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The distribution of pollution and environmental justice in Puerto Rico: a quantitative analysis

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Abstract

This research quantifies the distribution of toxic releases in Puerto Rico to determine whether environmental inequality exists. We calculate an environmental Gini coefficient using Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data from 2000 to 2008. Our findings suggest Puerto Rico has a relatively constant and unequal distribution of releases over this time period. Based on this result, we investigate linkages between toxic releases and several socioeconomic and demographic indicators. We apply a quantile regression model using TRI data and American Community Survey data from 2005 to 2008 to identify important indicators across the distribution of releases. We find municipios (legal division equivalent to US counties) that have a higher percent of non-Puerto Rican Hispanic origin or high school educated population experience higher releases to all media. This also is true for unemployment, but only for municipios with the largest releases (i.e., highest quintile). The results also reveal municipios that are more densely populated or that have a higher percent of college degrees experience lower releases to all media. Higher proportions of certain age groups also suggest lower releases. These results are not constant across the distribution of releases; they are most significant in those municipios with the largest releases. This is even more obvious when we only examine releases to air.

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Notes

  1. Accessed at: http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=DEC_10_SF1_GCTPH1.ST05&prodType=table on January 3, 2013. The US Census defines a municipio as the primary legal division of Puerto Rico. The census treats municipios as equivalent to US counties for data purposes (Accessed at: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/glossary.html on January 3, 2013). Our dataset excluded municipios without TRI data. In those municipios, no facilities reported releases.

  2. By contrast, the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) is a comprehensive study of health risks from inhaling air pollutants (Accessed at: http://www.epa.gov/nata/ on February 25, 2013). It is a national inventory of stationary and mobile sources, but it is updated only every 3 years (1996, 1999, 2002, 2005). Although NATA covers Puerto Rico, changes in the methodology across the four assessments make it difficult to compare results. This suggests we could not use NATA for the types of analyses presented here.

  3. Accessed at: http://www.epa.gov/tri/trichemicals on January 3, 2013.

  4. Dropping observations for a balanced panel leaves 15 municipios for 4 years. According to Hughes (2011), Pfaffermayr’s routine in STATA performs satisfactorily for datasets with about 400 observations.

  5. Results for per capita releases to air available upon request.

  6. Based on TRI 2008, Puerto Rico municipios with the largest releases are Guayanilla, Salinas, Guayama, Las Piedras, Penuelas, Barceloneta, Yabucoa, Toa Baja, Yauco, and San Juan.

  7. Data source: ACS (American Community Survey) data. Race categories are defined in the ACS.

  8. Regression results are available upon request.

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Acknowledgments

The views expressed herein are strictly the opinion of the authors and in no manner represent current or planned policy by US Environmental Protection Agency. The authors acknowledge four anonymous reviewers for their comments which have improved the paper. We also acknowledge Matthew Hopton for creating Figs. 1, 4. We also thank Randy Bruins, the Puerto Rico Sustainability Metrics research team, and collaborators for feedback on previous drafts. Shanshan Wu would like to acknowledge that part of this research was conducted under a postdoctoral research associateship provided by the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council.

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  1. National Risk Management Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, (USEPA/ORD), 26 W. M. L. King Dr., Cincinnati, OH, 45268, USA

    Shanshan Wu & Matthew T. Heberling

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Correspondence to Matthew T. Heberling.

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Wu, S., Heberling, M.T. The distribution of pollution and environmental justice in Puerto Rico: a quantitative analysis. Popul Environ 35, 113–132 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-013-0188-6

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