Grantee Research Project Results

Final Report: Toxic Tides: Risks and Resilience to Coastal Flooding of Contaminated Sites

EPA Grant Number: R840039
Title: Toxic Tides: Risks and Resilience to Coastal Flooding of Contaminated Sites
Investigators: Cushing, Lara
Institution: University of California - Los Angeles
EPA Project Officer: Aja, Hayley
Project Period: August 1, 2020 through May 13, 2025
Project Amount: $799,999
RFA: Contaminated Sites, Natural Disasters, Changing Environmental Conditions and Vulnerable Communities: Research to Build Resilience (2019) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Endocrine Disruptors , Safer Chemicals , Sustainable and Healthy Communities

Objective:

Flooding events leading to unintentional releases of toxic substances are becoming more frequent and severe, posing potential health risks to residents living near sites that store or use hazardous materials. Across the country, less-affluent households are more likely to live near hazardous waste sites and industrial facilities and often face additional challenges such as poor housing conditions, food insecurity, and pre-existing health conditions that may worsen the health effects of pollutant exposures. As a result, contaminant releases due to the flooding of hazardous sites are likely to disproportionately impact populations facing social and material hardship.

The overarching goal of this project is to advance scientific understanding of the risks of contaminant releases due to flooding and sea level rise in communities with industrial facilities and other types of hazardous sites. We combined data on the location of hazardous sites, self-reported excess contaminant release information from industrial facilities, community sociodemographic characteristics, and administrative birth records, and generated probabilistic estimates of future flood risk using historical tide gauge records and sea level rise projections. Results from this project include the first comprehensive assessment of future flood risk at hazardous sites in the U.S., and broadly accessible data and visualization tools to support regulatory, planning, community and emergency management efforts to increase climate resilience in impacted communities.

Objective 1. Evaluate the extent of excess contaminant releases and spills of hazardous material during flooding resulting from past major hurricanes in Texas and estimate potentially impacted populations.
Objective 2. Estimate the environmental health risks posed by coastal flooding of hazardous sites due to sea level rise to populations across the U.S.
Objective 3. Broadly disseminate research findings through a customizable, bilingual (English/Spanish) online mapping tool and workshops with stakeholders in at-risk coastal communities.
Objective 4. Assess the impact of Hurricane Harvey on the risk of spontaneous preterm and early-term birth in Greater Houston.

Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):

We estimated future flood risk probabilities at over 32,000 sites with hazardous materials across the 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, including power plants, sewage treatment facilities, hazardous waste treatment and disposal sites, refineries, concentrated animal feeding operations, cleanup sites, industrial facilities and oil and gas wells, ports, and terminals. Facility location information was obtained from several national databases, cleaned and geo-coded, and joined with tax parcel data to better approximate the extent of facility boundaries. Information on each site’s elevation and connectivity to the ocean, flood height return levels derived from historical tide gauge data, and future sea level rise projections were used to derive the total annual probability of at least one coastal flood at each site in 2050 and 2100 assuming either low- (RCP 4.5) or continued high- (RCP 8.5) greenhouse gas emissions. Using this approach, we identified over 3,400 facilities at risk of a 1-in-100-year flood event by 2100 under a scenario of continued high greenhouse gas emissions, with seven states (Florida, New Jersey, California, Louisiana, New York, Massachusetts and Texas) accounting for 70% of projected at-risk facilities. Neighborhoods with higher proportions of linguistically isolated households, neighborhood residents identifying as Latino, households living in poverty, non-voters, and renters were more likely to have at least one at-risk site within 1km of populated areas.

We refined our analytic approach by first piloting our methods in California and receiving iterative feedback from an advisory committee of non-profit leaders from community-based organizations. Findings from our initial results in California were shared with over 450 residents of impacted communities and decision makers at the local, regional , state and federal levels via a series of four webinar workshops organized and led by our advisory committee members. Feedback from those sessions was used to inform the development of an English and Spanish language online mapping platform, the Toxic Tides Coastal Risk Screening Tool, and identify opportunities to incorporate study findings into planning and policy efforts to mitigate contamination risks due to flooding. The Toxic Tides Coastal Risk Screening Tool provides public access to maps and downloadable data on facility-level flood risk projections and community demographic indicators and can be customized to different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, timescales (2050 or 2100), facility types, and annual flood risk event thresholds.

In our analysis of self-reported excess contaminant releases during past hurricanes, we considered the three major hurricanes impacting the Texas Gulf Coast over the last 30 years: Rita (2005), Ike (2008), and Harvey (2017). We found that two-to-three times as many excess contaminant releases to air, land and water were reported during these hurricanes than during comparable time periods without hurricanes. We showed that neighborhoods with higher proportions of Latino residents were more likely to experience hurricane-related air contaminants releases, and that neighborhoods with higher proportions of renters and rates of poverty were more likely to experience spills of hazardous materials to land or water. We also showed that petroleum refineries reported the greatest mass of excess air pollutants, and petrochemical manufacturing facilities accounted for the greatest number of air emissions events during hurricanes. The greatest proportion of releases to land and water were reported as being from fixed sources (e.g., facility equipment and storage tanks).

Finally, we conducted a retrospective analysis of administrative birth records in the Greater Houston Area during Hurricane Harvey, which resulted in catastrophic flooding and the release of over 4.5 million pounds of toxic air contaminants and issuing of 166 boil-water notices. Our goal was to assess whether exposure to this storm during pregnancy resulted in babies being born too soon. We found that exposure to that hurricane during pregnancy was associated with 14% higher likelihood of a spontaneous early-term birth in the following week. Risks were higher in neighborhoods that experienced severe flooding and among foreign-born Latino parents. This suggests that exposure to hurricane-related flooding may disproportionately impact populations born outside of the U.S. and result in higher rates of early-term birth, which can lead to longer term health consequences including respiratory, infectious, neurocognitive, and emotional problems into adulthood.

Conclusions:

Together, these results show that past hurricanes and floods in the Texas Gulf Coast have resulted in significant releases of hazardous pollutants to air and water and negatively impacted birth outcomes. Our findings also demonstrate that thousands of coastal hazardous sites nationwide will be at increased risk of future flooding due to sea level rise by 2050 and 2100, and that the resulting risks of future contaminant releases disproportionately fall on communities facing social and material hardship.

Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format

Publications Views
Other project views:	All 10 publications	5 publications in selected types	All 5 journal articles

Publications
Type	Citation	Project	Document Sources
Journal Article	Liu X, Berberian AG, Wang S, Cushing LJ. Hurricane Harvey and the risk of spontaneous preterm and early-term birth. Environmental Epidemiology. 2024;8(3):e312.	R840039 (Final)	Full-text: Environmental Epidemiology Full Text HTML Exit Abstract: PubMed Abstract HTML

Supplemental Keywords:

extreme weather, sea level rise, GIS, environmental health

Relevant Websites:

https://coastal.climatecentral.org/

Progress and Final Reports:

Original Abstract

The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.