Inequitable Valuation of Point Source Pollution
In reflecting on the forefront issues of this new Anthropogenic era we have found ourselves to have created, there is a disproportionate focus on overall pollution/risk to the population at large, called non-point source pollution. Furthermore, there is also an innate ability to overlook an original, and long-standing origin of the very issue itself, point source pollution (Matthews et al., 2000). Point source pollution is any form of pollution coming from a single, identifiable source (versus agricultural run-off, for example, which can become widespread, with the exact source becoming untraceable) (noaa.gov, 2016). While such pollution can render various negative externalities, reflected through nature degradation, public health, and more, there is often an intentionality behind the source. Thus, benefits being gained weighed such a decision to be made over costs. Intentionality, however, does not assume knowledge, equal power, or equitable valuing of all involved variables.
In 1996, a documentary came out about the nation’s largest incinerator firm located in Chester, Pennsylvania, owned by Covanta. The firm produces toxic levels of nitrous oxides and other asthma and cancer inducing chemicals by importing and incinerating trash in large volumes, while lacking the necessary pollution controls (ejnet.org, 2007). Covanta may not have originally considered/assumed all the negative externalities that would effect the city it is located in, thus the benefits would presumably be much larger than the costs. Now that it is already occurring, the question would come as to whether the problem to be fixed, allowing for prevention of further risks/externalities, such as noise pollution, smell, increased asthma in children, and increased cancer rates. The monetary benefits here of a company with a close-to $2B revenue annually (that argues adding additional pollution controls would be too costly) has been valued more highly than these costs associated with the factory allowing the problem to continue.
Beyond such, there are unintentional sources of point-source pollution, such as the Deepwater Horizontal Spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, which released 134 million gallons of oil. (noaa.gov, 2016). While there were no intentional benefits here, the costs weighed detrimental on ocean life, as well as the fishing industry. In the creation of a vector of point-source pollution, valuation of all involved parties and externalities must be assessed (Food Ethics, 2016). Neoclassical economists approach it from a cost-benefit analysis perspective most often, but due to inequities in valuation itself, this isn’t so simple.
Worldwide, the highest concentrations of point-source pollution consist of a few commonalities: they are most common in areas that are impoverished, in economic disparity, and/or are in areas of minorities (Fann, et al. 2009)(EPI. 2018). Various hypotheses of variable correlations have been produced to try to provide explanation and understanding of this ‘structure’ and how such inequities have emerged. The proposal of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), for example, displayed environmental degradation in correlation with income per capita. The U shaped curve shows the way in which degradation originally decreases with increases in income, but as income continues to increase, eventual improvements do form. It became a game with the environment in which we, as a society, hoped we could create a Utopian era in which we could “have our cake and eat it too,” spurring the movement of sustainability within development, and the concept of achieving optimal pollution (Stern, 2004). The externalities of this, however, thus result in inequitable valuation that presumably occurs in the process of locating and creating vectors of point source pollution, where lack of use, value, and political power, knowledge, and a variety of other factors can result in externalities being reflected on ‘bystanders’ (Goodstein et. al, 2017). The maximization of creating more has its limits, as we only have Earth itself to provide so many natural resources.
In my concentration, I am working to discover a better understanding of the source of created inequities. While exploring involved processes and variables of valuation, and how they are achieved, I wonder what role they play in regulation of point-source pollution, and how inequities in such a world-wide phenomena are occurring, despite such vast research in optimal pollution. By doing so, I hope to nurture ways in which sound valuation of externalities can be made, and highlight actions that can be taken (whether legislatively through regulation, or other) to better locate vectors of point-source pollution.
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