Environmental Justice and the Remediation of Contaminated Land: A National and Arizona Perspective

Abstract

Land contamination has been a major issue in the U.S. for over three decades. The focus on environmental justice, meanwhile, has been more recent, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is still working to integrate it across the Agency. Existing environmental justice studies have been limited in breadth and application. Prior research focused on specific case studies and regional areas over short time frames. Previous studies also investigated only one or two sides of the environmental justice issue. This research aims to be the most complete study done on the topic. This study analyzed EPA’s National Priority List (NPL) siting, testing, and remediation efforts in terms of environmental justice at the national and regional level using multiple census years of demographic data. This study finds potential environmental injustice in NPL siting in the West, Midwest, EPA Region 9 and Arizona for low income communities and also percent of Black in Arizona, a strong indication of potential environmental injustice regarding NPL scoring in Hispanic communities in the South, and finally, potentially serious environmental injustice regarding the pace of NPL remediation in the South region in Black and low income communities and in the West and Northeast regions in Hispanic communities. More analysis is required to further explore these potential issues.