Industrial Disasters More Feared Than Natural Ones, UF Study Shows

August 10, 1999

GAINESVILLE — Radioactive leaks, chemical spills and other man-made industrial disasters strike terror into people more than natural calamities such as hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes, a new University of Florida study suggests.

“Storms and natural hazards are relatively immediate and don’t have the cumulative effects that tend to build up over time that industrial disasters do,” said Stephen Martin, a UF graduate student who did the research for his doctoral dissertation in geography. “If someone has a fence blown over, it’s not likely to arouse the same level of concern as tainted water.”

Natural disasters also have a certain inevitable quality, Martin said. “Many people are religious,” he said. “They think God creates storms and nothing can be done about them.”

In reality, far more people have died from natural disasters than from industrial ones, Martin said. The deadliest industrial disaster, a 1984 chemical plant accident in Bhopal, India, claimed about 4,000 lives, compared with about 700,000 deaths in a 1976 earthquake in China or 500,000 lives in a 1970 tropical cyclone in Bangladesh, he said.

In 1997 and 1998, Martin surveyed 368 residents of Taylor County, site of Buckeye Mill, a cellulose and pulp-processing mill, and four surrounding Florida Panhandle counties.

“His study provides insights that are useful to planning, because society is moving into more hazardous areas and economic damages for environmental hazards are increasing tremendously,” said Joann Mossa, a UF geography professor who supervise his research.

The region’s residents have experienced both industrial hazards — the polluting of the Fenholloway River — and natural ones. With much of its coastline tidal marsh land lying within a hurricane flood zone, Taylor County received the greatest damage in the Eastern United States from the 1993 “Storm of the Century,” Martin said.

Thirty-seven percent of those surveyed said they were more concerned about industrial hazards, compared with 12 percent for natural ones, the study showed. Thirty-six percent were equally concerned about both types of hazards. Sixteen percent either were uncertain or did not respond.

Ironically, people living closest to Buckeye Mill — believed to be the source of a majority of the Fenholloway River’s pollution and the subject of a state investigation — were the least concerned about the mill’s risks, just as those living nearest to the coast were least worried about storms, Martin said.

“People may psychologically adjust to living in hazard-prone areas by choosing to downplay or ignore the risks rather than dwell on them,” he said. “It’s easier to push it under the rug than to be forced to resolve the problem.”

As with any industry, economic benefits also are likely to influence nearby residents of the mill, the major employer in the city of Perry, Martin said. Even if they don’t personally get a paycheck from the mill, town residents are likely to work for other businesses that are financially supported by mill workers, he said.

The presence of children in the household made no difference in the level of concern among residents living within 5 miles of the mill, Martin said. In contrast, studies of residents near Love Canal, the famous toxic chemical dump site in New York state, found people with children to be far more fearful about the risks than those without, he said.

Yet people expressed a desire to hold business accountable if they could turn back the clock. “They thought new businesses should have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt before starting up and hiring large numbers of workers that they would not pollute, instead of having to slash jobs or close the mill later because of problems,” he said.

More than half (53 percent) said they strongly supported — and 22 percent said they somewhat supported — requiring future industry to demonstrate that it would not harm the environment before it is licensed or begins operations, he said.

Ultimately, economics played a role in people’s level of support for cleaning up the river, Martin said. Although more than half (54 percent) of survey respondents said they strongly supported the cleanup, approval fell to 22 percent if it involved increased taxes and 13 percent if it meant shutting down the mill, he said.