Environmental Justice – Superfund Proximity
This indicator reports the count of proposed and listed NPL sites (deleted sites excluded) within 10 km, each divided by distance in km. Areas with higher Superfund 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 Superfund 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 total count of sites proposed and listed (final) on the National Priorities List (NPL) in each block group within 5 km of the average resident in a block group, divided by distance, calculated as the population-weighted average of blocks in each block group. Final and proposed NPL sites are downloaded from the SEMS website. Proximity scores are calculated by assigning distance-weighted scores to 2010 Census blocks (distance between block centroids and facilities). The results are aggregated to the parent block group using the population weight for each block within the block group. 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. Superfund proximity source is derived from Superfund Enterprise Management System (SEMS) database 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)