Toxic and Environmental Justice Populations in Medford, Massachusetts

MassGis has provided us with data of toxic sites and areas of environmental justice (EJ) populations. This project was to look at data of Environmental Justice, which is data on low income households, and/or households that don’t speak English very well and find out the area of risk from toxic sites. This map depicts those levels of toxic sites and the proximity of environmental justice areas located within in Medford, MA.

Process: By using the community/town boundaries data provided from MassGIS, I calculated the total area of the town. Then I determined the total area of environmental justice area of the town by using the data from MassGIS within the Medford boundaries. To determine the total area of the town that is non-environmental justice we subtracted the total area of the environmental justice areas of the town from the total area of the town. I mapped the total environmental justice area that was in a 2000 meter radius of a toxic site by utilizing geoprocessing tools found in ArcMap. I found the non-environmental justice group that fell within a 2000 meter area of a toxic site by utilizing those same tools.

                To determine the total percent of the town that is environmental justice I divided the total area of environmental justice by the total area of the town and multiplied by 100. For the total percent of the town that is non-environmental justice I subtracted 100% from 26% to get my result. I looked at the result of the total area of the town and the total area of the town that is environmental justice that falls within a 200 meter radius of a toxic site, and since they are the same, that makes the total percent of the town that is within that radius of a toxic site is 100%. To get the total percent of the non-environmental justice within a 2000 meter radius I divided the total area by the non-environmental justice total area.

Table 1:

Medford, MA	Total Area (sq. km)
Town	21.86
Environmental Justice	5.70
Non-Environmental Justice	16.16
Environmental Justice within a 2000 meter radius of a toxic site	5.70
Non-EJ within a 2000 meter radius of a toxic site	13.01

Table 2:

Medford, MA	Total Percent
Percent of the town that is Environmental Justice	26%
Percent of the town that is Non- Environmental Justice	74%
Percent of Environmental Justice within a 2000 meter radius	100%
Percent of Non-Environmental Justice within a 2000 meter radius	80%

Results and Conclusions: The data suggests that there is a huge concern with toxic danger in most of Medford, Massachusetts. Even the Non-Environmental Justice group would be affected. Accurate population accounts should be taken into consideration.