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The Environmental Justice Strategic Enforcement Assessment Tool (EJSEAT)
The Environmental Justice Strategic Enforcement Assessment Tool (EJSEAT) is a tool for the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) to consistently identify areas with potentially disproportionately high and adverse environmental and public health burdens. EJSEAT uses 18 select federally-recognized or managed databases and a simple algorithm to identify such areas.
EJSEAT data sets are divided into the following four indicator categories: 1) environmental; 2) human health, 3) compliance; and 4) social demographics to calculate EJSEAT Scores.
Environmental indicators include data about:
- National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) cancer risk.
- NATA noncancer neurological and respiratory hazard index.
- NATA noncancer diesel particulate matter (PM).
- Toxic chemical emissions and transfers from industrial facilities, as modeled using the Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) tool.
- Population weighted ozone monitoring data.
- Population weighted PM 2.5 monitoring data.
Human health indicators include data about:
- Percent infant mortality.
- Percent low birth weight births.
Compliance indicators include data about:
- Inspections of major facilities.
- Violations at major facilities.
- Formal actions at major facilities.
- Facility density based on all facilities in EPA's facility registry system.
Social demographic indicators include data about:
- Percent of population living in poverty.
- Percent of population counted as minority.
- Percent of population 25 years old and over without a high school diploma.
- Percent of population over 65 years of age.
- Percent of population under 5 years of age.
- Percent of population of limited English proficiency.
EJSEAT Scores
Census tracts in each state are assigned an EJSEAT score. The scores are determined by a simple mathematical algorithm using the scaled data. Data within each indicator category are ranked and then summed and averaged for each Census tract located in a state.
The final EJSEAT score for a Census tract is calculated by summing and averaging the data across the four indicator categories. The top 10 and 20 percent scoring Census tracts in a state are considered potential EJ areas of concern. Facilities listed in EPA's On-line Tracking Information System (OTIS) which are located in top scoring Census tracts ( i.e., potential EJ areas of concern) are flagged in OTIS with a "1" or "2," depending on whether the Census tract ranks in the top 10 or 20 percent, respectively.