Toxic Sites and Environmental Justice Areas in Ayer, Massachusetts

Description of this project: This project was used to determine information about environmental justice areas and where they are in relation to toxic sites in the town of Ayer, MA. The information is described by square kilometers, and compared areas of the town and how much of that area is environmental justice area. Buffers are used to determine more information about where these areas are in relation to toxic waste sites.

The map: This map was made using Esri's ArcMap- several layers such as town data, environmental justice areas, and toxic sites, were obtained from MassGIS to create this map. Buffers were made to show where environmental justice areas were in the town of Ayer, and to also show how much of that environmental justice area was also within a 2,000 meter buffer of a toxic site. 

 The following tables show more information about the different areas that were calculated for this project, as well as displaying these numbers as percentages to get a better understanding of how much of each area is in the town. 

	Town	EJ area of town	Non-EJ Area	EJ Area within 2,000 m buffer	Non-EJ Area within 2,000m buffer
Area(sq.Km)	24.613	9.74	14.873	9.74	14.873

Table 1. This table shows the area that was calculated for each portion of the project.

	Total % of Town that is EJ	% of town that is Non-EJ	EJ area that is within the buffer	Non-EJ area that is within the buffer
Percent	39.5%	60.5%	39.5%	60.5%

Table 2. This table shows the areas calculated as percentages, to better understand how much the area is affected by the toxic sites and how much of it is environmental justice area (EJ).

Conclusions: A direct conclusion that can be formed through this project is that 39.5% of the town of Ayer, which is an environmental justice area is within the 2,000 meter buffer around a toxic site, and may be affected by these sites and their proximity. This project cannot draw conclusions pertaining to how many people are affected by this because the information about precisely where people live within Ayer is not available, only where the town boundaries are and where the toxic sites are. Another factor that plays an important role in toxic sites and areas is what the toxic sites actually contain, as well as wind, and water sources that are nearby that may affect the toxic sites reach and potency.