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The article explores the preliminary investigation on the prevalence of environmental justice in North West (NW) Indiana in relation to exposure on toxic releases. It mentions the definition given by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on environmental justice as a fair treatment and significant involvement of all people with respect to the implementation of laws, regulations and policies. It adds that the investigation involves the spatial clustering in toxic releases and demographic and low-income groups wherein autoorrelation in racial, income and housing variables were showed. Furthermore, the benefits and the cost of environmental policy has also been identified.

The authors comment on research concerning the properties of fly ash and its environmental impact in its use in earthworks. They comment on the cohesion tests and small-strain shear response on Charqueadas, Brazil coal ash and state that they do not have similar data available for the Indiana ashes. They mention that Charqueadas and Indiana ashes have similar chemical constituents and mineral structures. They state that coal ash disposal sites in Indiana are tested to determine how contaminated the ash is, and that the Indiana study focused on environmentally safe coal ashes as refined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Conservation and Restoration Act. They mention that the ashes used as construction material for highway embankments were encased in low-permeability materials.