Rural places and the circumstances of acute chemical disasters: Fid-Bau Portal

Rural places and the circumstances of acute chemical disasters

Solecki, William D.

AbstractThis paper examines the nature and pattern of acute chemical airborne disasters in rural areas of four U.S. states: Alabama, Georgia, Iowa and New York. It is argued that these unplanned or uncontrolled airborne releases of hazardous chemicals are more than isolated engineering malfunctions. They can be alternatively understood as reflections of the social, economic and political contexts in which they occur. The objective of the paper is to investigate the links between the pattern of incidents (n = 262), the amount of hazardous materials locally present and the capability of local emergency preparedness in rural counties of the four states (n = 307). Discriminant analysis is used to examine the relationship between 33 country risk-related and preparedness variables and incident frequency. The discussion focuses on a sub-set of “outlier” counties: those with fewer incidents than expected and those with more incidents than expected based on their risk-related and preparedness characteristics. The results show a close positive relationship between the number of incidents and the amount of hazardous materials and preparedness. Strongest association is found between the number of incidents and chemical manufacturing or processing facilities. Differences between the two groups of outliers in Alabama and Georgia were based on economic and demographic conditions; differences in Iowa were based on adjacency to metropolitan areas. The findings illustrate the usefulness of contextual analysis in examining the restructuring of rural life and the capacity of fiscally and socially stressed rural communities to respond to environmental change.