![[logo] US EPA](http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
Environmental Justice Initiatives and Achievements
National EJ Program Integration Activities – The Agency, through the leadership of the EJ Executive Steering Committee and OECA/OEJ, continues its efforts to comprehensively incorporate EJ considerations into EPA’s programs, policies and activities.
The following major initiatives and activities support EJ Integration. These efforts represent a significant undertaking and will not be successful without the support and involvement of all parts of the Agency, including the Regions.
EJ Initiatives
Major National Initiatives and Activities:
NEJAC http://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/nejac/subcommittees.htm TheNEJAC is currently focusing on the intergration of EJ into the Agency's programs, policies and activities. The next NEJAC meeting is planned for the summer of 2012.
Regional Environmental Justice Initiatives and Activities:
Region 4 has achieved numerous environmental justice achievements in 2011. Notable activities and successes are highlighted below:
- Community-Scale Air Toxics Study; Memphis, Tennessee. Clean Air and Global Climate Change
- Action: An Air Toxics Study Project will be conducted to site a community-scale air monitoring project at urban levels and broader studies along the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee. The study is a new grant project and is currently in the pre-planning phase. Results for this study are expected during the fall of 2009. The study will collect, monitor, and assess ambient air toxics samples including emissions from barges and other stationary sources to communities, including low-income and minority communities, bordering the project’s monitoring area. The data generated will be use to:(a) evaluate potential exposures, (b) evaluate pollutants that are carcinogens for public health studies, (c) conduct risk screenings and assessments, and (d) identify concentrations of ozone precursors that may be contributing to the non-attainment status of the area. As a result, this study will assist in determining long-term goals for air toxics reductions and develop a plan to accomplish these goals over a five-year period.
- For further information, contact Donnette Sturdivant at 404-562-9431
- Environmental Justice Showcase Community; Jacksonville, Florida.
- Action: EPA will focus on improving environmental and public health outcomes in an area that consists of a predominantly low income and minority population. This area has a number of Superfund sites, brownfields, vacant and abandoned lots or other properties where contamination is suspected, and impacted waterways. EPA will work with its partners, including environmental justice community representatives, to address sites of concern and turn them into an opportunity for residents to collaborate with developers and revitalize their neighborhoods.
- For further information, contact Kedesch Altidor at 404-562-8110
- Sewee to Santee Watershed Project. Clean and Safe Water: Water Safe to Drink; Fish and Shellfish Safe to Eat
- Action:The Sewee to Santee region lies in coastal South Carolina; located in northeastern Charleston County. This watershed is relatively undeveloped and sustains a number of low-income, African-American communities. Most are underserved by public utilities and many have shallow drinking wells and failing onsite septic tanks. The shallow wells contain high iron (a health concern for men) as well as high manganese concentrations. A number of the wells are contaminated with fecal coliform. Many residents must get drinking and wash water from community wells many miles from their homes. As a result of inadequate public utility service, these communities lack fire protection and bacteriological contamination has required the closing of local shellfish beds; this has diminished the communities’ ability to avail itself of that resource for subsistence. Many residents are also concerned about growth pressures and sprawl from the Charleston vicinity. Region 4 will provide financial and technical assistance to: (a) provide clean/safe drinking water to the community, (b) eliminate potential health concerns from contaminated wells, and (c) restore shellfish harvesting use and its related economical benefits.
- For further information, contact Craig Hesterlee at 404-562-9749
- Environmental Justice Farmer’s Initiative: The Office of Environmental Justice initiated the Environmental Justice Farmers’ Initiative (EJFI) with two goals in mind. The first goal is to reach the segment of the environmental justice community that has been overlooked in the past. The second goal is to target small, socially disadvantaged and limited resource producers in Georgia counties that have diverse farming operations and have adverse impacts on water quality. The counties targeted in the initiative are Colquitt, Mitchell, Early, Worth, Peach, Dooly, Macon, Houston, Lowndes, Thomas, Brooks, Screven, Burke, Jenkins and Bullock. Overall, these fifteen counties (Black belt counties) have a high concentration of small, socially disadvantaged and limited resource producers. Collectively, these black belt counties comprise approximately 703 minority and socially disadvantage farmers with more than 10,000 acres of farm land.
- Action: The office has partnered and negotiated a work plan for a $15,000.00 Cooperative Agreement (CA) grant with Fort Valley State University (FVSU). The CA grant is to conduct listening sessions/workshops to engage minority and socially disadvantaged farmers in a dialogue to identify their specific needs to reduce water quality degradation from land located in Region 4 priority watersheds, or that impacts 303(d) listed streams or streams with a TMDL. The EJFI will also focus on working with minority and socially disadvantaged farmers to build their capacity to access a greater share of governmental services and funding.
- Results: The Office has partnered with Golden Triangle Resource Conservation and Development Council, and the US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Services and secured a $675,000.00 Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative (CCPI) grant for the Environmental Justice Farmers’ Initiative (EJFI). The grant, awarded in June, is mainly for small, socially disadvantaged and limited resource producers who have not traditionally participated in federal or state programs, to implement conservation practices on their agricultural and forest lands. Implementation will help improve water quality in stream segments in rural Georgia that do not meet their designated uses due to nonpoint source pollution from agriculture. The goal this year is to award at least two socially disadvantaged producers in the fifteen counties under the CCPI grant.
- For additional information, contact Elvie Barlow at 404-562-9650.
- Southeast Diesel Collaborative and Clean School Bus Program: School buses provide over 24 million children with safe transportation to and from school each day and travel 4 billion miles each year. There are approximately 450,000 school buses on the road nationwide. Diesel school buses, especially older ones, lack emission control devices and emit particulate matter and other pollutants in diesel exhaust that can pose health hazards to children.
- Action: Region 4 has provided grants to many school districts in rural, low-income and areas that otherwise have sensitive populations, as these factors are considered in the ranking criteria of project proposals. Over the past 5 years, EPA Region 4 has awarded grants to 13 school districts totaling $1.6 million. The funds are used to retrofit buses with emission reduction technology; fuel the fleet with cleaner-burning diesel fuel; and replace older buses with new, clean diesel ones. Ten of these school districts are located in rural, low-income or sensitive population areas.
- Results: School districts that received funding have lowered their bus fleets’ emissions of fine particulates by approximately 75-85 percent, and lowered hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions by at least 60 percent. These emission reductions will improve air quality for 3,242,200 students.
- For additional information, contact Scott Davis at 404-562-9127.
- Community-Initiated Redevelopment Forum, Jacksonville, Florida: EPA Region 4, as part EPA’s 10th annual Community Involvement Conference (CIC) and Training in Jacksonville, Fl. (June 19-22, 2007), worked with local communities in Jacksonville to host a Community-Initiated Redevelopment Forum as a community capacity building initiative.
- Action: More than two dozen residents and representatives from EPA and other federal, state and local agencies, nonprofit organizations and academic institutions collaborated to design a forum that would address the most pressing environmental justice issues impacting Jacksonville. For months leading up to the CIC, the community-driven planning committee researched and selected a focus issue and brought together the right stakeholders to address it.
- Results: More than 130 residents from Jacksonville’s Urban Core attended the event. Together, agency officials and residents explored what the communities in Jacksonville’s Urban Core would like to see on contaminated and abandoned sites when they are cleaned up and redeveloped. Tools and strategies were shared to help residents understand how they can influence the redevelopment process to help meet community needs. This effort has lead to an additional Forum being conducted prior to the Florida Brownfields Conference in November. EPA was commended for initiating this innovative effort and bringing parties together that had previously been at odds over local environmental issues. A state-wide event was held January 2008.
- For additional information, contact Cynthia Peurifoy at 404-562-9649.
- Addressing Air Toxic in the Environmental Justice Community of Louisville: EPA Region 4 partnered with the West Jefferson County Community Task Force, the University of Louisville and the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District, in assessing air toxics issues raised by the community living in and around the Rubbertown neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky. There are approximately 70,000 people in Rubbertown, including 58 percent from minority groups, and the area is impacted by many small-area and mobile sources of air pollution.
- Action: Region 4 supported an air toxics monitoring study, screening level risk assessment and the development of Louisville’s Strategic Toxic Air Reduction (STAR) regulations in the Rubbertown community. The Agency also showed the community how to design the monitoring study; provided and installed air monitoring equipment; provided quality assurance support; trained the University of Louisville to analyze the samples; helped establish the University’s laboratory; discussed the monitoring results with the community; provided training for the community on air permitting, enforcement and emergency response capabilities locally; and consulted on appropriate risk assessment approaches. A complete air program compliance assessment was also implemented in the area.
- Results: The development of the STAR regulations was a major accomplishment. The community began to address air toxics issues in the early to mid 1990s, and the STAR regulations were issued in 2005. The regulations are expected to result in reduced emissions from a variety of sources, including small area sources and mobile sources. Assistance efforts in the Rubbertown area resulted in improved public information through compliance with Emergency Preparedness and Community Right-to-Know reporting requirements.
- For additional information, contact Paul Wagner at 404-562-9100.
- Interagency Environmental Justice Working Group (IWG) Collaborative Problem-Solving Demonstration Project - Model: ReGenesis Environmental Justice Partnership- Spartanburg, South Carolina: Employed meaningful, effective, and enduring collaborative efforts and processes to revitalize five hundred-acres of land located in the Arkwright and Forest Park Communities in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
- Action: EPA Region 4 initially responded to community concerns regarding abandoned facilities of concern to the community. In response, two sites are being addressed through the Superfund Program and six properties have been assessed through the Brownfields Program. One site has been addressed utilizing resources from a Brownfields’s Cleanup Grant. In response to the communities desire to revitalize the area, EPA initiated actions that resulted in this area being designated as a Federal Interagency Working Group Demonstration Project. Numerous federal, state and local stakeholders mobilized support and resources in support of revitalization efforts. Early in this effort ReGenesis and project partners conducted community-based planning, facilitated the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services, advocated protection and preservation of the natural environment, and worked collaboratively to address local environmental and public health issues.
- Results: This project has received more than $200 million for redevelopment and revitalization projects and more than $9.1 million for investigation and cleanup which includes: (a) funds to study the initial construction of a roadway to link existing communities and provide emergency access, (b) funds to investigate and assist with remediation of two Superfund sites and six Brownfields sites, (c) dialogue with the Rhodia Facility located in the community, which has resulted in improved conditions for emergency preparedness and better communications between the facility and the community, facility beautification, job opportunities, and odor and noise control, (d) the removal of one hundred and eighty four distressed public housing units, (e) funds to build over five hundred new units for rental and home ownership, (f) funds to create green space and recreational areas which included plans for a world class golf course. In June 2007, The Office of Environmental Justice released a documentary capturing the ReGenesis story, entitled “Environmental Justice: The Power of Partnerships”, which can be shared with other communities working towards revitalization.
- Milestone updates: The establishment of 2 ReGenesis Health Care (RHC) centers, in November 2005 and January 2008, whose goals are to remail dedicated to redusting and eliminating economic, racial, social, gender, age, and other barriers to welness in the communities that are served. RHCs are 2 of 21 federally qualified community health centers in South Carolina and the only centers of its kind in Spartanburg and Cherokee Counties. In addition, a third center will be the headquater location for the State migrants help program starting July 2009.
- For additional information, contact Cynthia Peurifoy at 404-562-9649.