Municipal Characteristics Associated with Toxic Contaminants in Groundwater

This paper reports the results of investigations into the relationships between municipal characteristics and toxic contaminants in groundwater. The data analyzed includes attributes of income, education, race, zoning, industrial activity, waste disposal practices, and other characteristics for 292 New Jersey municipalities and the concentration of 50 toxic substances in their groundwater. Many statistically significant associations are found, with the strongest being between several of the volatile organic chemicals and measures of industrial activity in the 1950s and 1960s. The second half of the paper presents a series of models designed to predict which municipalities have a greater probability of having their groundwater contaminated with toxic chemicals These models are able to distinguish the New Jersey sample of municipalities into “contaminated” and “not contaminated” with between 73 and 88 percent accuracy.