Toxics and Environmental Justice Populations in Norwood, Massachusetts

Description: This map is representative of the issue of environmental justice within and around the town of Norwood, Massachusetts. In this project we are measuring the total area of environmental justice within the town of Norwood and comparing it to the non-environmental justice areas. There are also measurements of these environmental justice and non-environmental justice areas within 2000 meters of toxic sites.

The Process: To complete the process of this project there are a few key steps. First, I collected the community boundaries data and the environmental justice populations’ data mass.gis. After adding the layers I collected the total area of the town, the total area of environmental justice areas for the town, the total area of town that is non-environmental justice. After these steps, I then created a zone that is 2000 meters around the toxic sites in the town of Norwood. From this zone I was able to get the percentage of the environmental and non-environmental justice areas within 2000 meters of a toxic site.

Results: The results from the project show the amount of environmental justice areas compared to those that are not, as well as the percentage of those areas that are within 2000 meters of a toxic site. The entire area of the town of Norwood is approximately 27.2 sq. km. Out of that 27.2 sq. km there are only 5.8 sq. km of environmental justice areas equaling to be 21.39%. The other 78.06% are the areas within Norwood that are in non-environmental justice areas, which is approximately 21.38%. From the results it shows that all of the environmental justice areas within Norwood are within 2000 meters of a toxic site. It also depicts that 99.65% of the non-environmental justice areas are within 2000 meters of a toxic site.

Conclusions: From the results of the project it is clear that almost the entire town of Norwood is close to toxic sites. It is important to research the facilities within the town of Norwood to see what type of facilities are producing such extreme numbers. From the study it shows that the majority of the facilities of the town of Norwood consists of automobile sale stores. One must also consider that there is a highway that drives through Norwood that contributes to the toxic environments. The 21.39% of Norwood that is labeled as an environmental justice area are the ones that have the most toxic facilities located near or within them. Further research such as income level could also provide reasoning in which these areas are labeled the way they are.