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The distribution of pollution and environmental justice in Puerto Rico
Citation:
Wu, S. AND M. T. HEBERLING. The distribution of pollution and environmental justice in Puerto Rico. Presented at 2011 US Society for Ecological Economics Annual Conference, East Lansing, MI, June 26 - 29, 2011.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
Because few empirical studies on environmental justice and pollution distribution exit, we examine both issues in Puerto Rico. This research is part of a larger US EPA project related to sustainability issues. We use an environmental Gini coefficient with Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data from 1988-2008 (US EPA) to quantify the pollution distribution. Our findings suggest no significant change in pollution inequality over this time, but the value of the Gini coefficients remains high indicating an unequal distribution of pollution in Puerto Rico. Our environmental justice study attempts to find empirical evidence linking local people’s exposure to pollution to several socioeconomic and demographic indicators. Using Spearman correlations, we find various impacts of socio-demographic indicators on pollution levels at different points throughout the pollution distribution. Therefore, we employ quantile regression using TRI and US Census data from 2005-2008. We find exposure to pollution to be a positive function of indicators including nonwhite residents, poverty, renter-occupied housing units and unemployment, and a negative function of indicators including education, age, and car ownership. We also investigate the role of income indicators in affecting pollution levels and only find a few significant links.