Collaborative dispute resolution in superfund enforcement: Does the resolution approach vary by community-level sociodemographic characteristics?

This research examines environmental dispute resolution as applied to Superfund site cleanup and how the use of collaborative dispute resolution approaches, in particular Alternative Dispute Resolution and Community Involvement, are related to a community's socioeconomic and demographic profile. It examines the sociodemographic characteristics of residents living in census tracts containing Superfund sites in relation to the type of dispute resolution technique used. I hypothesize that collaborative dispute resolution techniques, as opposed to traditional settlement and/or litigation, are less likely to occur in Superfund communities with high poverty levels and high minority populations than in those with low poverty levels and low minority populations. Although minority and lower class communities are less likely to be placed on the National Priorities List (NPL), are slower to be cleaned up once on the NPL, and experience lower quality cleanups (O'Neil 2005; Sigman 2001; Omohundro 2004), the findings of this research indicate that the dispute resolution processes studied here do not contribute to such environmental clean up injustices. Minority status and poverty levels do not impact the likelihood that collaborative dispute resolution will be used in settling Superfund disputes. This analysis does show a significant correlation between education and the use of collaborative dispute resolution. Superfund communities in which residents have low educational attainment are less likely to use collaborative dispute resolution. Low educational levels may be the paramount disadvantage to overcome in the use and successful implementation of collaborative dispute resolution.