Environmental justice and the spatial distribution of outdoor recreation sites: an application of geographic information systems.

Introduction The issue of environmental equity and justice in natural resource allocation and decision-making is receiving increasing political and social attention (Albrecht, 1995; Scott, 1996). Following President Clinton's Executive Order 12898 (Federal Register, February, 1994) all federal land management agencies have been mandated to address environmental justice in nonwhite and/or low-income populations, with the goal of achieving environmental protection for all communities regardless of their racial and economic composition. Environmental justice refers to rules, regulations, and decisions that "deliberately target certain communities for least desirable land uses . . . [and] support sustainable communities where people can interact with confidence that their environment is safe, nurturing, and productive" (Bryant, 1995, p. 5-6). Most previous environmental justice research has focused upon the proximity of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) (Lober, 1996) such as commercial hazardous waste facilities, landfills, low-level nuclear waste sites, and Superfund sites to communities of low-income and nonwhite populations. The present study extends this work by addressing the spatial proximity of national forest' recreation sites to social communities (characterized as census block groups). The study area includes all census block groups (CBGs) of counties contained by, and within approximately one mile of, the Chattahoochee National Forest (NF) in North Georgia. Environmental Justice Empirical studies of environmental justice are relatively recent. In the late 1970s, Bullard (1983) reported that six of eight incinerators and 15 of 17 landfills in Houston, TX, were located in predominantly black communities. Over the next decade, several studies supported a relationship between race and the siting of LULUs (Bullard, 1990; Mohai & Bryant, 1992; U.S. Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ, 1987; U.S. General Accounting Office, 1983). The U.S. Commission of Racial Justice, for example, found that zip code areas with one commercial hazardous waste facility had twice the nonwhite population (24%) than those without such facilities, and that communities with more than one waste facility had an average of 38% nonwhite population. (The national average nonwhite population is 16%.) Recent studies, however, have been less conclusive regarding the effect of race on the spatial distribution of LULUs, suggesting other factors, especially income, contribute to their siting. Kriesel, Centner and Keeler (1996) report significant differences in exposure to toxic releases (as measured using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Toxic Release Inventory) were associated with income, but not race; i.e., communities with a greater proportion of lower income residents were more likely to live within one mile of toxic release site than higher income communities. Similarly, Hamilton (1995) found race was not a significant factor explaining the capacity expansion of hazardous waste facilities when measures of income and local political activity were included. Other studies indicate that both race and income are factors in the siting of undesirable environmental uses (e.g., Costner & Thornton, 1990; Foreman, 1996; Glickman, 1994; Lavelle & Coyle, 1992; U.S. EPA, 1992). Costner and Thornton (1990), for example, found communities in which hazardous waste incinerators were located to be made-up of 89% more nonwhites, and 15% lower income residents, than the national averages. Lavelle and Coyle (1992) indicate clean-up of waste sites takes considerably longer in poor and nonwhite communities than in more affluent neighborhoods. An EPA (1992) report concludes that exposures to air pollutants, hazardous waste facilities and other environmental costs are higher than average in nonwhite and lowincome populations. Method Concerns in Environmental Justice Research A major reason for the conflicting findings in previous environmental justice studies concerns the methods of data collection and analysis techniques. …