The Sociological Mapping of On-Site Releases and Off-Site Transfers

of US Industrial Toxic Wastes, 1998-2005*

John K. Thomas
Program in Rural Sociology and Community Studies

Darrell Fannin
Center for Socioeconomic Research and Education
Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas 77843-2261

Abstract

Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) of 1986
and the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 require certain facilities that manufacture, process or otherwise
use certain chemicals in quantities that exceed threshold amounts within a calendar year to report the
quantities that they released into the environment or otherwise managed as waste (e.g., transferred off-site
for destruction) to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and to state and tribal
governments by July 1 of the following year. These chemicals are identified on the EPCRA section 313
list of toxic chemicals. EPA makes the reported data available to the public in its Toxics Release
Inventory (TRI) database. Approximately 23,000 facilities file about 80,000 or more reports annually to
EPA. In this paper we address the on-site release and off-site transfer quantities pertaining to the period
from 1998 through 2005. We mapped the origin and destination of these transfers and profiled the
socioeconomic characteristics of US counties where toxic chemical releases occurred and counties of
origin and destination for the toxic chemical transfers that occurred. We find that TRI chemical releases
and transfers are not evenly distributed among counties and populations throughout the United States. A
few states and counties were significant and regular contributors to the TRI database. Metropolitan
counties account for largest volumes of on-site toxic chemical releases, exported transfers, and imported
transfers. Because of the sizeable industrial footprint in these counties, wages and thus median family
incomes are greater, while income inequality is slightly less than in other counties. Our findings further
indicate different environmental justice accounts for Blacks and Hispanics. Although counties with large
percentages of both minorities are likely to suffer income inequality, their population and residential
patterns are slightly different relative to the presence of TRI wastes. Blacks experience more segregation
than Hispanics when compared to Whites, and they are more likely than Hispanics (and Whites) to live in
counties that release, export and import transferred wastes.

Key words: toxic chemical releases, Toxic Release Inventory, off-site transfers

*Revision of the paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association/
Southwestern Sociological Association in Denver, CO, April 9-11, 2009. This research contributes to the
project “Transitional Urban Environments and the Organization of Agriculture and Other US Industries
(H8571)” funded by the US Department of Agriculture and the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.
We appreciate the assistance of Stephen DeVito at the US Environmental Protection Agency/TRI
Program for data acquisition and Kamau Njuguna at Lockheed Martin and Catherine Miller at the
Hampshire Research Institute for advice on properly processing the TRI transfer data. The authors are
solely responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation. Please direct correspondence to John K.
Thomas, Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences, Program in Rural Sociology and
Community Studies, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-2261.
 The Sociological Mapping of On-Site Releases and Off-Site Transfers
of US Industrial Toxic Wastes, 1998-2005

Introduction

Socioeconomic and risk inequities related to the placement and operation of polluting
industrial and waste management facilities have garnered much scientific and political attention
in the past twenty-five years (Bullard, Mohai, Saha, and Wright 2007). Since the 1990s, social
scientists and others have increasingly turned to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s
(EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) as a useful data source for what many term the
environmental justice (EJ) debate. They have advanced this debate both conceptually and
methodologically by combining annual TRI data with Geographical Information System (GIS)
procedures to investigate the spatial unevenness of racial/ethnic and other socioeconomic
disparities related to human exposure risks posed by hazardous wastes (Cutter and Solecki
1996); Downey 2006; Daniels and Friedman 1999; Glickman and Hersh 1995; Perlin et al. 1995;
Maantay 2002; Sicotte and Swanson 2007; Stockwell et al. 1993). The findings of these studies
are, however, often contentious and based entirely on “end-point” analyses, regardless of
whether the investigations are pollution-dispersion or site-proximity assessments (Mohai and
Saha 2007).

With few exceptions (Howell et al. 2005), scientists have focused on either on-site
releases of toxic wastes by manufacturing facilities or on commercial facilities that receive
hazardous wastes for processing and disposal. This practice has resulted in little knowledge
about: trends in how off-site transfers compare to on-site releases of industrial toxic wastes;
where waste transfers are sent; or about the demographic characteristics of the counties that
export and import these wastes. In this study, we used TRI data to distinguish on-site release
from off-site transfers, to describe national off-site transfer patterns from 1998 to 2005, and to
examine the demographic profiles of counties that are major recipients or destinations for
industrial toxic wastes.

Racial Inequity

Environmental justice advocates center the inequity debate on several claims. They assert
that racial/ethnic minorities bear a disproportionate share of the risks and consequences of
exposure to industrial toxic waste (Commission on Racial Injustice 1987; Ringquist 1997; Boar
et al. 1997; Bullard 1990, 2001; Bullard et al. 2007). Second, they charge that poor, minority
neighborhoods are targeted by hazardous waste producers and processors because these
neighborhoods lack the political and economic influence to oppose the construction and
operation of such facilities. Third, they claim that people of color, who live in these
neighborhoods, are prisoners of their own neighborhoods because they are unable relocate to
safer neighborhoods, and often are unable to attain immediate governmental enforcement and
reclamation responses (Bullard et al. 2007).

Several scholars have suggested broadening the EJ perspective by including historical

processes and relationships in our understanding of racism in general and environmental racism
in particular (Bullard 2001; Bullard et al. 2007; Park and Pellow 2004; Pulido 2000). For

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example, Pulido (2000) and others (Park and Pellow 2004) employ Omi and Winant’s (1994: 15)
ideas regarding racial formation in America to distinguish racialism as “…those practices and
ideologies carried out by structures, institutions, and individuals, that reproduce racial inequality
and systematically undermine the well-being of racially subordinated populations. Pulido argues
that narrow emphases on individual facility siting, intentionality (i.e., siting decisions that
intentionally discriminate against people of color), and scale (i.e., places such as neighborhoods,
census tracts, class-based suburbs, inner cities, industrial zones, etc.) have restricted racism and
space as discrete conceptual objects in the environmental justice debate rather than portray them
as social processes that define, are defined by, and interconnect dynamic social relationships.
These relationships, or the socio-spaciality of racism according to Pulido, involve geographical
and temporal patterns of industrialization, suburbanization, decentralization, migration and
segregation wherein being white confers real and insidious economic, social and other status
privileges that are traditionally absent among people of color (Freudenberg 2005). Pulido’s
(2000) analysis of Los Angeles, California illustrates the historical complexity of such patterns
as they have reshaped the urban landscape and environmental inequity for Black and Latino
groups since the 1920s (see also Grineski et al. 2007; Park and Pellow 2004).

Portraying and analyzing these patterns over time and geo-units is not an easy or well
documented consistent task (Lester et al. 2001). Scholars caution that the demonstration of
environmental inequity as a national pattern is wrought with methodological inconsistencies that
complicates the accumulation of evidence (Zimmerman 1994). Most past studies of treatment,
storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs), for example, have found statistically significant racial
and socioeconomic disparities between geo-units that host and lack such facilities (Boar et al.
1997; Government Accounting Office 1983; Mohai and Bryant 1992; Commission for Racial
Justice 1987). Still other studies report few or no racial and socioeconomic differences between
host and non-host geo-units (Hamilton 1995; Yandle and Burton 1996) or raise questions about
the chronology of industrial-ethnic neighborhood transition (Been and Gupta 1997; Mitchell et
al. 1999).

These differences in research findings have provoked considerable debate leading

researchers to scrutinize the analytical methods applied in EJ studies (Lester et al. 2001). They
surmise that study findings vary because of: the type of selected unit of study (e.g., firms,
facilities, or sites), the adequacy and universes of data (e.g., treatment, storage, and disposal
facilities or TSDFs, TRI facilities, landfills, or land disposal units), cross-sectional versus
longitudinal study designs, choices of areal or geo-units (e.g., zip codes, census tracts or blocks,
county, or region), and population characteristics selected (e.g., density; racial/ethnic
composition; and economic and class profiles) for compared geo-units (Anderton 1996; Daniels
and Friedman 1999; Fisher et al. 2005; Mohai 1996; Pastor et al. 2005; Ringquist 1997; and
Zimmerman 1994). Furthermore, others note that studies based on geographical information
systems (GIS) technology have become increasingly sophisticated and argue for the superiority
of distance-based proximity methods (Mohai and Saha 2007).

Mohai and Saha (2007) assessed the national distribution of TSDFs to demonstrate the
extent to which the use of distance-based methods (DBM) are more precise than other
procedures for controlling distances around waste facilities.1 They investigated whether their
DBM would alter previous estimations by other studies of racial, economic and sociopolitical

3
disparities associated with the distribution of TSDFs. They compared their DBM results to those
originally reported in five prominent EJ studies: Commission for Racial Justice (1987); Goldman
1991); Goldman and Fitton (1994); Anderton et al. (1994); Been (1995) ; and Oakes et al.
(1996).2 Mohai and Saha (2007) summarily found: (1) their DBM identified greater
demographic disparities between host and non-host neighborhoods than by procedures used in
the selected past studies; (2) economic factors (i.e., log mean household income, percent below
poverty, and percent employed) and sociopolitical factors (i.e., percent with a college degree;
percent employed in executive, managerial and professional jobs; percent employed in precision
production, transportation or labor jobs) were associated with the locations of TSDFs; and (3)
racial disparities (i.e., percent Black and percent Hispanic population) existed in all the re-
analyzed data and that the disparities persisted despite the researchers’ controlling for economic
and sociopolitical variables reported in the 1990 US Census.

These findings are a hallmark in the EJ debate, but they are predicated on a partial
representation of US hazardous waste facilities and on the implicit assumption that all TSDFs are
equivalent in terms of the volumes of wastes these facilities process. This is to say, the
significance of race is conditional to DBM studies of only TSDFs without regard to their size.
Mohai and Saha’s results, nevertheless, empirically support the contention that race is a
distinguishing and quantifiably reliable factor for determining who resides near TSDFs. Their
findings also point to other variables (e.g., housing segregation and institutional forms of
discrimination) that are germane to theories of racism and institutionalized racial patterns of
employment and housing. TSDFs are, however, only one broad group of facilities that process
hazardous waste.3 For example, other facilities such as manufacturers, publicly owned treatment
works (POTWs) and some facilities, which are licensed to receive hazardous materials for
energy recovery and recycling, are major participants in the nation’s hazardous waste stream
(Gerrard 1994). The EPA’s TRI is the most comprehensive source of data regarding who emits
and processes chemical wastes, contrary to its low awareness among the US public (Atlas 2007).
It includes data on industrial facilities which originate wastes as well as data regarding to whom
and where these wastes are transferred for processing. Therefore, by analyzing TRI data, we
address a broader hazardous waste footprint than just TSDFs in local areas.

Overview of the Toxics Release Inventory

The US Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act
(EPCRA) in 1986. Section 313 of this act and the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 require
certain facilities that manufacture, process or otherwise use listed chemicals that exceed
thresholds amounts within a calendar year to report the quantities that they released into the
environment or otherwise managed as waste to the EPA and state and tribal governments by July
1 of the following year. Quantities otherwise managed as waste include, for example, those
quantities that were recycled or burned for energy production. The list of TRI reportable
chemicals are detailed in 40 CFR Part 372.65.

The EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program makes these data and information
available to the public via its TRI database, which can be accessed from the internet at
www.epa.gov/tri/triexplorer. The primary purpose of TRI data and information is to inform the
public of releases and other waste management activities of toxic chemicals in their

4
communities, and enable citizens to make informed decisions regarding the consequences of
such activities to human health and the environment. TRI data are also used by the federal, state
and local governments for prioritization purposes and to assess pollution prevention activities.
Researchers, public interest groups, as well as others use TRI data for a variety of purposes
(DeVito 2009). 4

When the TRI program first started in 1987, approximately 320 chemicals were included
on the original list of toxic chemicals, and facilities within 22 industry sectors were subject to the
TRI reporting requirements for these chemicals. Since its inception, the TRI Program has
expanded the TRI database significantly by increasing the number and types of chemicals and
industries it regulates, and by setting lower reporting thresholds for certain chemicals of
particular concern.

Specifically, EPA has issued regulations to roughly double the number of chemicals
originally included on the TRI list of toxic chemicals: approximately 650 discrete chemical
substances and 30 chemical compound categories are currently included on the TRI list. Seven
industry sectors have been added to expand coverage beyond the 22 originally covered
manufacturing industry sectors, so that more facilities are required to report.5 The number of
facilities that currently report to EPA’s TRI Program average 24,000. These facilities are
distributed among 29 industries, including federal facilities such as those maintained by the
Department of Defense, and hazardous waste treatment and disposal facilities regulated under
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act - Subtitle C.6 Lastly, EPA has reduced the reporting
thresholds for chemicals that are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT), as these
chemicals are of particular concern. Lowering of reporting thresholds for PBT chemicals
enables EPA to collect release and other waste management information on these chemicals that
otherwise would not be submitted under the previous reporting thresholds, and provides
additional information to the public on these chemicals (DeVito, 2009).

Types of Releases and Transfers. Facilities that meet TRI criteria annually report
release and transfer data in three sections of Form R. Section 5 addresses on-site releases. An
on-site release is an on-site discharge or emission of a toxic chemical to the environment (US
Environmental Protection Agency 1996). On-site releases include emissions to the air,
discharges to bodies of water, releases at the facility to land, as well as disposal into underground
injection wells. Air emissions are reported either as stack (point) or fugitive (nonpoint)
emissions. Stack emissions are deliberate releases to air that occur through confined air streams,
such as stacks, vents, ducts, or pipes. Fugitive emissions are all releases to air that are
unintentional (i.e., are not released through a confined air stream). Releases to water include
discharges to streams, rivers, lakes, oceans, and other bodies of water, as well as discharges from
industrial process outflow pipes or to open trenches. Underground injection is a contained
release of a waste fluid into a subsurface well for the purpose of disposal, if it does not endanger
underground sources of drinking water, public health, or the environment. Underground
injection involves Class I wells that are used to inject liquid hazardous wastes or industrial and
municipal waste waters beneath the lowermost underground source of an area’s drinking water.
On-site releases to land occur within the boundaries of a reporting facility.7 They include:
disposal of toxic chemicals in landfills (in which wastes are buried); land treatment/application
farming (where chemical waste is applied to or incorporated into soil); surface impoundments

5
(which are uncovered holding areas used to volatilize and/or settle waste materials); and other
types of land disposal (such as spills, leaks, or waste piles). We refer to on-site releases of toxic
wastes as “releases” in the remainder of this paper.

Waste-producing facilities report the amounts of each TRI chemical transferred off-site in
Section 6 of Form R (US Environmental Protection Agency 1996). Metals and metal
compounds are transferred to facilities for solidification/stabilization treatment or to wastewater
treatment units such as privately owned treatment works and POTWs. Transfers designated for
disposal are released to a landfill or are injected in an underground well at an off-site facility.
Wastes designated for storage may not have a designated disposal method and could remain
stored indefinitely. We indicate hereafter off-site transfers for treatment and disposal as
“transfers”.

We focused our analysis on releases and transfers for disposal with some exclusions of
TRI data. We did not distinguish the volumes of wastes by specific types of releases and
transfers. These data are available from the TRI Explorer (http://epa.gov/triexplorer). Further,
we deleted 22 chemicals and particular compounds for this study. The EPA delisted two
chemicals and no longer monitors them. It also changed the reporting status on 14 chemicals and
added 6 new chemicals in 2000 (Miller 2009). By deleting these chemicals, we created a
standard set of chemicals for the eight-year study period. We omitted the POTWs because they
accounted for only 0.4 percent of the transfers and any particular toxic waste chemical
transferred could be sent to multiple POTW addresses. Next, we excluded wastes designated for
waste management (i.e., for recycling and energy recovery) because they require different
reporting procedures and because some manufacturing facilities do not consider toxic chemicals
transferred off-site for recycling to be in waste (US Environmental Protection Agency 1996).
Finally, facilities primarily involved with oil and gas exploration and transportation are not
subject to TRI reporting. Any facility that is subject to TRI reporting must report any off-site
transfers of toxic chemicals, but if the transfer is to a facility that is not subject to TRI reporting,
the receiving facility typically does not report to EPA’s TRI Program since they are not required
to do so (DeVito, 2009; also see http://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/background.htm).

Hypotheses

Unlike past research, we investigate a wider gamut of industrial hazardous wastes

reported by facilities in the TRI and initially test only correlative hypotheses.8 Our study
descriptively complements the spatial work reported by Howell et al. (2005) and includes several
of the conventional EJ socio-demographic variables reported by these researchers and Mohai and
Saha (2007). The descriptive results of the study by Howell and his associates are worth
reviewing first because they analyzed county-to-county TRI on- and off-site releases from 1987
to 1997 (off-site releases are distinguished from off-site transfers). Their variables included:
proportion Black, proportion Hispanic, median family income, extent of income inequality as
indicated by Gini coefficients, and the extent of racial segregation as measured by the index of
dissimilarity.9 They also identified the metropolitan status of counties by reclassifying counties
as metropolitan (metro), non-metropolitan but adjacent to metro, and non-metropolitan-
nonadjacent and subsequently examined their findings according to four US regions (i.e., north,
south, east, west). Howell and his associates found that facilities located in metro counties

6
produced significantly more wastes than those located elsewhere. Counties with greater
proportions of Blacks (but not Hispanics) and more residential segregation between Whites and
Blacks tended to have greater volumes of toxic waste releases shipped into and from them.
While income inequality was statistically insignificant, they found that median family income
was related to higher pollution production. Their results for waste-destination counties showed,
however, that counties with both higher median family incomes and greater income inequality
were recipients of large volumes of wastes for processing. Finally, Howell and his associates
reported that the Hispanic proportion of county population was inversely related to the volumes
of exported and imported chemical waste in their study. In other words, they did not find large
percentages of Hispanics residing in counties that exported and imported TRI wastes.

These results differed somewhat from those reported by Mohai and Saha (2007), who
examined using census tracts the socio-spatial patterns around only TSDFs. Using two DBMs,
these researchers found that areas with higher percentages of Black and Hispanic populations,
and people employed in precision, production, transportation, or labor occupations resided closer
to TSDFs. Their results for percent below poverty, log of mean household income, and percent
unemployed varied depending of the DBM used. Percent with a college degree was not
important in the DBM and other models.

We test the null hypothesis rho = 0 for bivariate correlation coefficients for: (1) selected
county-level socioeconomic variables prevalent in the theory of racialism and reported in the two
studies discussed above and other EJ literature, (2) between these variables and TRI pounds of
releases and transfers, and (3) among the release and transfer measures. Our selection of
socioeconomic variables emphasizes institutional factors based on the composition and residence
of race/ethnic groups, and income disparities that characterize patterns of racialism at the county
level. Thus, we hypothesize, as shown by the following parenthetical plus and minus signs, that
Black and Hispanic population composition is associated with residence in metropolitan counties
(-), high residential dissimilarities (+) and high income inequality (+) compared to whites, and
with low median family incomes (-). In short, non-Hispanic Whites are residentially more
segregated, have larger median family incomes than these other groups.

The hypothesized directions of association between each socioeconomic variable and the
TRI-reported total volumes of on-site releases and off-site transfers are: county metropolitan
status (-), percent non-Hispanic white population (-), percent non-Hispanic Black population (+),
percent Hispanic population (+), indices of dissimilarity (+), median family income (-), GINI
coefficient of income inequality (+). Also, we expect the total volume of releases from 1998 to
2005 to be positively related to the total volume of transfers exported and imported during this
period. In other words, we expect counties that produce large volumes of industrial wastes to be
large exporters and importers of these wastes because of the waste processing infrastructures that
develop near and support industrial waste producing facilities located in predominantly
metropolitan counties. Finally, we establish a probability of equal or less than five percent
(p < .05) to indicate statistically significant coefficients.

7
 Research Methods

We conduct a descriptive study and restrict it to a correlational analysis for two reasons.
First, as other researchers have demonstrated, TRI facilities are not evenly distributed across the
nation and second, and the volumes of releases, transfer exports, and transfer imports are not
evenly distributed among TRI facilities and locations (Freudenburg 2005; Howell et al. 2005).
Consequently, we are interested in identifying particular US counties that are “hot spots” which
account for the largest volumes of releases and transfers. We defer to a future study that applies
DPMs to better address the spatial unevenness of who disproportionately bears the
environmental risk in these areas. Our selection of county as the geo-unit of analysis would be a
poor choice for such studies (Downey 2006, Mohai and Saha 2007, Wagener et al. 1995).
However, its selection here facilitates the construction of a county-to-county flow matrix based
on origin and destination of transfers (Howell, Freudenberg, and Works 2005).

Data Sources and Measurements. Three sources provide the data in this study. The
US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service provided the rural-urban continuum
codes (known as the Beale codes) for the year 2003. These codes form a classification scheme
that distinguishes counties (N = 3,141) by the population size of their metropolitan areas, and
nonmetropolitan counties by degree of urbanization and adjacency to a metropolitan area or
areas. The nine-category Beale codes were reclassified as: (1) metropolitan, (2) non-metropolitan
and adjacent to a metro county, and (3) non-metropolitan and non-adjacent to a metropolitan
country.

The US Bureau of the Census provided county-level socioeconomic data in electronic

summary files for the year 2000. These data included for each county: population sizes of non-
Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Blacks, and Hispanic race/ethnic groups; and median family
income. Size of population for non-Hispanic white and black populations and Hispanic
population were converted to percentages. Indices of dissimilarity (Di) were computed using
tract-level 2000 Census data for black (b) to white and for Hispanic (H) to white comparisons.
Di is a demographic measure of the degree of racially based housing segregation in a county. It
is interpreted as the percentage of blacks (or Hispanics) that would have to move to different
geographic areas to produce an even distribution of black and white populations in a county.10
Income inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient (Dorfman 1979) and is computed from
1999 income data reported in the 2000 census. The coefficient is a measure of the area between a
theoretical diagonal line of equal distribution and a curved line representing an uneven Lorenz
distribution of observed incomes (or other resources) in a county. A coefficient value closer to
1.0 indicates unequally distributed household incomes. Conversely, a coefficient value that is
close to the theoretical value of 0.0 indicates a highly equal income distribution. Median family
income was used as a second measure of economic inequality in a county.

The EPA provided release and transfer data from the Toxics Release Inventory for the
period 1998 through 2005. We use the data released in March, 2009 to obtain the addresses of
reporting facilities to assign counties of origin and destination for transfers. When incomplete or
inaccurate addresses occurred, we cross referenced zip codes and other location identifiers to
assign counties of origin and destination. County TRI data for Alaska and Hawaii are included
in the analysis but these states are not shown in constructed maps to facilitate presentation. TRI

8
data for the US protectorates American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marian Islands, Puerto Rico,
and the Virgin Islands are excluded from the analysis. In addition, annual transfers to and from
other countries, such as Canada and Mexico, are omitted. The exclusion of these countries causes
a small difference in the eight-year totals for exported and imported transfers for the fifty states.
Subsequently, we determined the addresses of transfer facilities for all but 248 or approximately
one million transfer records. Next, we aggregate the volumes in pounds of chemical releases and
the quantities of exported and imported transfers reported annually to the TRI by participating
facilities for each US county across the study period. We treat the quantities of releases and
transfers independently to avoid the double counting of specific waste chemicals transferred to
processing facilities, which may report these transfers in their waste releases (DeVito 2009). The
data on county-to-county transfers are then used to develop an origin-to-destination matrix. We
placed transfers in three exclusive destination categories to accommodate the flow matrix:
transfers made elsewhere in a county of origin; transfers made to other counties elsewhere in the
state of origin; transfers made elsewhere to counties in the EPA region of origin, and transfers
made to counties in the other nine EPA regions in the nation (these regions are shown at
http://www.epa.gov/epahome/whereyoulive.htm). Finally, we transform non-normally
distributed release and transfer data by their computing natural log values to accommodate the
calculation bivariate correlation coefficients.

Results

From 1998 to 2005, TRI facilities in 2,436 US counties released on site a total of 40.4
billion pounds of toxic chemical wastes. They transferred elsewhere 7.0 billion pounds for
treatment or disposal. These amounts were equivalent to 143.6 pounds of released and 21.7
pounds of transferred toxic waste per capita in 2000 (US size of population was 281.4 million).

National Release Patterns. Figure 1 shows the national distribution of on-site releases
by state and county. TRI reporting facilities in twelve states accounted for approximately 65
percent of the total releases. These states are: Nevada (5.7 billion pounds, 14.2%), Alaska (3.9
b.pds., 9.7%), Arizona (3.9 b.pds., 9.5%), Utah (2.4 b.pds., 6.0%), Texas (2.1 b.pds., 5.1%),
Ohio (2.0 b.pds., 4.8%), Tennessee (1.4 b.pds., 2.8%), Indiana (1.1 b.pds., 2.7%), Pennsylvania
(1.1 b.pds., 2.6%), Louisiana (1.1 b.pds., 2.6%), North Carolina (1.1 b.pds., 2.6%), and Florida
(1.1 b.pds., 2.6%).

We ranked US counties according to their total volume of releases. Counties in the top
third by volume are shown in red, those in the middle third in yellow, and those in the lowest
third in grey. Counties that had no TRI emissions (N=817) are shown in white. A large majority
of the no-emission counties are located in the mid-western states, primarily in the “agricultural
bread basket” states. Counties with the largest volume of releases are located around the Great
Lakes, the Eastern Atlantic seaboard, Florida, southeastern Texas, and western states.

The metal mining, electric utility, chemical and primary metal industries annually
produced in descending order the most emissions by volume, regularly accounting for
approximately 75 percent of the annual releases. Metal mining companies and their plants were
consistent waste leaders. Red Dog Operations in Northwest Arctic, AK (parent company is Teck
Cominico American Inc.) produced the most waste six of the eight-year period. Other sites were

9
operated by Newmont Mining Corporation and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Corporation,
each with three or more plants in the top 15; and Kennecott Utah Copper Mine, Salt Lake, UT
(parent company is Kennecott Holdings Corporation), which was among the top five waste
producers in 7 of 8 years.

[Figure 1. US Counties Total Emissions: 1998 to 2005 goes about here]

National Transfer Patterns. Next, we delineated the transfers as shown in table 1

according to where they were exported annually for treatment or disposal. Facilities in 2,085
counties exported toxic wastes. The largest percentage (32%) was shipped elsewhere in the
county of origin. Thirty percent was exported to facilities in another county of the state of origin.
Approximately 14 percent were exported outside the state of origin to a county in the local EPA
region. Finally, 25 percent of transfers were exported outside the region of origin to elsewhere in
the nation. This pattern was annually consistent throughout the study period.

[Table 1. Industrial Toxic Waste Off-site Transfers by US Destination:

1998-2005 goes about here]

The national distribution of transfers exported for treatment or disposal is shown in figure
2. Facilities in the ten states accounted for 66.4 percent of the total exported volume of toxic
wastes: Indiana (713.4 million pounds), Pennsylvania (488.7 m.pds.), Ohio (485.0 m.pds.),
Michigan (347.8 m.pds.), Illinois (309.5 m.pds.), Texas (214.8 m.pds.), Alabama (154.4 m.pds.),
S. Carolina (144.6 m.pds.), Wisconsin (142.1 m.pds.), and Arkansas (128.5 m.pds). Sixty-seven
of 1,527 counties exported 80 percent of all transfers.

The top 10 exporting counties were in descending order: Harris County, TX (5.5%),
Wayne County, MI (4.9%), Beaver County, PA (3.2%), Montgomery County, IN (3.0%),
DeKalb County, IN (2.4%), Stark County, OH (2.0%); Marion County, IN (1.7%), Cook County,
IL (1.7%), Mobile, AL (1.6%), and Mississippi County, AR (1.4%). These counties accounted
for 27.4 percent of the exported transfers.

Particular industries and facilities were consistent leaders in transferring wastes

elsewhere for treatment and disposal (Freudenberg 2005; Grant et al. 2002). The chemical
industry led all others by a large margin in exporting wastes for treatment, while the primary
metals industry lead in the volume of wastes destined for disposal. Facilities that consistently
transferred the most waste for treatment were Shell Norco Chemical Plant, St. Charles, LA, and
Dow Chemical Company, Pasadena, TX. They lead all companies at least two of the eight
reporting years. Facilities that transferred wastes for disposal outnumbered and differed
industrially from the facilities that predominantly transferred wastes for disposal. These plants
were: Nucor Steel, Montgomery, IN; Horsehead Corporation, Beaver, PA; Steel Dynamics, Inc.,
DeKalb, IN; and Arcelormittal, USA, Inc., Lake, IN.

[Figure 2. US Counties Exporting Toxic Chemical Wastes:

1998 to 2005 goes about hear]

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 The distribution of imported transfers is shown in figure 3. Facilities in 1,875 counties
imported toxic wastes for treatment and disposal. Fifty counties took in 65.2 percent of all
imported waste transfers. The top 10 counties were: Lucas County, OH (7.1%); Wayne County,
IN (6.4%), Harris County, TX (6.2%), Owyhee County, ID (3.2%), Putnam County, IN (3.2%),
Beaver County, PA (3.1%), Peoria County, IL (2.6%), Orange County, TX (1.8%), Lorain
County, OH (1.6%), and Columbiana County, OH (1.4%). These counties accounted for 36.6
percent of the exported transfers. It also worth noting that Harris County, TX, Wayne County,
MI, and Beaver County, PA were among the top ten counties that exported and imported
transfers.

[Figure 3. US Counties Importing Toxic Chemical Wastes:

1998 to 2005 goes about here]

Analysis of Bivariate Correlation Coefficients. Table 2 presents the descriptive

statistics and correlation coefficients for the selected county-level socioeconomic variables and
pounds of TRI releases and transfers. The average US county is non-metropolitan with a
predominant White population and a slightly greater percentage of Blacks (8.6 %) and Hispanics
(6.1%). It has low, but more Black-White residential dissimilarity than Hispanic dissimilarity.
Approximately 39 percent of the Black population would have to move, compared to 28 percent
of the Hispanic population, to be equally distributed in US counties. Its median family income is
is $35,300 with income inequality at 43 percent.

Although many of the correlation coefficients for the socioeconomic variables are low,
they provide some support for the theory of racialism and the hypothesized relationships.
Metropolitan county status has slight but statistically significant associations with larger Black
proportions of population, greater Black and Hispanic residential dissimilarities with Whites,
greater median family incomes, and lower income inequality than other types of counties.
Counties with large percentages of Black population are more likely to have lower percentages
of Hispanics, somewhat less residential Black dissimilarity with Whites, lower median family
incomes and more income inequality. Indeed, high percentages of White population are
positively related to low income inequality. Hispanic proportion of county population is
negatively related to White and Black proportions of population, and positively related to income
inequality. It has negative, but statistically insignificant, relationships with residential
dissimilarity and median family income. The fairly large positive coefficient for Black and
Hispanic residential dissimilarity with Whites suggests that both groups experience dissimilarity
in many of the same US counties.

The correlation coefficients for the socioeconomic variables and TRI wastes stand in
contrast to several of the hypothesized associations. As predicted, metropolitan status is
associated with the volumes of wastes released, and transferred out and into counties. As
expected percent Black population is positively related to where wastes are released and
transferred, but surprisingly only for Hispanics in counties that import wastes. Although these
relationships are statistically significant, their coefficients are small for both groups. Black and
Hispanic residential dissimilarity coefficients indicate as hypothesized that waste releases and
transfers are greater for counties with more residential segregation. However, median family
income and income inequality variables are correlated with waste releases and transfers in

11
opposite directions than predicted. Counties with facilities that release large volumes of waste
and that export and import these wastes have higher median family incomes and lower income
inequality. This finding could be based on the fact that TRI manufacturing and other facilities
operate at the center of local economies that provide gainful employment to a diversity of people,
or as some researchers found that found that it is positively related with the density of TRI
facilities (Boar and colleagues 1997).

Finally, the intercorrelations among the release and two transfer measures are in the
direction expected. The log of total volume of releases is positively related to the logs of the
total volumes of transfers exported and imported from 1998 to 2005. Moreover, counties that
exported wastes are also likely to import transfers.

[Table 2. Bivariate Correlations Coefficients for County Metropolitan Status,

Socio-economic Characteristics and Industrial Toxic Waste On-site Releases and
Off-site Transfers from 1998-2005 goes about here]

Summary

The industrial release and transfer of toxic wastes are not evenly distributed among
counties and populations throughout the United States. A few states and counties with TRI
reporting facilities were significant and regular contributors to releases and transfers of industrial
toxic wastes. The socio-economic characteristics of counties that participate in this waste stream
bear some correspondence to those characteristics, with a few exceptions, reported in other
studies. We find evidence that most industrial facilities are located in metropolitan counties
which account for large volumes of on-site waste releases, exported transfers, and imported
transfers. Because of the sizeable industrial footprint in these counties, wages and thus median
family incomes are greater, while income inequality is slightly less than in other counties. Other
studies based on the TRI, however, show a curvilinear relationship between median family
income and release volume (Boar et al. 1997; Daniels and Friedman 1999; Ringquist 1997).
When race is considered, our findings suggest different environmental justice accounts for
Blacks and Hispanics. Although counties with large percentages of both minorities are likely to
have greater income inequality, their population and residential patterns are slightly different
relative to the presence of toxic wastes. Blacks experience more segregation than Hispanics
when compared to Whites, and they are more likely than Hispanics (and Whites) to live in
counties that release, export and import transferred wastes (Lopez 2002).

Overall, our findings closely parallel with one exception the regression results reported
by Howell and his associates (2005). In our study, percent Hispanic population has a positive,
rather than a negative correlation with the level of imported toxic waste. Further, our results
support those regarding Black population inequities reported for TSDFs by Mohai and Saha
(2005) but differ from their results for Hispanics. They found using smaller geo-units of analysis
that higher concentrations of Hispanics, greater levels of poverty and lower median family
incomes (log) among census tracts were located nearer to these facilities than elsewhere (Sicotte
and Swanson 2007).

12
 In conclusion, our study shows the sizeable scale and complexity of the national footprint
created by industrial chemical wastes. Moreover, its findings indicate important socio-economic
differences between Blacks and Hispanics and their proximity to these wastes. We plan to
unravel these differences in future analyses by conducting a more detailed investigation of the
race-residence-income complex with regard to TRI facility concentration and output. In
addition, we are struck by the disproportionate participation of particular industries and
companies that produce and dispose of large volumes of chemical wastes. Future research is
needed to understand their release and disposal processes and locations, what socioeconomic
groups may suffer the most exposure risks from these processes, and how possibly to effectively
and efficiently mitigate such risks.

Endnotes

1. Distance proximity methods indicate, for example, waste facilities that are located near the
borders of their host geo-unit (i.e., zip code area, census tract or block) could produce human
exposure risks for residents in contiguous non-host units that go unmeasured. Moreover, land
area differences in geo-units could unevenly affect the distribution of residential risks. Border-
located facilities in large-areal units could pose greater risks to nearby residents in neighboring
units than to residents located further away from the facilities in the host unit. Mohai and Saha
(2007) distinguished a TSDF host neighborhood by applying fifty percent area containment and
areal apportionment methods to one, two, and three-mile distance radii around a TSDF.

2. Anderton et al. (1994) likewise compared the methodological and database differences
among three prior studies that involved TSDFs. These studies were conducted by: the General
Accounting Office (1983), Commission on Racial Injustice (1987) and Mohai and Bryant (1992).
All three studies reported race to be a factor that distinguished between areas with and without
these facilities. Thereafter, Anderton and his associates justifiably claimed to conduct the first
comprehensive national study of TSDFs using census tracts, but confined these tracts to US
metropolitan areas.

3. The definition of a TSDF and the active/inactive status of operation affect longitudinal
comparisons of research findings. Anderton and his colleagues (1994) noted that their definition
differed slightly from that used by others whereby they excluded TSDFs that are primary
“producers” of waste. Westat (1984) defined a TSDF to be a privately owned and operated
facility where more than one half of its managed waste is annually received from other
differently owned firms. EPA Office of Solid Waste Disposal refers of a commercial facility as
one which manages hazardous waste for a fee.

4. Go to http://www.epa.gov/explorer/background.htm for a detailed discussion. State and

county database files are located on the Internet: http://epa.gov/triexplorer. The EPA has
established the TRI Explorer (Version 4.7) that permits users to navigate among the annual data
to construct reports customized by chemical, facility, and industry for a geographical location
(county, state, or nation), and year (1988 to 2007). It should be noted that the laws, which
require certain facilities to report release and other waste management quantities of certain toxic
chemicals to EPA’s TRI Program, do not require that these quantities be measured or otherwise
determined experimentally. However, if by coincidence, measurement is required under other

13
regulations these “readily available” measured values can also be used for TRI reporting
purposes. When measured data are not “readily available”, which is often the case, TRI
regulations require only that facilities make “reasonable estimates” of their release and other
waste management quantities of TRI-listed chemicals.

5. Facilities that are subject to TRI reporting are categorized under the following North
American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes: 2121 (coal mining); 2122 (metal
mining); 2211 (electric utilities); 311/312 (food, beverages, tobacco); 313/314 (textiles); 315
(apparel); 316 (leather); 321 (wood products); 322 (paper); 323/351 (printing and publishing);
324 (petroleum); 325 (chemicals); 326 (plastics and rubber); 327 (stone, clay, glass); 3273
(cement); 331 (primary metals); 332 (fabricated metals); 333 (machinery); 334 (computers,
electronic products); 335 (electrical equipment); 336 (transportation equipment); 337 (furniture);
339 (miscellaneous manufacturing); 4246 chemical wholesalers; 4247 (petroleum bulk
terminals); and 562 (hazardous waste, solvent recovery). A detailed discussion of TRI
procedures can be found at http://www.epa.gov/triexplorer/background.htm.

6. Beginning in 1995, facilities with a total annual release 500 pounds or less of a reportable
chemical could submit a Certification Form A to the EPA/TRI. These facilities were restricted
from manufacturing, producing, or using more than 1,000,000 pounds of a monitored chemical.
Because this form does not provide information on quantities of emissions in waste management,
its data are not reported in this paper. Further, in April, 2000, President Clinton issued Executive
Order 113148 that required federal and military facilities that meet TRI reporting requirements to
submit annual reports to the EPA (Federal Register 2000). These data were included in the
study. Finally, the TRI monitors 31 “priority chemicals” tracked under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for reporting years 2001 through 2005. Under Subtitle
C of RCRA, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Information System (RCRIS) database
has information on all TSDFs in the United States.

7. There are four other classifications for well-injection of toxic wastes. Class II wells are used
for oil- and gas-related fluids re-injected for disposal, enhanced recovery of oil, or hydrocarbon
storage. Class III wells are associated with the disposal of mineral mining solutions. Class IV
wells are applicable to hazardous or radioactive fluids related to clean-up operations mandated
by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA)
and RCRA. Finally, Class V wells include all other types of injection wells not categorized by
Classes I-IV generally used to inject non-hazardous fluid into or above an underground source of
drinking water. Facilities began distinguishing in the 1996 reporting year separate amounts
injected into Class I and all other wells (US Environmental Protection Agency 1996).

8. Howell and his associates (2005) actually divided their study into three parts. The first part
was a descriptive analysis of TRI release and transfer patters. The second part of their analysis
focused on relationships between these patterns and selected EJ variables, including an
experimental “dirtiness” variable measured as the percentage of each county’s annual number of
manufacturing establishments appearing in the TRI and covered by the US Census Bureau’s
County Business Patterns from 1987 through 1997. Their third part explored applied
sophisticated geographical weighted regression procedures and GIS to illustrate multivariate
results.

14
 9. Lopez (2002) notes that the TRI accounts for only 10 percent of the nation’s air pollution;
the remainder is comes from vehicular sources and small users of chemicals.

10. Critics of the use of the index of dissimilarity as an independent measure of segregation
claim that D has at least two weaknesses: it measures two groups at a time, although adaptations
of the index to multiple groups have been made and the index is aspatial because it distinguishes
the relative degree of segregation at a given point in time but not the spatial patterns of
segregation over time (Sen 1973; Winship 1978).

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 Table 1
Industrial Toxic Chemical Waste Transfers by US County Destination, 1998-2005
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Percent Percent Percent Out of Percent Out

a b
Year In County In County In State In State In Region In Region Region of Region Total
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1998 259,525,289 30.30 234,017,801 27.32 133,655,809 15.60 229,388,527 26.78 856,587,425
1999 251,244,757 30.41 236,296,258 28.60 121,261,264 14.68 217,319,412 26.31 826,121,691
2000 263,047,204 30.30 248,288,008 28.60 113,133,669 13.03 243,709,580 28.07 868,178,461
2001 303,319,328 34.79 242,491,332 27.81 104,599,910 12.00 221,496,602 25.40 871,907,171
2002 263,968,306 31.10 257,152,519 30.29 111,096,851 13.09 216,702,096 25.53 848,919,771
2003 256,507,789 30.05 283,171,195 33.17 110,191,323 12.91 203,758,779 23.87 853,629,085
2004 308,249,822 33.96 281,821,311 31.05 128,609,367 14.17 188,959,705 20.82 907,640,206
2005 309,166,344 32.68 312,911,133 33.08 127,661,903 13.50 196,198,479 20.74 945,937,859
Total 2,215,028,839 31.74 2,096,149,557 30.04 950,210,096 13.62 1,717,533,180 24.61 6,078,921,669
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

a. “In county” refers to where industrial toxic wastes originated and their destination.
b. “In region” refers to an US Environmental Protection Agency’s region of origin and destination. There are 10 EPA regions.

20
21
22
23
 Table 2
Bivariate Correlations Coefficients for County Metropolitan Status, Socio-economic Characteristics and
Industrial Toxic Waste On-site Releases and Off-site Transfers from 1998-2005.a
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lg Lg Lg
Metro PctWht PctBlk PctHisp Blk-D Hsp-D MFI GINI TRelb ExTrfb ImTrfb
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Metro 1.0000 .0854‡ - .1306‡ -.0191 -.2214‡ -.2608‡ -.4791‡ .1253‡ -.3741‡ -.4209‡ -.3847‡
PctWht 1.0000 -.6414‡ -.5526‡ .0996‡ -.1023‡ .1488‡ -.4610‡ -.0298 -.0096 -.0217
PctBlk 1.0000 -.1066‡ -.1270‡ .1458‡ -.1862‡ .4586‡ .1368‡ .1166‡ .0873‡
PctHisp 1.0000 -.0239 -.0168 -.0403 .1689‡ -.0695‡ -.0663† .0382*
Blk-D 1.0000 .4771‡ .1747‡ -.0621† .3539‡ .3463‡ .3269‡
Hsp-D 1.0000 .1525‡ .0676‡ .3944‡ .3901‡ .3614‡
MFI 1.0000 -.5124‡ .2885‡ .3490‡ .3222‡
GINI 1.0000 -.0966‡ -.1077‡ -.1030‡
LgTRel 1.0000 .6083‡ .3126‡
LgExTrf 1.0000 .4890‡
LgImTrf 1.0000
Mean 1.9685 81.28 8.64 6.13 39.25 28.43 35,370 .43 10.34 7.52 6.28
Std.Dev. .8131 19.14 14.45 12.06 20.73 15.07 8,916 .04 6.63 6.49 6.46
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
* p<.05; † p<.01; ‡ p<.0001 where N = 3,141.
 
a. Metro = metropolitan status; PctWht = percent nonHispanic White population; PctBlk = percent nonHispanic Black population; PctHsp = percent
Hispanic population; Blk-D = index of dissimilarity between Blacks and Whites; Hsp-D = index of dissimilarity between Hispanic and Whites;
MFI = median family income in 1999; GINI = Gini coefficient for income inequality; LgTRel = natural log of the total volume of toxic chemical
releases; LgExTrf = natural log of the total volume of toxic chemicals exported; and LgImTrf = natural log of the total volume of toxic chemicals
imported.

b. Untransformed mean (standard deviation) values for 3,141 US counties: Total releases 12,899,909 (96,309,508) pounds; exported off-site transfers
2,221,867 (13,647,487) pounds; and imported transfers 2,221,879 (17,613,797) pounds.

24