IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/10.2105-ajph.2015.303000_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wastewater disposal wells, fracking, and environmental injustice in Southern Texas

Author

Listed:
  • Johnston, J.E.
  • Werder, E.
  • Sebastian, D.

Abstract

Objectives. To investigate race and poverty in areas where oil and gas wastewater disposal wells, which are used to permanently inject wastewater from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations, are permitted. Methods. With location data of oil and gas disposal wells permitted between 2007 and 2014 in the Eagle Ford area, a region of intensive fracking in southern Texas, we analyzed the racial composition of residents living less than 5 kilometers from a disposal well and those farther away, adjusting for rurality and poverty, using a Poisson regression. Results. The proportion of people of color living less than 5 kilometers from a disposal well was 1.3 times higher than was the proportion of non-Hispanic Whites. Adjusting for rurality, disposal wells were 2.04 times (95% confidence interval = 2.02, 2.06) as common in areas with 80% people of color or more than in majority White areas. Disposal wells are also disproportionately sited in high-poverty areas. Conclusions. Wastewater disposal wells in southern Texas are disproportionately permitted in areas with higher proportions of people of color and residents living in poverty, a pattern known as "environmental injustice.".

Suggested Citation

  • Johnston, J.E. & Werder, E. & Sebastian, D., 2016. "Wastewater disposal wells, fracking, and environmental injustice in Southern Texas," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 106(3), pages 550-556.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2015.303000_5
    DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.303000
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2015.303000
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2105/AJPH.2015.303000?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jennifer Ish & Elaine Symanski & Kristina W. Whitworth, 2019. "Exploring Disparities in Maternal Residential Proximity to Unconventional Gas Development in the Barnett Shale in North Texas," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-9, January.
    2. Aubree Driver & Crystal Mehdizadeh & Samuel Bara-Garcia & Coline Bodenreider & Jessica Lewis & Sacoby Wilson, 2019. "Utilization of the Maryland Environmental Justice Screening Tool: A Bladensburg, Maryland Case Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-21, January.
    3. Mary Finley-Brook & Erica L. Holloman, 2016. "Empowering Energy Justice," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-19, September.
    4. Paul S. Ciccantell, 2020. "Liquefied Natural Gas: Redefining Nature, Restructuring Geopolitics, Returning to the Periphery?," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 79(1), pages 265-300, January.
    5. Cameron T. Whitley, 2019. "Exploring the Place of Animals and Human–Animal Relationships in Hydraulic Fracturing Discourse," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-19, February.
    6. Joshua L. Warren & Jiachen Cai & Nicholaus P. Johnson & Nicole C. Deziel, 2022. "A discrete kernel stick‐breaking model for detecting spatial boundaries in hydraulic fracturing wastewater disposal well placement across Ohio," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 71(1), pages 175-193, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2015.303000_5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.