This study examines the third goal of the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water’s Environmental Justice Strategy that focuses on providing equal access to environmental infrastructure for all citizens, including those located in disadvantaged communities. One way to ensure equal access is through the equitable distribution of funding pursuant to the Clean Water Act. This article examines whether disadvantaged communities received a disproportionately low share of the funding or had a lower probability of obtaining construction grants. The article also examines 9,854 grant awards in the 48 contiguous states at the county level during the period 1983 to 1992. The results indicate that counties with relatively small populations had more difficulty obtaining construction grants. The effect of income and minority composition was more pronounced in small communities. High-income communities did better than poor communities in terms of both the share of awards and the probability of receiving grants. The results also indicate that a county’sminority composition was inversely related to the probability of obtaining a grant but positively related to the share of grant awards.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Asch, P. , & Seneca, J. J. (1978). Some evidence on the distribution of air quality. Land Economics, 54, 278-297.
2.
Bailey, C. , & Faupel, C. E. (1992). Environmentalism and civil rights in Sumter County, Alabama. In B. Bryant & P. Mohai (Eds.), Race and the incidence of environmental hazards: Atime for discourse(pp. 140-152). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
3.
Been, V. (1993). What’s fairness got to do with it? Environmental justice and the siting of locally undesirable land uses. Cornell Law Review, 78, 1001-1085.
4.
Been, V. (1994). Locally undesirable and uses in minority neighborhoods: Disproportionate siting or market dynamics. Yale Law Journal, 103(6), 1383-1422.
5.
Berne, R. ,& Stiefel, L. (1984). The measurement of equity in school finance. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
6.
Berry, B.J.L. (Ed.). (1977). The social burdens of environmental pollution: A comparative metropolitan data source. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
7.
Bullard, R. D. (1983). Solid waste sites and the Houston Black community. Sociological Inquiry, 53, 273-288.
8.
Bullard, R. D. (1990). Ecological inequities and the newsouth: Black communities under siege. Journal of Ethnic Studies, 17(4), 101-111.
9.
Bullard, R. D. (1991, June). Environmental racism in America?Environmental Protection, 25-26.
10.
Bullard, R. D. (1993). Confronting environmental racism: Voices from the grassroots. Boston: South End Press.
11.
Bullard, R. D. (Ed.). (1994). Unequal protection: Environmental justice and communities of color. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
12.
Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce . (1993). Consolidated federal funds report (CFFR) on CD-ROM, Fiscal Years 1983-1992.Washington, DC: Author.
13.
Cole, L. W. (1992). Empowerment as the key to environmental protection: The need for environmental poverty law. Ecology Law Quarterly, 19(4), 619-683.
14.
Colquette, K. M. ,& Robertson, E.A.H. (1991). Environmental racism: The causes, consequences, and commendations. Tulane Environmental Law Journal, 5, 153-207.
15.
Davis, C. E. , & Lester, J. P.(1989). Federalism and environmental policy. In J. P. Lester (Ed.), Environmental politics and policy: Theories and evidence(pp. 57-86). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
16.
Edelstein, M. R. (1988). Contaminated communities: The social and psychological impacts of residential toxic exposure. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
17.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) . (1991, October). State Revolving Fund (SRF) final report to Congress: Financial status and operations of Water Pollution Control Revolving Funds. Washington, DC: EPA, Office of Wastewater Enforcement and Compliance.
18.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) . (1993, September). 1992 needs survey: Report to Congress. Washington, DC: Office of Water.
19.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) . (1994, November 8). Office ofWater Environmental Justice Strategy. Washington, DC: Office of Water.
20.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) . (1997). 1996 clean water needs survey: Report to Congress. Washington, DC: Office of Water, Office of Wastewater Treatment.
21.
Gelobter, M. (1992). Toward a model of environmental discrimination. In B. Bryant & P. Mohai (Eds.), Race and the incidence of environmental hazards: A time for discourse(pp. 64-81). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
22.
General Accounting Office (GAO) . (1995, June). Hazardous and nonhazardous waste: Demographics of people living near waste facilities(GAO/RCED-95-84). Washington, DC: Author.
23.
Gianessi, L. P. ,& Peskin, H. M. (1980). The distribution of the costs of the federal water pollution control policy. Land Economics, 56, 85-102.
24.
Godsil, R. D. (1991). Remedying environmental racism. Michigan Law Review, 90, 394-427.
25.
Goldman, B. A. (1994, December). Not just prosperity: Achieving sustainability with environmental justice. Vienna, VA: National Wildlife Federation.
26.
Hamilton, J. T. (1993). Politics and social costs: Estimating the impact of collective action on hazardouswaste facilities. Rand Journal of Economics, 24(1), 101-125.
27.
Hamilton, J. T. (1995). Testing for environmental racism: Prejudice, profits, political power?Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 14(1), 107-132.
28.
Hird, J. A. (1993). Environmental policy and equity: The case of superfund. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 12(2), 323-343.
29.
Hunter, S. ,& Waterman, R. W. (1996). Enforcing the law: The case of the CleanWater Acts. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
30.
Johnson, C. L. (1995). Managing financial resources to meet environmental infrastructure needs: The case of state revolving loans. Public Productivity and Management Review, 18(3), 263-275.
31.
Jondrow, J. , & Levy, R. A. (1984). The displacement of local spending for pollution control by federal construction grants. American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings, 74(2), 174-178.
32.
Kohlhase, J. E. (1991). The impact of toxicwaste sites on housing values. Journal of Urban Economics, 30(1), 1-26.
33.
Lake, E. E. , Hanneman, W. M., & Oster, S. M. (1979). Who pays for clean water: The distribution of water pollution control costs. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
34.
Lee, C. (1992). Toxic waste and race in the United States. In B. Bryant & P. Mohai (Eds.), Race and the incidence of environmental hazards: A time for discourse(pp. 10-27). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
35.
Lester, J. P. (1990). A new federalism? Environmental policy in the states. In N. J. Vig & M. E. Kraft (Eds.), Environmental policy in the 1990s: Toward a new agenda(pp. 59-79). Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.
36.
Lester, J. P. , & Lombard, E. N. (1990, Spring). The comparative analysis of state Environmental Policy. Natural Resources Journal, 30, 301-319.
37.
Long, J. S. (1993). MARKOV version 2.0: A statistical environment for GAUSS 3.1. Bloomington: Indiana University, Department of Sociology.
38.
Long, J. S. (1997). Regression models for categorical and limited dependent variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
39.
Mohai, P. , & Bryant, B. (1992). Environmental racism: Reviewing the evidence. In B. Bryant & P. Mohai (Eds.), Race and the incidence of environmental hazards: A time for discourse(pp. 163-176). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
40.
O’Toole, L. J., Jr. (1996). Hollowing the infrastructure: Revolving loan programs and network dynamics in the American states. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 6(2), 225-242.
41.
Reed, K. S. , & Young, C. E. (1983). Impact of regulatory delays on the cost of wastewater treatment plants. Land Economics, 59(1), 35-42.
42.
Reeves, H. C. (1984). Funding clean water. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.
43.
United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice& Public Data Access, Inc. (UCC& PDA) . (1987). Toxic wastes and race in the United States: A national report on the racial and socio-economic characteristics of communities with hazardous waste sites. New York: Author.
44.
West, P. C. , Fly, J. M., Larkin, F.,& Marans, R. W. (1992). Minority anglers and toxic fish consumption: Evidence from a statewide survey of Michigan. In B. Bryant& P. Mohai (Eds.), Race and the incidence of environmental hazards: A time for discourse(pp. 100-113). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
45.
Yandle, T. , & Burton, D. (1996). Historical hazardous waste landfill siting in Texas. Social Science Quarterly, 77(3), 477-492.
