The highest-risk areas nationally tend to cluster along waterways where industry and worker housing once thrived, areas that often became home to low-income communities.In Providence, an example of an older industrial city, we found thousands of at-risk relic sites scattered along Narragansett Bay and the floodplains of the Providence and Woonasquatucket Rivers.
Over the decades, as these factories manufactured textiles, machine tools, jewelry and other products, they released untold quantities of environmentally persistent contaminants, including heavy metals like lead and cadmium and volatile organic chemicals, into the surrounding soils and water. For example, the Rhode Island Department of Health recently reported widespread drinking water contamination from PFAS, often referred to as “forever chemicals,” which are used to create stain- and water-resistant products and can be toxic.
The tendency for older factories to locate close to the water, where they would have easy access to power and transportation, puts these sites at risk today from extreme storms and sea-level rise. Many of these were small factories easily overlooked by regulators, even today.Newer cities, like Houston, are also vulnerable. Houston faces especially high risks given the scale of nearby oil, gas and chemical manufacturing infrastructure and its lack of formal zoning regulations.
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