=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #81
—June 13, 1988—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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STUDY FINDS POOR NEIGHBORHOODS MAKE BEST SITES FOR INCINERATORS.
Those who want to build trash-to-steam plants should pick a town
with less than 25,000 people where residents are old, poor,
politically conservative and Roman Catholic. That is the
conclusion of a study commissioned by the California state Waste
Management Board, which found people most likely to oppose such
facilities are young or middle-aged, college-educated, liberal
and Protestant.
The $33,000 study was prepared by Cerrell Associates, a Los
Angeles public relations and political consulting firm.
The study advises builders of waste incineration plants that they
will face less opposition if they put the plants near poor
neighborhoods instead of wealthy ones.
“All socioeconomic groupings tend to resent the nearby siting of
major (waste disposal) facilities, but the middle and upper
socioeconomic strata possess better resources to effectuate their
opposition,” the report says. “Middle and higher socioeconomic
strata neighborhoods should not fall at least within (five miles)
of the proposed site.”
The report gives personality profiles of the most likely and
least likely opponents of waste-to-energy plants, and suggests
that trash incineration can be made more palatable by presenting
it as part of a recycling program. The report outlines ways to
defuse opposition. The report says waste-to-energy plant sites
“can be suggested partly on the basis of neighborhoods least
likely to express opposition-older, conservative and lower
socioeconomic neighborhoods. Meanwhile the most likely opponents
of a waste-to-energy project–residents in the vicinity, liberal,
and higher-educated persons–can be targeted in a public
participation program and public relations campaign.”
The report says the ideal site for a waste-to-energy plant would
be in an industrial section far from homes and commercial
activity but within the trash collection area that would be
served. It says: “Commercial office spaces and residential lands
that are at least within visual, hearing or smelling distance of
the waste project will likely experience a decline in property
values.”
Wil Baca, one of the leaders of the California Alliance in
Defense of Residential Environments, which opposes trash
incineration plants in populated areas, protested that the state
Waste Management Board, in commissioning the study, sought to
find out how “to deceive [people], to sell them a product they
don’t want.”
It looks to us as if the ideas in this report are being applied
across the country. Time after time, we see sites selected where
people are poor or rural or both. Fortunately, we also see local
people successfully fighting such plans, even making alliances
across racial barriers. The fight against mass burn incinerators
(and landfills) has become a powerful political force, forging
new coalitions, strengthening American democracy in important
ways.
The 87-page report, entitled “Political Difficulties Facing
Waste-to-Energy Conversion Plant Siting,” was completed four
years ago (but only came to light last year when the LOS ANGELES
TIMES broke the story); copies may still be available from
Cerrell Associates in Los Angeles [phone: (213) 466-3445] or from
the California Waste Management Board in Sacramento [phone: (916)
322-3330].
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: cerrell report; poverty; environmental racism;
cerrell associates; siting; incineration; property values;