planning

Apr 15, 2015

EJ2020: Defining New Goals for the coming years

Collaboration, Community Engagement, EJ, EJ 2020 Action Agenda, Environmental Justice, Plan EJ 2014, planning 0 Comments

By Mustafa Santiago Ali

Realizing environmental justice for all people, regardless of their race, income or educational status is a long journey. It will not come overnight, but EPA made an important step forward recently with Plan EJ 2014. That five-year strategic plan laid a foundation for integrating environmental justice in EPA’s programs by developing basic guidance in rulemaking, permitting and enforcement, and basic tools such as EJ Legal Tools and EJSCREEN. Now it is time to build on this foundation and expand collaborations with our partners toward making a bigger difference in the overburdened communities we serve.

That is why we are developing EJ 2020, our next strategy to advance environmental justice in EPA’s programs. EJ2020 will:

Deepen environmental justice practice within EPA programs
Strengthen our collaborations with partners
Demonstrate progress on outcomes that matter to communities

Today, we start community and stakeholder engagement on EJ 2020. We are already learning from the initial input on areas that we have yet to fully address. By engaging our partners at the state, tribal, local, and federal levels we’ve developed ideas like integrated and area-wide planning, green infrastructure, and advanced environmental monitoring. They’ve helped us understand the need to meet the challenge of climate change, and ways to demonstrate progress that matters to communities.

We have heard from local governments who have identified best practices in how they are addressing environmental justice. Communities from Santa Barbara, California to Bridgeport, Connecticut are coming up with solutions in areas such as green infrastructure, brownfields, climate adaptation, health disparities, reducing air emissions from the movement of freight, and issues in rural communities.

We are benefiting from everyone’s robust experience learned over several decades of work.

There are a number of powerful examples of what can happen when collaborative partnerships come together between federal, state, and local governments, communities, and other stakeholders. One of those inspiring stories is the Salt Lake City Children’s Environmental Health & Environmental Justice Initiative which is working with nine neighborhoods in central and west Salt Lake City, Utah. This project brought together more than a dozen local, state, and community-based organizations with the purpose of making a visible difference in their communities. They designed a unique community engagement model to fit the needs of the neighborhoods, created a profile report characterizing community environmental and health concerns, and created an environmental data map for the West Side community. This work has allowed the community to play an important role in the design of the West Salt Lake Master Plan. As a result of the community’s active participation in the process, they have been able to increase attention on:

Supporting/funding community initiated ideas through the Community Implementation grants
Creating increased mobility and transit use options through a city-wide discount transit pass
Aligning city and school district opportunities through a Community Learning Center Strategy
Increasing understanding of affordable housing choices through a Housing needs assessment

By honoring the culture of a community and including their voices and ideas in the planning process, we can create healthier and more vibrant communities and truly make a visible difference that is rooted in the values and priorities of our most vulnerable neighborhoods.

This effort shows how critical it is for EPA to strengthen our collaborations with the communities we serve, our government partners, and all stakeholders. We hope that everyone committed to achieving the goals of environmental justice will work with us to produce a vision and plan for EJ 2020 that is relevant to the opportunities and challenges of our times.

Several years ago, I learned that we cannot solve all the intractable problems associated with environmental justice right away, especially during a period of rising demands and dwindling resources. I am reminded of the old adage that if it was so simple, it would have been solved a long time ago. Therefore, we must be strategic. We need your best thinking about key things we should focus on to most effectively and realistically advance our common goal of achieving beneficial outcomes for our most overburdened communities.

About the author: Mustafa Santiago Ali is the Acting Senior Advisor on Environmental Justice to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.

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Dec 18, 2013

Putting Sustainability within Reach of Environmental Justice Communities

Carlton Eley, EJ, Environmental Justice, Equitable Development, Mustafa Ali, NEJAC, OEJ Programs, Place-based, planning, Pollution Prevention, Redevelopment, sustainable communities 10 Comments

By Carlton Eley

I am an urban planner who works on environmental justice at the EPA. I believe certain things to be true: professional ethics require speaking up for citizens who may not have a voice in local decision-making; public service is a public trust; and expansive strategies are required for encouraging sustainable communities. Also, I believe equitable development is one of the key solutions for making a visible difference in communities.

No task is more important to the future of sustainability in the U.S. than equitable development. Equitable development expands choice and opportunity, encourages sustainable outcomes, and improves quality of life while mitigating impacts from activities that society considers beneficial. As a result, the approach advances environmental justice.

In recent years, the term “place-based” has become a popular watchword among planners, urban designers, and other stewards of the built environment. In many ways, equitable development is a place-based approach for encouraging environmental justice. Although the public is accustomed to discussions about environmental justice framed in the context of the law, public health, and waste management, the planning and design professions are equally important means for correcting problems which beset communities overburdened by pollution and remain underserved.

When the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) published its 1996 report Environmental Justice, Urban Revitalization, and Brownfields: The Search for Authentic Signs of Hope, it clearly outlined the nexus between environmental justice, land use, and sustainability. Not only did this report identify the environmental benefits of urban redevelopment, but the report also emphasized that the best outcomes from urban redevelopment would come about through an inclusive process.

Obviously, the NEJAC was ahead of itself. Since 1996, researchers, advocates, allied professionals, and community builders have demonstrated that equitable development does not shift attention from making communities better. Instead, it results in better community outcomes, especially for underserved populations and vulnerable groups.

Susana Almanza of PODER, Diane Takvorian of the Environmental Health Coalition, State Representative Harold Mitchell, Jr. of Spartanburg, South Carolina, and many more are ‘citizen planners for equitable development’. The outcomes from their successful projects are evidence of what happens when citizens are audacious in their attempts to do well while doing good. Because of their examples as well as through the leadership of organizations like PolicyLink, supporters of environmental justice are learning about a broad range of community activity for fixing challenges rooted in a failure to plan, a failure to enforce proper zoning, or the persistent legacy of unequal development.

We have come a long way in understanding, implementing, replicating, and scaling-up equitable development. Still, more work will need to occur in order to realize full appreciation of the role equitable development plays in the framework of sustainability.

In the interim, public demand for a balanced discussion on sustainability is not being overlooked. The U.S. EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice is organizing the workshop, “Equitable Development: Smarter Growth through Environmental Justice.” The workshop will be held at the New Partners for Smart Growth Conference in Denver, Colorado, on February 13, 2014. Equally important, the NEJAC will revisit the themes of equitable development, environmental justice, and sustainability when it meets in Denver on February 11-12, 2014.

Finally, the Environmental Justice in Action Blog will explore the topic of equitable development through a series of posts in advance of the conference in Denver. The dialogue about environmental justice for the next twenty years starts here.

Carlton Eley works for EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice. He is an urban planner, sociologist, and lecturer. Carlton is credited for elevating equitable development to the level of formal recognition within U.S. EPA as an approach for encouraging sustainable communities. He interned with EPA’s Environmental Justice Program in Region 10 as an associate of the Environmental Careers Organization in 1994.

Jun 12, 2012

After The Apple is Green, There’s PIE!

evaluation, implementation, planning, quality assurance, sustainable living, The quality pie 6 Comments

By Linda Mauel

Summer officially begins this month! Imagine warm summer days in Central Park or at the Jersey shore, picnics with family and friends, and of course apple pie.

There’s a pie for everyone! Some prefer deep dish, others an open face Tarte Tatin. My grandson prefers his with a woven lattice top and whipped cream, while my husband prefers his with a full top crust, warmed with ice cream.

Salivating yet? Grabbing your keys for a trip to the nearest bakery? Or reaching for your mom’s famous award winning apple pie recipe? No matter whether store bought or homemade, by the time we each finish our apple pie, we will have finished a Quality PIE also! “A Quality PIE” you may ask? Let me show you what I mean…

I decided I wanted to serve apple pie (small letter “p”) at a family picnic last week, so I began to Plan. What type of pie do I want? Where am I going to get it and how do I want to serve it? Also, when (I know with whom) do I want to enjoy it! I bought 2 fresh pies – one lattice and one full crust – from the bakery near the house. I planned to serve the pies warmed with a choice of ice creams and whipped cream just before sunset.

Next, it was time to Implement my plan of attack. When shopping for the picnic, I picked up the pies, a variety of ice creams, including chocolate (for dad) and vanilla (for my husband), and of course whipped cream for my eldest grandson. At the picnic just before sunset, I warmed the pies, and then set them out with the toppings. The adults savored their apple pie while the kids tried to outdo each other with their unique pie and ice cream concoctions.

I looked around my back yard, assessing faces in the setting sun and Evaluating the reactions to this fun, delicious, sweet and tangy choice of a summer dessert. I decided that it was a hit and to serve it again – maybe with a fruit salad next time!

I bet you are asking yourselves “what does this have to do with Quality PIE (and why am I reading this instead of getting some pie for myself)?” Well, many of us cringe when we hear the term “Quality” or “Quality Assurance” and usually respond that someone else handles “that.” The truth of the matter – quality assurance is a part of all our lives. Whether working on a project, competing in a marathon, or providing those we love with a delicious apple pie dessert, we Plan, we Implement, and then we Evaluate/assess to determine if all was acceptable as planned and if there are any changes to be made next time. Planning + Implementing + Evaluating are the fundamental ingredients of The Quality PIE.

Enjoy your summer and may all of your pies be a success!

About the Author: Linda Mauel serves as the region’s Quality Assurance Manager. She works in the Division of Environmental Science and Assessment out of EPA’s Edison Environmental Center. Linda holds a BS in Chemical Engineering and a BA in Chemistry from Rutgers University. She worked in the private sector for 11 years then began her 20+ year career with EPA in the quality assurance program.