Abstract
Executive Order 12898 requires federal agencies to conduct environmental justice (EJ) assessments to determine if negative effects from projects will fall disproportionately on minority or low-income populations. This paper uses a case study of a proposed road-widening project in Daytona Beach, Florida, to illustrate how the choices of the reference area, study area, affected groups, and method for determining the decision threshold for a finding of disproportionality have important implications for the outcome of an assessment. A further complication is the use of decision thresholds that are based on measures of centrality in the data, such as a mean value, when the data have a bimodal distribution pattern, as seen in data on the racial compositions of census geographic units. Simple statistical tests are applied to support the methodological choices and the findings of disproportionality for each population. This analysis demonstrates that rather than selecting the precise method a priori, the characteristics and distribution of the data should be considered, and the method that most fairly represents the data should be selected. Conducting genuine EJ assessments not only is required by federal regulations but can head off conflicts, better reveal the true costs of projects, and allow the more equitable distribution of costs and benefits by better targeting mitigation efforts.
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