisiana’s Mississippi River Industrial corridor. Because the heavily industrialized corridor is impacted by some of the nation’s highest toxic chemical releases, the potential for exposure to these toxins is high. Many communities within the corridor are concerned about the adverse health effects, particularly cancer, which may result from exposure to these toxic releases. The objective of this study is to determine whether some subgroups of the corridor population bear a disproportionate share of the potential impacts of toxic air emissions. Proximity based measurements are used to develop community profiles for minorities, children 5 years and younger and elderly 65 years and over, and low-income persons. The communities profiled all contained one or more facilities reporting carcinogen releases to the federal Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) in 1993. The communities selected for examination met two criteria: 1) facilities with carcinogen emissions of 29,000 pounds or more and 2) facility’s emissions contain Group A carcinogens. The facilities are mapped using a Geographical Information System (GIS). Four circles representing zones are drawn around each selected facility(s) at distances of one to four miles. Added together, the zones make-up a host or vulnerable community. A host community is defined as the area falling within a 4-mile circle around an emitting facility(s). Residents of these host communities are considered to be living in close proximity to the facility and hence face greater potential exposure to toxic chemicals than the general population. Next the demographic make-up of the communities is calculated using the 1990 Census data. The population characteristics of each host community and each zone are compared to the population characteristics of the industrial corridor. Results of the comparison suggested minorities and poor people in some communities/zones are potentially more impacted by toxic releases than other corridor residents.
Work supported by The McKnight Foundation.