Towards a Resource-Based Environmental Inequality: A Case Study of Coal Waste Impoundments in Appalachia

• In Event: 157 - Regular Session. Rural Contexts as Spaces of Inequality, Power, and Identity

Abstract

Coal waste impoundments pose numerous health and disaster risks to rural communities in Appalachia, yet few studies examine impoundments from an environmental inequality perspective. Coal companies construct impoundments to hold “slurry,” the toxic, sludge-like byproduct of coal extraction. Impoundment failures have led to some of the largest human and environmental disasters in U.S. history. Further, there are significant health concerns for residents who live near impoundments. This research identifies significant predictors of a community’s proximity to a coal impoundment by empirically testing hypotheses relevant to the sociological literature on environmental inequality, mining communities, and Appalachia. The empirical analyses provide support for treadmill of production theory, which posits that the logic of capitalism leads to an ecologically degrading cycle of production, technological advancement, and worker displacement. Most environmental inequality studies address the treadmill from an “end of the pipe” approach rather than examining environmental degradation at the site of extraction in rural areas. This study advances the conception of a resource-based environmental inequality that addresses the social impacts of hazards and risks created by resource extraction processes. The analysis utilizes both ordinary least squares regression and spatial regression in a process of model-building that reveals the importance of spatial relationships between places. Overall, the findings indicate that unemployment and mining characteristics are significant predictors of a community’s proximity to a coal waste impoundments. Further, this study illustrates the need for additional resource-based environmental inequality research across different scales, units of analysis, and natural resources.

Author

• Pierce Greenberg, Washington State University