Urban Natural Gas Leaks: An Environmental Justice Concern?

• Activity Number: 322 - Analyses in Ecology, Epidemiology, and Environmental Policy
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 11, 2021 : 3:30 PM to 5:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics and the Environment
• Author(s): Seongwon Im* and Joseph von Fischer and Zachary Weller
• Companies: Colorado State University and Colorado State University and Colorado State University
• Keywords: environmental justice; negative binomial; conditional autoregressive; spatial model; areal data; equity

Abstract

We develop an environmental justice analysis of natural gas (NG) infrastructure across 12 U.S. metro areas. Infrastructure in metro areas, such as transportation or water systems, can provide benefits or pose burdens, and these benefits or burdens may not always be uniformly distributed between or within metro areas. NG pipelines in urban areas deliver gas to homes and can develop leaks over time. These leaks emit the greenhouse gas methane and, though rare, can develop into explosion hazards. We leverage the results of mobile methane surveys to examine NG infrastructure quality in 12 cities. Our analysis reveals vastly different rates of NG leaks both among and within cities. We utilize spatial CAR models to explore the relationship between leak density and census tract EJ predictors like percent people of color. Our findings indicate that, even after accounting for infrastructure age, disparities in leak density continue to exist as a function of sociodemographic characteristics. Our analysis provides an environmental justice framework for utility companies to evaluate the integrity and equity of their distribution systems.