Environmental Justice and Industrial Pollution: Who Bears the Burden
Environmental justice — the principle that no community should bear a disproportionate share of environmental burdens based on race, income, or other characteristics — has moved from the margins to the center of EPA policy over the past decade. The data underlying these concerns is increasingly available through tools like EmissionsLookup and the EPA\'s own EJScreen tool. What does it actually show?
The Core Finding
Decades of peer-reviewed research consistently find that industrial pollution facilities are disproportionately located near communities of color and low-income communities, relative to their share of the population. This pattern holds for TRI facilities, for hazardous waste sites, for power plants, and for industrial facilities more broadly. It appears in rural and urban contexts, across different regions of the country, and using multiple methodological approaches.
Causality Is Complicated
The causal mechanism underlying environmental justice disparities is contested. One theory holds that facilities are sited in communities of color and low-income areas because those communities have less political power to resist unwanted land uses — the "coming to the nuisance" problem, where facilities are deliberately placed in areas of least resistance. Another theory holds that lower housing costs near industrial areas attract low-income residents over time — "coming to the nuisance" from the other direction. Evidence supports both mechanisms operating simultaneously, and separating them empirically is methodologically challenging.
EPA\'s EJScreen Tool
EPA has developed EJScreen — an environmental justice screening and mapping tool — that combines EPA pollution data with Census demographic data to identify census block groups with the highest environmental justice concern. EJScreen scores reflect both environmental exposure (proximity to facilities, air pollution concentrations) and demographic sensitivity (poverty rate, percent of color, linguistic isolation). High EJScreen scores identify communities that warrant priority attention in permitting and enforcement decisions.
What You Can Do with EmissionsLookup
By combining EmissionsLookup facility data with demographic data from CensusDepth, you can build your own environmental justice analysis for any region. Search for facilities in a state at our state browser, find the highest-releasing facilities, and compare the demographics of surrounding census tracts. Browse carcinogen-releasing facilities at the carcinogens index and PFAS facilities at the PFAS page. Schools near industrial polluters is another relevant connection — SchoolDataLookup can help identify schools in affected areas.