Environmental Justice – Risk Management Plan (RMP) Facility Proximity
This indicator reports the count of RMP (potential chemical accident management plan) facilities within 10 km, each divided by distance in km. Areas with higher RMP Facility proximity scores are placed higher in percentile (national ranking). The percentile could be interpreted as, for example, for a place at the 80th percentile nationwide, 20% (i.e., 100 minus the percentile) of the U.S. population lives in a block group that has a higher value.
The EJ Index for RMP Facility Proximity is a combination of this environmental indicator and the Demographic Index (the average of percent low-income and percent people of color).
Data are acquired from EPA’s EJScreen dataset, 2024.
Source
Source Description
EJScreen is an EPA’s environmental justice mapping and screening tool that provides EPA with a nationally consistent dataset and approach for combining environmental and demographic socioeconomic indicators. An EJ index combines demographic factors with a single environmental factor. For example, the EJ index for traffic proximity is a combination of the following populations residing in the Census block group:
- The traffic proximity indicator;
- The low-income population;
- The people of color populations.
Note that an EJ index does not combine various environmental factors into a cumulative score — each environmental indicator has its own EJ index.
The EJ index is higher in block groups with large numbers of mainly low-income and/or people of color residents with a higher environmental indicator value.
For more information, please visit the EJScreen website.
Methodology
This indicator reports the count of RMP facilities in each block group within 10 km of the average resident in a block group, divided by distance, calculated as the population-weighted average of blocks in each block group. RMP facilities are pulled from EPA’s FRS by querying the FRS Query website and selecting facilities included in the RMP National Program System. Proximity scores are calculated by assigning distance-weighted scores to Census blocks (distance between block centroids and facilities). The results are assigned to block groups through population-weighted block to block group assignments. Based on the block group data, CARES estimated the values for all other geographic levels using total population (ACS 2018-22) and the technique of Population-weighted Small Area Estimate. RMP facility proximity source is derived from EPA’s Facility Registry Service (FRS) by selecting facilities included in the RMP National Program System on April 26, 2022.
The percentile in EJScreen is reported as what percent of the U.S. population lives in a block group that has a lower value (or in some cases, a tied value).
The relevant EJ Index is calculated as:
where Normalized Environmental Indicator is the percentile of the particular environmental indicator source data.
For more information about this indicator or the methodology of EJScreen, please refer to the EJScreen Technical Documentation.
This indicator is available at the following subscription levels:
- Premium (currently viewing this indicator and report combination)