Aviation noise and environmental justice: The barrio barrier

Aviation noise is a harmful pollutant, which has yet to be studied in the environmental justice literature. This paper uses Tobit and logit multivariate regression analyses to analyze noise pollution exposure from a major commercial-service airport. It addresses the issue of whether people moved to the aviation noise-impacted areas or the noise encroached on the people, and controls for economic and political costs as well as the possibility of racial and ethnic prejudice. The results indicate that ethnicity is the primary cause of the disproportionate burden of aviation noise pollution borne by Hispanics in the area analyzed.