A risk-sharing model for locating noxious facilities

The recent proliferation of facility-siting conflicts underscores the need for new analytical techniques in which the external effects associated with noxious facilities are considered explicitly. In general, in prescriptive facility-location models it is assumed that having populations "closer", as characterized by transport or accessibility advantages, is better for desirable facilities, but, locating "farther" away is better for undesirable facilities. The modeling formulation developed in this paper adds two new concepts to the prescriptive modeling work on locating noxious facilities: (1) "complementary anticover" as a measure of equity for siting facilities that provide a required capacity for producing goods or services, and (2) perceived risk attributable to the scale of these facilities. These two concepts, in conjunction with conventional cost considerations, are used to develop a multiobjective location model that may be used to find locational patterns which mitigate public opposition across a broad range of noxious facilities. "One of the first things that we concluded was that 'yes, we need to do something responsible to take care of hazardous waste' .... But to us it never made sense to have one huge facility where everything would converge." Hazardous waste facility opposition leader, Warren, Massachusetts, 1984. "If we don't solve this problem [and locate resource recovery facilities in each borough], you won't have any place to put your garbage. You will have to eat it." Borough President Staten Island, New York, 1984.