Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Millions of tons of hazardous wastes have been produced in the United States since World War II which have been dispersed into the air, into water, and on and under the ground. Much of this waste has accumulated in uncontrolled hazardous waste sites, and these sites are widespread across the nation (Landrigan, Suk, & Amler, 1999). Indeed, one in four (or 80 million) Americans live within 3 miles of a federal Superfund site (US EPA, 2012), a location with particularly high levels of environmental toxicants, and about 11 million Americans, including 3-4 million children, live within one mile of a Superfund site (Steinzor & Clune, 2006). Given that children born to less educated and minority women are more likely to be exposed to environmental toxicants in utero (Anderson, Anderton, & Oakes, 1994; Currie, 2011) because disadvantaged mothers are more likely to live near sources of pollution, exposure to environmental toxicants might be a relatively unexplored mechanism through which poverty produces negative cognitive and health outcomes over time.

Using new population-level data that follows cohorts of children born in the state of Florida between 1994 and 2002, this paper examines the short and long term effects of prenatal exposure to environmental toxicants on children living within two miles of a Superfund site. We compare siblings living within two miles from a Superfund site at birth where at least one sibling was conceived before or during cleanup of the site, and the other(s) was conceived after the site cleanup was completed using a family fixed effects model. Children conceived to mothers living within 2 miles of a Superfund site before it was cleaned are 7.4 percentage points more likely to repeat a grade, have 0.06 of a standard deviation lower test scores, and are 6.6 percentage points more likely to be suspended from school than their siblings who were conceived after the site was cleaned. Children conceived to mothers living within one mile of a Superfund site before it was cleaned are 10 percentage points more likely to be diagnosed with a cognitive disability than their later born siblings as well. However, no significant effects on any birth outcomes were observed. This study suggests that Superfund cleanup has significant positive effects on a variety of long term cognitive and developmental outcomes for children.

This is the first large-scale study of the effects of living near environmental toxicants on the development of learning disabilities and other school-based cognitive and behavioral outcomes. In addition, it is the first study to investigate the developmental effects of living near Superfund sites during the prenatal period on both birth and long term outcomes. Thus, this study will hopefully lend insight into how environmental pollution and policies might affect early brain development. In addition, this work also speaks to how residential and socioeconomic contexts can contribute to inequality before children are even born.