1 00:00:01,280 --> 00:00:04,319 Charles Lee: Good afternoon, my name is Charles Lee 2 00:00:04,319 --> 00:00:07,980 and I am the Senior Policy Advisor for Environmental Justice 3 00:00:08,080 --> 00:00:11,200 at the US Environmental Protection Agency. 4 00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:16,160 We want to welcome you to the fourth session of our Environmental Justice 5 00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:19,688 and Systemic Racism Speaker Series. 6 00:00:19,712 --> 00:00:25,840 Today we will focus on California EPA's Pollution and Prejudice Project, 7 00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:33,040 through a CalEPA's racial equity team, designed a set of tools to help agency staff 8 00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:40,480 and communities explore the connection between racist land use practices of the 1930s 9 00:00:40,480 --> 00:00:45,200 and the persistence of environmental injustice today. 10 00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:48,800 As you will learn, understanding the role of government 11 00:00:48,800 --> 00:00:56,079 in perpetuating institutional and structural racism is essential to their work at CalEPA, 12 00:00:56,079 --> 00:01:00,400 specifically understanding how environmental conditions are shaped 13 00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:05,608 by legacy land use practices helps CalEPA to better focus 14 00:01:05,632 --> 00:01:10,400 and refine their policy development and implementation 15 00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:17,439 to ensure equitable access to clean air, clean water, and clean land for all Californians, 16 00:01:17,439 --> 00:01:21,040 as well as serving as a model for other states. 17 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:28,640 Our two presenters today are Yana Garcia CalEPA's Deputy Secretary 18 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:33,360 for Environmental Justice Tribal Affairs and Border Relationship, 19 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:39,777 and Jaimie Huynh Environmental Scientist with CalRecycle. 20 00:01:39,801 --> 00:01:47,280 Yana was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom in August 2019 21 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:52,767 to serve as the Deputy Secretary at CalEPA. 22 00:01:52,891 --> 00:02:00,399 Prior to her recent appointments, she served for 2 years as CalEPA's Assistant Secretary 23 00:02:00,399 --> 00:02:03,247 for Environmental Justice and Tribal Affairs. 24 00:02:03,271 --> 00:02:09,170 Before joining CalEPA, Yana was an Attorney at Earth Justice and Communities 25 00:02:09,194 --> 00:02:11,038 for a Better Environment. 26 00:02:11,038 --> 00:02:15,760 She holds a Law Degree from Northeastern University School of Law. 27 00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:19,840 Jaimie Huynh is an Environmental Scientist 28 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:23,680 with California's Department of Resources Recycling 29 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:27,599 and Recovery, otherwise known as CalEPA. 30 00:02:27,599 --> 00:02:33,599 She served as the environmental justice enforcement liaison for CalRecycle 31 00:02:33,599 --> 00:02:37,680 on Waste Permitting Compliance and Mitigation Division. 32 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:42,907 Prior to her time at CalRecycle, she was a Sea Grant fellow 33 00:02:43,031 --> 00:02:46,379 at the California State Lands Commission. 34 00:02:46,403 --> 00:02:50,160 Her focus was working on Environmental Justice Policy-- 35 00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:57,920 is to work on Environmentalist Policy and Climate Change Mitigation Measure. 36 00:02:57,920 --> 00:03:02,016 She received her Master's Degree from the Scripps Institution 37 00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:06,879 of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego. 38 00:03:06,879 --> 00:03:12,087 Before we go on, I want to make sure that you know to use your question 39 00:03:12,111 --> 00:03:17,519 and answer pod to submit questions and we will attempt to answer as many as possible, 40 00:03:17,519 --> 00:03:22,480 including those that we post to our speakers doing the question and answer portion 41 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:24,028 of this of this session. 42 00:03:24,152 --> 00:03:30,166 Please, advance the slide. 43 00:03:30,290 --> 00:03:34,640 I want to say a few words to introduce a series for those who don't know, 44 00:03:34,640 --> 00:03:40,559 this series is predicated on the premise that truly achieving environmental justice 45 00:03:40,583 --> 00:03:45,027 will require addressing systemic racism and other structural inequities. 46 00:03:45,051 --> 00:03:51,747 Our objectives are to first provide information to strengthen the evidentiary link 47 00:03:51,771 --> 00:03:55,667 between historical inequities and current environmental conditions 48 00:03:55,691 --> 00:03:59,920 to inspire people everywhere to think about this question, 49 00:03:59,920 --> 00:04:04,159 to align the best thinking available, to create productive partnerships 50 00:04:04,159 --> 00:04:08,080 and lastly, to create the intellectual format necessary 51 00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:12,480 to effectuate truly transformative change. 52 00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:15,285 Please, advance the slide. 53 00:04:15,309 --> 00:04:21,810 As this slide indicates, the first three sessions of this series focus on the development 54 00:04:21,834 --> 00:04:25,506 of information resources on mapping inequality. 55 00:04:25,530 --> 00:04:28,511 The production of research on the relationship 56 00:04:28,635 --> 00:04:31,180 between redlining and the current environmental-- 57 00:04:31,280 --> 00:04:37,680 and current environmental crisis, particularly those related to climate issues, 58 00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:43,680 and how communities are using this information are to organize for policy change, 59 00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:46,968 particularly as seen through the work of youth who are working 60 00:04:46,992 --> 00:04:49,907 to bring about our policy change. 61 00:04:49,931 --> 00:04:53,840 Today's session will focus on the role of government. 62 00:04:53,840 --> 00:04:57,248 As you will learn, redlining was a result of an intentional federal policy 63 00:04:57,272 --> 00:05:03,328 to segregate the housing market bridge based upon racial lines. 64 00:05:03,352 --> 00:05:07,826 Now that we know that current environmental conditions are shaped 65 00:05:07,850 --> 00:05:12,120 by such policies and practices, it is important 66 00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:16,247 that government fully owns this issue and works at identifying 67 00:05:16,271 --> 00:05:19,756 and address these policies regulations and practices 68 00:05:19,780 --> 00:05:26,000 which contribute to institutional and structural racism and environmental injustice. 69 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:30,967 If we do not do so, we will never fully achieve environmental justice. 70 00:05:30,991 --> 00:05:36,240 So with that, I will hand it over to Yana and to Jaimie 71 00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:41,520 to make their presentation, please, advance the slide. 72 00:05:44,639 --> 00:05:48,588 Yana Garcia: Hi, good morning Charles and all, thank you so much for that, 73 00:05:48,612 --> 00:05:52,460 it's a pleasure to be here with you all today. 74 00:05:52,560 --> 00:05:55,088 My name is Yana Garcia, and as Charles mentioned, 75 00:05:55,112 --> 00:05:59,005 I serve as the Deputy Secretary for Environmental Justice Tribal Affairs 76 00:05:59,029 --> 00:06:03,680 and California, Mexico Border Relations at CalEPA. 77 00:06:03,680 --> 00:06:07,747 The focus areas of my work in particular all touch on systemic racism 78 00:06:07,771 --> 00:06:11,501 and ongoing largely race-based disparities 79 00:06:11,525 --> 00:06:15,516 and so really welcome this discussion here, I'm excited about the series 80 00:06:15,540 --> 00:06:18,720 and looking forward to sharing some of our work with you all. 81 00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:21,840 Next slide, please. 82 00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:27,280 So I'll just give before kicking it over to Jaimie to talk a little bit more in depth 83 00:06:27,280 --> 00:06:32,940 about the data we examined, what some of the redlining practice tells us 84 00:06:32,964 --> 00:06:36,720 about ongoing racial disparities in our work today. 85 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:40,880 I just want to give a little bit of background about where this effort came from. 86 00:06:40,880 --> 00:06:47,868 I want to emphasize some of the parallel work areas of work that we've been involved 87 00:06:47,892 --> 00:06:52,880 in at CalEPA to the extent it's helpful for those of you who might be interested 88 00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:59,759 in or already involved in very similar efforts across your agencies or across your work. 89 00:06:59,759 --> 00:07:04,368 So we'll start with a little bit of a story around the community of Stockton, 90 00:07:04,392 --> 00:07:06,880 the city of Stockton and some work that we did there, 91 00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:11,048 some of our foundational work that we've done through the government alliance 92 00:07:11,072 --> 00:07:14,160 for racial equity, but that we've really started to embody 93 00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:18,319 across CalEPA as our racial equity racial justice work. 94 00:07:18,319 --> 00:07:21,759 We'll kick it over to Jaimie to talk a little bit about the project team 95 00:07:21,759 --> 00:07:26,301 that worked on this project in particular and she'll go through the redlining analysis, 96 00:07:26,325 --> 00:07:30,800 and then we'll wrap up with some takeaways and next steps for discussion. 97 00:07:30,800 --> 00:07:33,520 Next slide, please. 98 00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:38,867 So as I mentioned, we want to talk a little bit about the community of Stockton, 99 00:07:38,891 --> 00:07:41,840 and I just want to do this by way of background 100 00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:46,548 and really want to recognize the importance of community input 101 00:07:46,572 --> 00:07:51,680 in terms of our perspective and our willingness and thinking around 102 00:07:51,680 --> 00:07:58,508 the importance of embracing an explicitly racial justice lens 103 00:07:58,532 --> 00:08:03,363 to our work and many of you may be familiar with the tool CalEnviroScreen 104 00:08:03,387 --> 00:08:07,599 which is very similar of course to EJSCREEN at the federal level. 105 00:08:07,599 --> 00:08:12,148 Tools like CalEnviroScreen have done a great service 106 00:08:12,172 --> 00:08:16,879 in terms of looking at cumulative health and pollution burdens 107 00:08:16,879 --> 00:08:19,087 and cumulative impacts overall. 108 00:08:19,111 --> 00:08:21,759 One of the things that we've learned in the development 109 00:08:21,759 --> 00:08:27,525 of CalEnviroScreen is that talking about race is always controversial 110 00:08:27,549 --> 00:08:33,279 and always produces quite a bit of discomfort, 111 00:08:33,279 --> 00:08:35,726 particularly among government agencies, 112 00:08:35,750 --> 00:08:41,800 and when we initiated some focused enforcement work in the city of Stockton, 113 00:08:41,824 --> 00:08:44,225 we had some very interesting conversations 114 00:08:44,249 --> 00:08:48,310 that I have to admit are not new, were not new at the time, 115 00:08:48,334 --> 00:08:53,199 but our work in doing some targeted enforcement work 116 00:08:53,223 --> 00:08:57,040 to alleviate some of the ongoing pollution burdens in Stockton 117 00:08:57,040 --> 00:09:01,519 really brought to a head discussions around systemic racism 118 00:09:01,519 --> 00:09:06,000 as it pertained to police misconduct, police brutality, 119 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:12,000 housing issues, infrastructure access, and siting of hazardous facilities, etc, 120 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:15,760 and the stakeholders that we worked with, really incredible community partners 121 00:09:15,760 --> 00:09:18,640 at organizations like Little Manila Rising, 122 00:09:18,640 --> 00:09:23,032 fathers and families of San Joaquin valley, who we cannot say enough about their work 123 00:09:23,056 --> 00:09:26,640 and how wonderful it is and organizations like restore the delta, 124 00:09:26,640 --> 00:09:30,168 really wanted to take an intersectional approach to how we were talking 125 00:09:30,192 --> 00:09:35,120 about enforcement actions and the various issues that come up 126 00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:40,160 for us as environmental regulators when we're thinking about enforcement and compliance, 127 00:09:40,160 --> 00:09:43,290 and how those are complicated by systemic racism. 128 00:09:43,314 --> 00:09:49,194 So as part of the conversations that we had which traditionally at CalEPA 129 00:09:49,218 --> 00:09:53,040 much of our staff was used to applying a sort of CalEnviroScreen lens 130 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:55,714 looking at cumulative health and pollution burdens, 131 00:09:55,738 --> 00:09:59,980 but not necessarily looking at current race demographic data 132 00:09:59,980 --> 00:10:04,848 or at current comparisons between historically redlined maps 133 00:10:04,872 --> 00:10:08,560 and areas and current pollution burdens, 134 00:10:08,560 --> 00:10:13,200 we really talked about what it might look like if we used a prioritization 135 00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:19,040 that emphasized patterns of historical racism, patterns of institutional 136 00:10:19,040 --> 00:10:20,720 and explicit racism. 137 00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:23,522 And so one of the ideas that came from those conversations 138 00:10:23,546 --> 00:10:27,152 was to really look at redlined maps, in addition to CalEnviroScreen, 139 00:10:27,176 --> 00:10:30,320 in addition to pollution data that we would normally use 140 00:10:30,320 --> 00:10:34,240 to prioritize our enforcement efforts, we started to compare 141 00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:37,920 where the heaviest pollution burdens currently exist, 142 00:10:37,920 --> 00:10:41,680 where we're seeing in compliance issues and enforcement challenges 143 00:10:41,680 --> 00:10:46,640 with historically redlined maps that we had available to us for the city of Stockton. 144 00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:52,488 This marked the first time that we did it and it was fruitful certainly 145 00:10:52,512 --> 00:10:57,180 to use this as a way to prioritize our enforcement work 146 00:10:57,680 --> 00:11:01,920 and our work to effectuate some compliance activities, 147 00:11:01,920 --> 00:11:06,560 and I'll note that it's continued since we did this work in 2018. 148 00:11:06,560 --> 00:11:11,760 Through implementation of AB 617 which here in California 149 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:15,010 is our community Air Pollution Reduction Act 150 00:11:15,034 --> 00:11:20,880 which requires on the ground grassroots community based emission reduction strategies, 151 00:11:20,880 --> 00:11:25,516 across the state, the same community partners 152 00:11:25,540 --> 00:11:30,394 that we've been working with have now been engaged in processes to plan 153 00:11:30,518 --> 00:11:33,560 for air pollution reduction in their community of Stockton, 154 00:11:33,760 --> 00:11:37,290 and have used the redlined map and the conversations 155 00:11:37,314 --> 00:11:39,739 that came out of our enforcement and compliance work 156 00:11:39,839 --> 00:11:41,988 to inform some of those efforts. 157 00:11:42,012 --> 00:11:44,171 We still have a long way to go. 158 00:11:44,195 --> 00:11:49,920 I want to note that these efforts have not been completely successful 159 00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:54,188 by a way of achieving 100% compliance rates or anything to that effect, 160 00:11:54,212 --> 00:11:58,235 we have a lot of work still ahead of us, but it is an interesting way 161 00:11:58,259 --> 00:12:03,360 that is starting to initiate several new conversations 162 00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:08,320 around racism, systemic racism and its continuation 163 00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:13,920 in today's environmental regulatory space across various media. 164 00:12:13,920 --> 00:12:16,639 Next slide, please. 165 00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:21,760 And on a parallel track to the work that we did in Stockton in 2018, 166 00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:28,959 we also participated for the first time in the Government Alliance for Racial Equities 167 00:12:28,959 --> 00:12:30,560 training cohort. 168 00:12:30,584 --> 00:12:36,134 We had an inaugural capital cohort that consisted of state agencies 169 00:12:36,158 --> 00:12:42,108 across all of California and really took over Sacramento 170 00:12:42,232 --> 00:12:46,268 for the year of 2018, several of our colleagues not only at CalEPA, 171 00:12:46,292 --> 00:12:51,668 but other sister agencies participated in some really foundation setting trainings 172 00:12:51,692 --> 00:12:54,146 that were offered through this alliance, 173 00:12:54,170 --> 00:12:57,120 this is a national alliance of government agencies 174 00:12:57,120 --> 00:13:00,154 interested in achieving racial justice as public servants 175 00:13:00,178 --> 00:13:05,200 and as part of our commitment as members who serve the public 176 00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:08,128 and as government agencies acknowledging as Charles mentioned, 177 00:13:08,152 --> 00:13:15,600 the fact that patterns like redlining and so much of the institutional racism we see today, 178 00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:18,169 is a result of intentional government action, 179 00:13:18,193 --> 00:13:22,428 and so really recognizing that as part of that it is also our responsibility 180 00:13:22,452 --> 00:13:25,760 as public servants as those serving in government capacity 181 00:13:25,760 --> 00:13:29,760 to now undo the same systems that are causing disparities today. 182 00:13:29,760 --> 00:13:34,748 Three foundational components of the GARE model, the Government Alliance 183 00:13:34,772 --> 00:13:39,338 for Racial Equities model, are to normalize, operationalize, 184 00:13:39,362 --> 00:13:43,010 and organize around racial justice and racial equity. 185 00:13:43,034 --> 00:13:43,667 [CLEARING THROAT] 186 00:13:43,891 --> 00:13:49,120 As you'll hear from Jaimie, our work on the pollution and prejudice story map, 187 00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:53,224 I think really fits in all three of these components 188 00:13:53,248 --> 00:13:56,480 and all three of these foundational components to our work. 189 00:13:56,480 --> 00:14:04,560 The racial equity work really, really required us to think and talk about race explicitly, 190 00:14:04,560 --> 00:14:11,199 and as I mentioned that was not really in our report previously, 191 00:14:11,199 --> 00:14:15,760 we've done a lot of work to acknowledge cumulative health and pollution burdens 192 00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:20,399 affecting quote disadvantaged communities, affecting low-income communities, 193 00:14:20,399 --> 00:14:24,248 but we often fail to take the step to really acknowledge 194 00:14:24,272 --> 00:14:27,273 that these are communities of color largely if not exclusively 195 00:14:27,297 --> 00:14:31,360 certainly for us in California and I think at the national level. 196 00:14:31,360 --> 00:14:35,680 So it really allowed us to have the ability to think about 197 00:14:35,680 --> 00:14:39,760 what is affecting communities of color in particular, 198 00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:44,036 and how that follows the same or similar patterns to what we see from a cumulative health 199 00:14:44,060 --> 00:14:46,480 and pollution burden standpoint. 200 00:14:46,480 --> 00:14:50,320 In terms of operationalizing our work, our pollution and prejudice map 201 00:14:50,320 --> 00:14:53,600 is now one of our racial equity and racial justice tools, 202 00:14:53,600 --> 00:15:02,015 it allows us to develop and present data in a way that helps us to really visualize 203 00:15:02,039 --> 00:15:06,959 and to identify where areas of concern might be 204 00:15:06,959 --> 00:15:11,199 and what we might want to think about in terms of metrics to track progress over time, 205 00:15:11,199 --> 00:15:16,032 to see how we're either improving racial disparities or hopefully not, 206 00:15:16,056 --> 00:15:19,262 I'm exacerbating them but to the extent that any programs 207 00:15:19,386 --> 00:15:22,487 are we-- those are something-- those are things that need to be addressed. 208 00:15:22,511 --> 00:15:26,835 In terms of organizing the pollution and prejudice tool 209 00:15:26,959 --> 00:15:31,260 and map has really let us organize both internally and externally, 210 00:15:31,384 --> 00:15:35,839 and this is a great example of that organizing that comes from this tool, 211 00:15:35,839 --> 00:15:41,360 really allows us to build partnerships and to build an internal and external infrastructure 212 00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:43,360 and to support our work. 213 00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:46,405 So that's a little bit of background that I wanted to go through. 214 00:15:46,429 --> 00:15:47,436 For the next slide, 215 00:15:47,460 --> 00:15:51,360 I'll kick it over to Jaimie to talk a little bit about the data team 216 00:15:51,360 --> 00:15:54,880 that she works with and to take it from here and go into more depth 217 00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:59,759 on the actual pollution and prejudice tool. 218 00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:04,888 Jaimie Huynh: Thank you so much, Yana. 219 00:16:04,912 --> 00:16:10,476 So hi everyone, I wanted to introduce our CalEPA Racial Equity team here 220 00:16:10,500 --> 00:16:15,839 this is part of the GARE or Government Alliance for Racial Equity 221 00:16:15,839 --> 00:16:20,543 work that we've been doing and we've created a few sub teams 222 00:16:20,567 --> 00:16:23,040 one of which includes the data team, 223 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:29,227 and this data team has been amazing in putting together this pollution and prejudice work 224 00:16:29,251 --> 00:16:31,780 and many others, and here on the right hand side, 225 00:16:31,804 --> 00:16:36,560 you can see all the project team members here, 226 00:16:36,560 --> 00:16:39,839 and next slide, please. 227 00:16:41,839 --> 00:16:48,067 So jumping into the meat of the project is redlining in California. 228 00:16:48,091 --> 00:16:55,040 So redlining practice occurred in the 1930s to determine 229 00:16:55,040 --> 00:16:58,980 which neighborhoods were "safe", 230 00:16:59,004 --> 00:17:04,959 so that the federal government could provide more mortgages to these areas 231 00:17:04,959 --> 00:17:09,885 and in California specifically that included 8 cities: 232 00:17:09,909 --> 00:17:18,480 Fresno, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose and Stockton, 233 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:25,280 and here they'll grade it A for-- A being the best, 234 00:17:25,280 --> 00:17:33,200 B being desirable, C being less desirable and D is the red line areas being hazardous 235 00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:35,901 and we can next slide, please. 236 00:17:35,925 --> 00:17:40,400 So I'll be going over the tools that we used 237 00:17:40,400 --> 00:17:46,268 to make this story map, the interactive maps and the analysis tool. 238 00:17:46,292 --> 00:17:51,679 And I'll also go over-- sorry, excuse me, 239 00:17:51,679 --> 00:17:56,048 the Fair Housing Act language that is included as part of these tools 240 00:17:56,072 --> 00:17:58,680 and the data analysis our team conducted. 241 00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:04,080 First, I do want to acknowledge this project would not have been made possible 242 00:18:04,080 --> 00:18:08,400 without the incredible work conducted by the mapping inequality project. 243 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:14,799 Here is their screenshot of their map, this was a collaboration of scholars at Virginia Tech, 244 00:18:14,799 --> 00:18:19,208 Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland and the University of Richmond 245 00:18:19,232 --> 00:18:21,840 Charles you had mentioned this was the first in the series 246 00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:27,608 so please go to US EPA site and watch their webinar if you haven't already. 247 00:18:27,632 --> 00:18:32,495 So using their existing data sets we were able to translate that 248 00:18:32,519 --> 00:18:39,086 into interactive ArcGIS maps specific to the California cities that I mentioned earlier. 249 00:18:39,110 --> 00:18:41,599 Next slide, please. 250 00:18:42,799 --> 00:18:50,480 Here you can see a map of Sacramento juxtaposed with highways, railroads, and ports. 251 00:18:50,480 --> 00:18:53,137 Next slide, 252 00:18:53,161 --> 00:18:55,245 Here is a map of Oakland. 253 00:18:55,269 --> 00:18:59,250 When you visit the story map you'll actually be able to explore all 8 cities, 254 00:18:59,274 --> 00:19:04,095 all like California cities, so these are just little screenshots. 255 00:19:04,119 --> 00:19:06,160 Next slide, please. 256 00:19:07,679 --> 00:19:11,600 One of the more intriguing pieces of the data sets, 257 00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:18,799 in my opinion are the area descriptions included in the assessments conducted 258 00:19:18,799 --> 00:19:22,160 by the Homeowners Loan Corporation evaluators. 259 00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:29,120 In the top text box, you can see the clarifying remarks that they included in their evaluation, 260 00:19:29,120 --> 00:19:35,520 it reads "There are no deed restrictions and while zoned for small apartments 261 00:19:35,520 --> 00:19:39,520 improvements consist wholly of single family dwellings, 262 00:19:39,520 --> 00:19:43,600 many of which show extreme age and poor maintenance. 263 00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:47,440 There is a concentration of Mexican residents in the area 264 00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:50,148 as well as many Negroes and orientals. 265 00:19:50,172 --> 00:19:55,200 The best that can be hoped for this area is that it will develop into a business 266 00:19:55,200 --> 00:20:01,717 or industrial section, the area is graded low red." 267 00:20:01,741 --> 00:20:07,783 The reports show that race was explicitly considered 268 00:20:07,807 --> 00:20:13,440 as a key factor in these assessments with any significant racial 269 00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:19,108 and ethnic minority population automatically leading to a high risk rating 270 00:20:19,132 --> 00:20:22,856 regardless of the condition of the neighborhood. 271 00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:24,480 Next slide. 272 00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:34,088 This type of explicit racial language was discontinued in the 1947 and 1958 versions 273 00:20:34,112 --> 00:20:39,047 of the fair house-- Fair Housing Act underwriting manual, 274 00:20:39,071 --> 00:20:42,875 but the language just became more implicit, 275 00:20:42,899 --> 00:20:48,748 here you can see the various screenshots taken from the FHA underwriting manual 276 00:20:48,772 --> 00:20:53,280 Protective covenants were used to "provide protection 277 00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:58,388 for adverse environmental influences and when combined with proper zoning 278 00:20:58,412 --> 00:21:03,868 provide maximum legal protection to assure that a developed residential area 279 00:21:03,892 --> 00:21:09,008 will make maintain desirable characteristics." 280 00:21:09,032 --> 00:21:16,799 And in the top screenshot, you'll see them reference quote in harmonious racial groups. 281 00:21:16,799 --> 00:21:22,559 This term was to was used to encompass black indigenous and other people of color 282 00:21:22,559 --> 00:21:27,440 whether-- and it just wasn't explicitly stated. 283 00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:30,526 Next slide, please. 284 00:21:30,550 --> 00:21:38,000 Another tool that was used for our mapping interactive maps and analysis tool 285 00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:42,320 was CalEnviroScreen which Yana had gone over earlier, 286 00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:47,919 so just a quick run through-- they in CalEnviroScreen includes 287 00:21:47,919 --> 00:21:51,360 pollution burdens and population characteristics 288 00:21:51,360 --> 00:21:56,508 and all of this data is placed at a census tract level 289 00:21:56,532 --> 00:22:01,440 and compared relative to other census tracts within California. 290 00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:07,120 And here you can see red would indicate higher pollution whereas green is less pollution, 291 00:22:07,120 --> 00:22:11,020 less pollution burdens, next slide. 292 00:22:11,044 --> 00:22:16,320 So all of this information that I just mentioned 293 00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:21,760 are included in this interactive map that you can find on our webpage. 294 00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:28,799 CalEnviroScreen scores have been aggregated to fit into these HOLC redlining maps, 295 00:22:28,799 --> 00:22:33,605 there are also individual CalEnviroScreen indicators included here, 296 00:22:33,629 --> 00:22:36,480 I mean you can toggle them on and off. 297 00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:39,468 These include levels of asthma, hazardous waste, 298 00:22:39,492 --> 00:22:44,739 hazardous waste facilities, pesticide use and much more. 299 00:22:44,763 --> 00:22:47,679 When you click on the redlined areas, 300 00:22:47,679 --> 00:22:52,000 you can read the clarifying remarks that I had mentioned earlier, 301 00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:55,600 some even have links in the More Info button 302 00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:59,600 to see the screenshot of the original form. 303 00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:03,679 I would also encourage you all when you do explore this map 304 00:23:03,679 --> 00:23:09,007 to take note where the highways and railroads and ports intersect in these redlined areas. 305 00:23:09,031 --> 00:23:13,128 This connects back to using various forms of barriers 306 00:23:13,152 --> 00:23:20,597 to keep black indigenous and people of color in more burdened areas. 307 00:23:20,621 --> 00:23:23,840 Next slide, please. 308 00:23:25,120 --> 00:23:31,840 So now we move on to the data analysis, that is included in the story map, 309 00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:38,447 here on this graph redlined neighborhoods are color coded by their HOLC grade 310 00:23:38,471 --> 00:23:43,020 and plotted according to their CalEnviroScreen scores. 311 00:23:43,120 --> 00:23:47,039 The black line here indicates the city average, 312 00:23:47,039 --> 00:23:52,799 you can see the red and yellow or I think you see orange on your screen, 313 00:23:52,799 --> 00:23:57,730 areas generally have a higher CalEnviroScreen score than the city average 314 00:23:57,754 --> 00:24:02,121 which means these neighborhoods experience more pollution burden 315 00:24:02,145 --> 00:24:05,600 compare that to the green and blue areas 316 00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:11,440 which are generally below the city average pollution burden score. 317 00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:14,028 Next slide, please. 318 00:24:14,052 --> 00:24:21,849 Another piece of analysis I wanted to highlight is the present-day demographics. 319 00:24:21,873 --> 00:24:26,960 We thought this was important to show the present-day demographics of people 320 00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:32,480 living within these redlined areas that were determined back in the 1930s. 321 00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:37,360 You can see here on the bottom is the percent of population 322 00:24:37,360 --> 00:24:40,880 and on the y-axis is the race and ethnic group. 323 00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:48,799 And you can see here that Hispanic Native American and African American groups 324 00:24:48,799 --> 00:24:53,373 are more over represented in the C and D areas, 325 00:24:53,397 --> 00:24:58,640 while white groups are more overrepresented in the A and B. 326 00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:03,440 It is still true to this day that race is a determining factor 327 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:05,615 in environmental burden. 328 00:25:05,639 --> 00:25:09,839 Next slide, please. 329 00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:16,799 Another tool that you'll find as part of this project is the CalEPA Redlining Analysis Tool. 330 00:25:16,799 --> 00:25:22,400 Here, you can zoom to a redlined city of your choice in California 331 00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:29,200 and explore the various enforcement data available from CalEPA Regulated Site Portal, 332 00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:33,520 this includes inspections, violations and enforcement action 333 00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:39,051 data for our water, hazardous waste and other environmental programs. 334 00:25:39,075 --> 00:25:42,480 When you choose the type of data you want to see, 335 00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:48,480 you can click on the facilities to see their current compliance status, 336 00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:52,880 and I think this is an incredibly important tool to utilize, 337 00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:57,679 because you can see where our environmental enforcement has been putting our resources 338 00:25:57,679 --> 00:26:02,799 and where we have had either the most or the least impacted. 339 00:26:02,799 --> 00:26:13,640 Next slide, please, thank you. 340 00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:15,562 Yana Garcia: Thanks for that, Jaimie. 341 00:26:15,586 --> 00:26:21,440 So I'll just jump in here with a little bit more about 342 00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:26,887 our takeaways from this really incredible work that Jaimie and the data team have done 343 00:26:26,911 --> 00:26:33,840 for CalEPA as I mentioned with respect to the three sort of foundational components 344 00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,679 about of our approach to racial equity which was very much informed 345 00:26:37,679 --> 00:26:41,120 by our work with the Government Alliance for Racial Equity 346 00:26:41,120 --> 00:26:44,640 starting in 2018 and extending into 2019, 347 00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:49,968 and it's really critical for us to be able to hone in on identify 348 00:26:49,992 --> 00:26:53,679 and name systemic racism when we see it 349 00:26:53,679 --> 00:26:56,998 and combining the HOLC maps as Jaimie just described 350 00:26:57,022 --> 00:27:01,600 with CalEnviroScreen scores allowed us to do just that. 351 00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:06,320 I think for many of our environmental regulatory staff 352 00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:16,349 and partners and sometimes the narratives that exist in-- broadly within our society 353 00:27:16,373 --> 00:27:20,980 and within our media around how racism manifests 354 00:27:20,980 --> 00:27:23,880 itself, how institutional and structural racism manifests itself 355 00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:29,200 tends to focus a lot unfortunately these days understandably so 356 00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:34,960 on police conduct, on policing of communities of color 357 00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:38,960 certainly on health disparities to a large extent, 358 00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:42,197 and some to some degree economic disparities, 359 00:27:42,221 --> 00:27:48,640 but we don't often directly associate systemic racism with environmental factors. 360 00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:54,000 And so it was really important for us to be able to identify some of the language 361 00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,919 in the manifest and through the HOLC maps 362 00:27:57,919 --> 00:28:03,033 with environmental indicators that really resonate 363 00:28:03,057 --> 00:28:09,440 with so many of our staff at the state level, at the regional level and at the local level. 364 00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:14,159 Using a racial equity lens, really requires us to dig into the data, 365 00:28:14,159 --> 00:28:19,360 we talked a lot about this at the national and state level with respect to 366 00:28:19,360 --> 00:28:23,679 and the Coronavirus pandemic throughout the year of 2020 and increasingly 367 00:28:23,679 --> 00:28:29,347 or continued this year in 2021, the importance of collecting data around 368 00:28:29,471 --> 00:28:31,660 racial disparities is critical. 369 00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:38,320 We can't address problems that exist without actually identifying or tracking them 370 00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:44,640 over time, so being able to enhance the type of data that we collect 371 00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:48,468 being able to show what race demographic data, what institutional racism 372 00:28:48,492 --> 00:28:52,480 and systemic racism looked like over time, 373 00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:57,679 is really important to us and to be able to address it moving forward. 374 00:28:57,679 --> 00:29:01,481 And again, this gives us an opportunity for further collaboration 375 00:29:01,505 --> 00:29:07,405 with like-minded partners, with people who are interested in doing the same or similar work 376 00:29:07,429 --> 00:29:14,000 across their agencies and it includes partnerships again with community-based organizations. 377 00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:20,399 I think for many of us in government, it may be new to explicitly talk about race, 378 00:29:20,399 --> 00:29:23,520 many of our states including us in California 379 00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:27,488 and we know states like Michigan and several others have limits 380 00:29:27,512 --> 00:29:32,481 to what we can do in terms of and certainly the federal government does as well, 381 00:29:32,505 --> 00:29:37,809 in terms of using race as an explicit factor to allocate funds in some instances 382 00:29:37,833 --> 00:29:43,919 to allocate benefits in some instances, and so it's an area where we need, 383 00:29:43,919 --> 00:29:49,348 we need partnership, we need to exchange lessons learned from our approaches 384 00:29:49,372 --> 00:29:53,760 in terms of how we think about and look at race throughout our programmatic work 385 00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:57,840 throughout the prioritization of our resources, 386 00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:01,039 and how we're monitoring and tracking progress. 387 00:30:01,039 --> 00:30:05,448 I do want to note that there will be a California webinar coming up, 388 00:30:05,472 --> 00:30:08,458 Jaimie I'm not sure if you have details on this, 389 00:30:08,482 --> 00:30:12,703 but we'd like to continue to show this tool in particular 390 00:30:12,727 --> 00:30:18,000 and think about ways that we can be developing additional tools. 391 00:30:20,559 --> 00:30:25,200 Charles Lee: Thank you for that, and I think we want to move to the next slide, 392 00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:28,799 Matt for the moderated discussion. 393 00:30:28,799 --> 00:30:32,808 And you can find the contact information here, 394 00:30:32,832 --> 00:30:37,360 but so let me just start thanks for that great presentation, 395 00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:42,000 and let me just start by kind of stepping back a little bit. 396 00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:47,600 I'll just-- this project throughout the CalEPA's commitment to racial equity 397 00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:53,760 into CalEPA's relationship with the government lines on race and equity, 398 00:30:53,760 --> 00:31:00,914 so within that context, why was it that you chose to focus on the redlining issue 399 00:31:00,938 --> 00:31:03,997 and what was so powerful about that issue 400 00:31:04,021 --> 00:31:10,159 that helped to advance the conversation on racial equity? 401 00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:15,679 Yana Garcia: You know, I want to just go back to thanks for that question, Charles, 402 00:31:15,679 --> 00:31:19,519 I want to go back to the partners that we worked with in Stockton 403 00:31:19,519 --> 00:31:25,240 and how incredibly important their perspective really was 404 00:31:25,264 --> 00:31:29,919 and give credit to organizations like Little Manila Rising 405 00:31:29,919 --> 00:31:35,200 that frankly have already done their redlining comparison maps, 406 00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:41,679 and we're really interested in understanding what the history 407 00:31:41,679 --> 00:31:45,988 of the development of a city like Stockton can tell us about 408 00:31:46,012 --> 00:31:50,747 why environmental burdens continue to persist in the communities that they do, 409 00:31:50,771 --> 00:31:58,261 and why we see time and time again across most cities in the United States 410 00:31:58,285 --> 00:32:04,559 the same demographics of people being impacted by heavy pollution burdens 411 00:32:04,559 --> 00:32:07,108 from various industrial sectors. 412 00:32:07,132 --> 00:32:17,168 So the redlining comparison almost came more from information that we gathered 413 00:32:17,192 --> 00:32:22,799 from external partners, including our community-based partners in the city of Stockton 414 00:32:22,799 --> 00:32:27,382 and a lot of the energy that was building up at the time, 415 00:32:27,406 --> 00:32:31,039 I think through our work through the Government Alliance for Racial Equity, 416 00:32:31,039 --> 00:32:36,988 but also work that you've done Charles, over the past several decades 417 00:32:37,012 --> 00:32:45,467 to really talk about the persistence of race as the single most determining factor 418 00:32:45,491 --> 00:32:50,080 of your exposure to things like toxics, to air pollution 419 00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:52,983 to contaminated drinking water, etc. 420 00:32:53,007 --> 00:32:59,047 So it became really important to us to understand the history of why that is, 421 00:32:59,071 --> 00:33:06,080 and to begin a discussion around what it is that we're engaged in on a day-to-day basis 422 00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:15,319 that could influence the future of these types of issues that affect communities 423 00:33:15,419 --> 00:33:16,620 of color in particular. 424 00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:21,988 So I want to be clear that it was not entirely our idea, 425 00:33:22,012 --> 00:33:25,840 it was certainly an idea that came from partnerships 426 00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:30,067 that have been really fruitful for us and that have really given a lens 427 00:33:30,091 --> 00:33:36,799 and shine a light on these issues that have gone ignored for too long. 428 00:33:36,799 --> 00:33:39,051 Charles Lee: Great, thank you. 429 00:33:39,075 --> 00:33:45,352 Let me just start to focus on some specific aspects of the project 430 00:33:45,676 --> 00:33:52,000 and one of the things that really stood out to me was your ability 431 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:56,899 to show the quantitative relationship between redlined areas 432 00:33:56,923 --> 00:34:01,679 and current environmental conditions using CalEnviroScreen. 433 00:34:01,679 --> 00:34:10,480 So, why was it important to you to demonstrate this quantitative relationship? 434 00:34:13,679 --> 00:34:17,918 Yana Garcia: Yeah, so I think one of the things that's been 435 00:34:17,918 --> 00:34:26,480 really important for us generally in terms of enhancing 436 00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:31,364 just transparency as a general matter across government 437 00:34:31,388 --> 00:34:37,833 and certainly across CalEPA in our work with local and regional partners 438 00:34:37,857 --> 00:34:46,159 is to really think about how it is that we measure and show progress 439 00:34:46,159 --> 00:34:53,679 and build a direct relationship between what our work is generating 440 00:34:53,679 --> 00:34:58,079 and environmental benefits and this is something that is really important 441 00:34:58,079 --> 00:35:01,040 to many of our environmental justice stakeholders 442 00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:04,560 as well as to many of our stakeholders at large, 443 00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:12,880 is just how do our inspections, how does our work in the regulatory sphere 444 00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:17,788 really produce outcomes that are of benefit. 445 00:35:17,812 --> 00:35:26,000 And while CalEnviroScreen is not necessarily a tool that was designed 446 00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:28,488 to measure progress over time, 447 00:35:28,512 --> 00:35:35,199 a lot of the relative scoring in terms of indicating where disparities exist 448 00:35:35,599 --> 00:35:39,548 tell us a lot about how we can be focusing our efforts differently 449 00:35:39,672 --> 00:35:41,520 and whether we're even moving the needle 450 00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:47,627 in terms of closing the gap between those who are disproportionately exposed 451 00:35:47,651 --> 00:35:50,100 to heavier pollution burdens and those who are not. 452 00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:56,428 So the quantitative relationship was important to us to really tie into 453 00:35:56,452 --> 00:35:59,761 the sort of bread and butter measurements 454 00:35:59,785 --> 00:36:05,354 that we should be thinking about as environmental regulators both 455 00:36:05,378 --> 00:36:09,556 from a resource prioritization standpoint, 456 00:36:09,580 --> 00:36:14,497 but also from understanding what that prioritization could yield over time 457 00:36:14,521 --> 00:36:21,628 and really thinking about how we could be approaching uses of CalEnviroScreen 458 00:36:21,652 --> 00:36:27,599 in a way that lets us hone in on some of these scores that we've seen 459 00:36:27,599 --> 00:36:32,000 through the redlining practice. 460 00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:36,427 Charles Lee: Thanks, so the there's another aspect to this 461 00:36:36,451 --> 00:36:42,341 and you started to mention this around the initiatives to conduct education 462 00:36:42,365 --> 00:36:46,339 around the content of this project, 463 00:36:46,363 --> 00:36:51,760 and so one of those being the workshop coming up in August, 464 00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:57,988 can you describe these and other efforts? 465 00:36:58,012 --> 00:37:03,236 Jaimie Huynh: I can jump in here to describe the August webinar 466 00:37:03,260 --> 00:37:05,599 that you're referencing Charles. 467 00:37:05,599 --> 00:37:11,440 So this is our California specific Webinar called Pollution and Prejudice 468 00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:14,794 Moving from Redlining to Revitalization, 469 00:37:14,818 --> 00:37:22,720 and this is scheduled for August 19th from 10 AM to 12 PM Pacific Time, 470 00:37:22,720 --> 00:37:29,680 and this is hosted by CalEPA, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and US EPA, 471 00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:33,808 here we're again exploring the pollution and prejudice project 472 00:37:33,832 --> 00:37:35,892 a little bit more doing a deeper dive 473 00:37:36,016 --> 00:37:41,368 and working with our environmental justice communities all throughout the state 474 00:37:41,392 --> 00:37:47,515 to hear their stories, to understand the historic injustices 475 00:37:47,539 --> 00:37:52,640 that have contributed to environmental burdens, 476 00:37:52,720 --> 00:37:57,867 and not only gathering these stories, 477 00:37:57,891 --> 00:38:02,800 but also exploring what changes need to be done 478 00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:11,198 to ensure that they do have healthy and safe communities to live in, 479 00:38:11,222 --> 00:38:18,160 and I think we'll also have I think Mustafa Ali as part of-- as one of our main speakers 480 00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:24,400 and I think Yana and Veronica Edie will also be a part of these panels. 481 00:38:25,359 --> 00:38:26,825 Charles Lee: Thanks. 482 00:38:26,849 --> 00:38:35,570 So one thing to really highlight is the descriptions of the part of the project 483 00:38:35,593 --> 00:38:40,440 that talks about the implicitly racist language 484 00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:47,920 that now kind of persists in many documents, 485 00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:54,100 from the point of view of moving towards addressing environmental injustice 486 00:38:54,124 --> 00:39:01,839 or achieving environmental justice, why do you think that is important? 487 00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:07,600 Yana Garcia: I can take a stab at this and please feel free to add Jaimie. 488 00:39:07,700 --> 00:39:17,280 So I think part of the reason-- this goes back to the overarching question of why 489 00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:21,108 digging into this history is so important, 490 00:39:21,132 --> 00:39:30,688 part of the challenge that we often face as government staff 491 00:39:30,712 --> 00:39:34,079 as government agencies, regulatory agencies 492 00:39:34,079 --> 00:39:41,748 is that our standards ostensibly should be objective, 493 00:39:41,772 --> 00:39:47,839 and we shouldn't be-- they should be equal and objective, I guess, 494 00:39:47,839 --> 00:39:54,880 and so one of the reasons it's been so challenging 495 00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:59,608 for many environmental justice advocates for communities of color 496 00:39:59,632 --> 00:40:07,280 to be able to really push our government entities to make progress 497 00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:12,914 in terms of closing the gap and addressing disparities is 498 00:40:12,938 --> 00:40:19,839 because we live in this sort of world where we are not really acknowledging 499 00:40:19,839 --> 00:40:26,560 this transition from the explicit type of systemic racism that existed 500 00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:32,579 into this more implicit objective type of systemic racism 501 00:40:32,603 --> 00:40:34,540 that we're left with today. 502 00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:41,680 So I think the language and tracking the language overall in general 503 00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:47,792 has been really informative for us just to understand the history. 504 00:40:47,816 --> 00:40:54,215 There are so many people who don't know this history at all, 505 00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:57,420 whether the explicit or implicit language who frankly 506 00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:00,560 may be learning about redlining for the first time, 507 00:41:00,560 --> 00:41:05,967 and those folks could really use that tracking of the language over time 508 00:41:05,991 --> 00:41:11,760 to understand the direct relationship between our zoning requirements, 509 00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:16,119 our approach to land use, etc. 510 00:41:16,119 --> 00:41:20,368 Jaimie did you have anything to add ? 511 00:41:20,392 --> 00:41:26,079 Jaimie Huynh: No, I think you've covered it all, thanks. 512 00:41:26,079 --> 00:41:29,548 Charles Lee: So just for just to close out on this discussion, 513 00:41:29,572 --> 00:41:36,165 it's just a general question around the relationship between this project, 514 00:41:36,189 --> 00:41:42,985 this type of information in CalEPA pursuit to achieve environmental justice 515 00:41:43,009 --> 00:41:48,400 there are multiple-- there's a multitude of EJ mandates in California, 516 00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:57,015 including land use and planning and the CalEPA Environmental Enforcement Task Force 517 00:41:57,039 --> 00:42:09,888 and many other things, so just talk generally about this relationship. 518 00:42:10,012 --> 00:42:16,330 Yana Garcia: Sure, so I think the relationship-- probably the most common one 519 00:42:16,454 --> 00:42:20,984 throughout several of our environmental justice initiatives, 520 00:42:21,008 --> 00:42:25,119 both at the statewide level but also at the local and regional level 521 00:42:25,119 --> 00:42:32,560 as we implement laws like SB 1000 which for those who may be unfamiliar which are probably many 522 00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:36,428 we always have these bill numbers that we refer to things by, 523 00:42:36,452 --> 00:42:42,800 but I mean quite meaningless for most people requires an environmental justice element 524 00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:47,588 in all general plans, so really requires land use decision makers 525 00:42:47,712 --> 00:42:52,400 to develop an environmental justice element as they're updating 526 00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:58,880 their climate action plans or two or more elements in their general plans overall. 527 00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:06,480 It's really given a sort of foundation to how we may want to approach these 528 00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:09,459 environmental justice analyses. 529 00:43:09,483 --> 00:43:14,480 It allows us to be, I think, a bit more intersectional 530 00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:21,386 in how we think about the various factors that influence just the disparities 531 00:43:21,410 --> 00:43:27,040 that we see today and from a land use and planning standpoint in particular 532 00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:34,228 as well as from a kind of geospatial prioritization standpoint, 533 00:43:34,252 --> 00:43:40,114 it frankly allows you to hone in on areas much like a tool like CalEnviroScreen 534 00:43:40,138 --> 00:43:44,960 where we're looking at the top scoring census tracts for example, 535 00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:51,599 we can look at these zones that in many instances really have not changed 536 00:43:51,599 --> 00:44:00,538 and so it gives us the ability to understand where we want to prioritize our efforts 537 00:44:00,562 --> 00:44:05,345 where we want to think about imagining something different, 538 00:44:05,369 --> 00:44:11,280 where we want to engage with community members with community-based organizations 539 00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:14,198 to just imagine a different future. 540 00:44:14,222 --> 00:44:16,968 There are remediation resources 541 00:44:16,992 --> 00:44:23,292 that we need to target in these areas, there are greening resources 542 00:44:23,316 --> 00:44:27,237 that for us in California at least are increasingly important 543 00:44:27,361 --> 00:44:31,180 to guard against of course heat impacts 544 00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:38,480 but also as air pollution buffers and for carbon capture, etc, 545 00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:44,640 and a multitude of other things that we may want to be thinking about in terms of investments 546 00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:49,814 in these communities so it offers us a new lens I'd say, in terms of looking at 547 00:44:49,838 --> 00:44:53,758 and thinking about our environmental justice efforts 548 00:44:53,782 --> 00:44:57,420 across state, regional and local planning. 549 00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:07,520 Charles Lee: So I think Sabrina you're up now with the questions and from the audience. 550 00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:13,200 Sabrina Johnson: Okay, good afternoon, yes, thank you very much, 551 00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:16,160 and we have a lot of great questions. 552 00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:24,240 I'll start with one and I'll toss this to Yana, if she'd like, 553 00:45:24,240 --> 00:45:25,988 and this is from anonymous. 554 00:45:26,012 --> 00:45:32,480 Are there any other baseline data options that capture historic and systemic racism 555 00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:36,400 for areas where there is no redlining data? 556 00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:42,275 Yana Garcia: I'm so glad for this question because I meant to mention at some point 557 00:45:42,299 --> 00:45:49,547 that of course we have so many communities for which this type of data doesn't exist clearly. 558 00:45:49,571 --> 00:45:56,683 So I'll answer this by way of maybe some examples of communities 559 00:45:56,707 --> 00:46:02,600 where we don't have necessarily these redlined maps 560 00:46:02,700 --> 00:46:08,283 or the historical documentation of an explicit redlining practice, 561 00:46:08,307 --> 00:46:16,748 but we have documented history around land use generally 562 00:46:16,772 --> 00:46:21,119 that may not have fallen into the redlining practice per se, 563 00:46:21,119 --> 00:46:26,000 but that shows us the type of discrimination 564 00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:29,357 that is very similar to redlining. 565 00:46:29,381 --> 00:46:34,168 So an example is Colonias that exist in Texas, 566 00:46:34,192 --> 00:46:39,680 they exist in the places in the southwest as in California areas 567 00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:43,148 that are unincorporated today. 568 00:46:43,172 --> 00:46:46,640 Some examples communities like 569 00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:49,680 like Matheny Tract in the San Joaquin valley, 570 00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:55,668 we have a number of rural agricultural communities 571 00:46:55,692 --> 00:46:57,879 where redlining wasn't necessarily applied, 572 00:46:58,079 --> 00:47:02,240 this precise redlining practice wasn't necessarily applied. 573 00:47:02,240 --> 00:47:10,560 But restrictive covenants did exist and those can be documented 574 00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:19,427 and can be traced if not by explicit government documents certainly by oral histories, 575 00:47:19,451 --> 00:47:22,640 but often even by explicit government documents 576 00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:26,720 where people of color were not allowed, 577 00:47:26,720 --> 00:47:32,348 particularly black and indigenous people were not allowed to live 578 00:47:32,372 --> 00:47:38,880 in the incorporated area of a city like the city of Fresno for example, 579 00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:44,559 but were pushed out to the outskirts and lived in these independent 580 00:47:44,559 --> 00:47:48,268 unincorporated communities that still exist to this day 581 00:47:48,292 --> 00:47:51,359 that lack drinking water connectivity, 582 00:47:51,359 --> 00:47:56,400 that lack access to sanitation, that may have substandard housing options, 583 00:47:56,400 --> 00:48:00,720 and that are often areas where communities of color still live, 584 00:48:00,720 --> 00:48:09,468 and so we may not have the same explicit pattern as we see in the redlining practice per se, 585 00:48:09,492 --> 00:48:12,800 but we have a very similar land use pattern 586 00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:16,720 in terms of restrictive covenants and where folks were allowed to live or not, 587 00:48:16,720 --> 00:48:21,359 and where connectivity to essential infrastructure was provided 588 00:48:21,359 --> 00:48:25,839 and whereas government agencies, it's now our responsibility 589 00:48:25,839 --> 00:48:28,588 to address the lack of infrastructure connectivity 590 00:48:28,612 --> 00:48:31,200 that exists for these communities which remain 591 00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:35,599 largely if not exclusively communities of color. 592 00:48:35,599 --> 00:48:39,520 Sabrina Johnson: Okay, thanks, this next comment and question is from a name 593 00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:47,359 we may be familiar with Jill Harrison, and if you'd like to respond, Jaimie. 594 00:48:47,359 --> 00:48:51,520 Thanks so much for this important work and presentation, 595 00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:56,720 can you note some concrete ways this work has shaped enforcement 596 00:48:56,720 --> 00:49:04,160 permitting rule making or other regulatory work in California or how it might do so? 597 00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:13,119 Jaimie Huynh: Thanks for the question, Sabrina and Jill, 598 00:49:13,119 --> 00:49:19,508 Maybe I can speak on the enforcement side and Yana you can add on any other pieces. 599 00:49:19,532 --> 00:49:27,359 So Yana had mentioned earlier an example of when we did work in Stockton, 600 00:49:27,359 --> 00:49:29,988 where we worked with them on environmental enforcement 601 00:49:30,012 --> 00:49:34,720 and all the also other systemic racism projects, 602 00:49:34,720 --> 00:49:44,043 and I think this is where a lot of education was brought to our enforcement staff, 603 00:49:44,067 --> 00:49:48,592 a lot of our enforcement staff had never heard of redlining 604 00:49:48,616 --> 00:49:54,720 and I think this type of education is incredibly important, 605 00:49:54,720 --> 00:50:03,547 because land use practices matter and they impact environmental pollution burdens 606 00:50:03,571 --> 00:50:07,637 and their environmental burdens are not in its own little silo 607 00:50:07,661 --> 00:50:10,160 it's affected by many other factors, 608 00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:15,059 and kind of presenting that out in the open was educational 609 00:50:15,083 --> 00:50:17,820 and impactful to our enforcement staff. 610 00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:24,559 Yana, did you want to add anything else about any other permitting or--? 611 00:50:24,559 --> 00:50:29,467 Yana Garcia: Yeah I mean, and hi Jill, good to hear from you- 612 00:50:29,491 --> 00:50:37,040 I'd say that right now I don't think we have 613 00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:46,000 applied it explicitly yet on the permitting side, 614 00:50:46,720 --> 00:50:52,839 I hope that similar to-- when we first developed CalEnviroScreen, 615 00:50:52,839 --> 00:51:00,640 and the cumulative impacts, framework that really underlies that tool 616 00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:03,148 we could not have anticipated, 617 00:51:03,172 --> 00:51:08,787 I think the many ways in which both the legislature 618 00:51:08,811 --> 00:51:18,720 and just us on the administration side would be able to apply the tool in so many contexts. 619 00:51:18,720 --> 00:51:24,494 The redlining-- I think scope of analysis 620 00:51:24,518 --> 00:51:30,480 that we've kind of honed in on through the pollution and prejudice project, 621 00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:34,800 and Jaimie and the team's work is relatively new still, 622 00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:43,359 so we just-- it kind of just got off this past year really was under development in 2019. 623 00:51:43,359 --> 00:51:48,868 And so I think we just haven't seen yet all that it can inform 624 00:51:48,892 --> 00:51:54,691 beyond really being a catalyst for some of the foundation setting conversations 625 00:51:54,815 --> 00:51:59,019 that we hope will lead to an additional-- 626 00:51:59,119 --> 00:52:05,119 ideally an additional layering of how we prioritize things of how we acknowledge 627 00:52:05,119 --> 00:52:13,988 the need for serious work to repair some of the institutional burdens 628 00:52:14,012 --> 00:52:16,720 and systemic burdens that we see continuing. 629 00:52:16,720 --> 00:52:20,079 So we hope that there will be more down the pike, 630 00:52:20,079 --> 00:52:25,359 we haven't seen that mature manifest yet I'd say. 631 00:52:25,599 --> 00:52:28,800 Sabrina Johnson: All right, thanks, and the next question is from 632 00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:33,995 and please forgive me if I mispronounced your name is it Ate Pentaya. 633 00:52:34,019 --> 00:52:46,960 Are you aware if other states are doing the same thing since the data is out there? 634 00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:49,408 Yana Garcia: I am not but I'd kick it to my colleagues 635 00:52:49,432 --> 00:52:55,270 to Jaimie for sure and maybe even you Charles if you're aware of other states 636 00:52:55,294 --> 00:53:00,888 there have been certainly there-- these maps exist for the country, right? 637 00:53:00,912 --> 00:53:07,920 So there are certainly other efforts underway no doubt. 638 00:53:09,119 --> 00:53:11,803 Charles Lee: I can-- Jaimie go ahead, please. 639 00:53:11,827 --> 00:53:17,440 Jaimie Huynh: Actually I'm not aware of any other efforts, so Charles, please. 640 00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:19,959 Charles Lee: Yeah, I mean I think one of the things 641 00:53:19,959 --> 00:53:25,007 and no state has not gotten to dig in as deeply as California, 642 00:53:25,231 --> 00:53:30,240 but we engage states across the country and one of the keys 643 00:53:30,240 --> 00:53:35,271 and we talk to them about this work and figure out 644 00:53:35,295 --> 00:53:38,436 how they can be incorporated in their training around environmental justice 645 00:53:38,460 --> 00:53:42,240 and one of the first things that they all ask is 646 00:53:42,240 --> 00:53:47,368 how can we obtain these maps and these overlays for their own states. 647 00:53:47,392 --> 00:53:56,559 So there's a huge amount of interest in this issue and I think a deep resonance. 648 00:53:56,559 --> 00:54:00,480 Sabrina Johnson: Yeah, and our next question comes from an anonymous viewer, 649 00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:07,427 who asks: How can community and citizen science utilize this option in storytelling 650 00:54:07,551 --> 00:54:11,939 to ground truth data for policy change? 651 00:54:12,079 --> 00:54:13,867 Maybe Yana... 652 00:54:13,891 --> 00:54:21,599 Yana Garcia: Sure, well, as I mentioned I think first and foremost really important 653 00:54:21,599 --> 00:54:28,800 to recognize that in so many ways communities have already done so 654 00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:34,428 and really want to recognize that at least for us at CalEPA community-based organizations 655 00:54:34,452 --> 00:54:39,405 and community partners were the impetus behind doing this 656 00:54:39,529 --> 00:54:45,147 in the first place, and it happened to coincide with some parallel efforts that we had going, 657 00:54:45,171 --> 00:54:50,700 but certainly is something that I think several of our community partners 658 00:54:50,724 --> 00:54:56,629 and I think of folks even like Ms. Margaret Gordon in west Oakland 659 00:54:56,653 --> 00:54:59,200 from the west Oakland environmental indicators project 660 00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:03,200 who consistently brings up redlining 661 00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:10,240 as a key focal point in considering any conversations around land use 662 00:55:10,240 --> 00:55:13,599 mitigation and prioritization. 663 00:55:13,599 --> 00:55:21,947 I think that the narrative value and the storytelling value is immense, 664 00:55:21,971 --> 00:55:28,712 particularly at a time like now where I do think that there's a sort of window 665 00:55:28,736 --> 00:55:35,119 of opportunity if you will to talk about some of these issues more explicitly. 666 00:55:35,119 --> 00:55:39,680 I say that with the understanding that so many, 667 00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:45,748 so many of us have been talking about these issues for forever it seems, 668 00:55:45,772 --> 00:55:49,040 for several decades, but I do think that 669 00:55:49,040 --> 00:55:54,008 there is an openness to acknowledging some of this history at least 670 00:55:54,132 --> 00:55:56,126 a from a government standpoint. 671 00:55:56,150 --> 00:55:58,079 I hope that continues, 672 00:55:58,079 --> 00:56:04,400 I hope we continue to see that grow that community-based organizations, 673 00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:10,079 resident groups, community members have long used the history of redlining 674 00:56:10,079 --> 00:56:14,928 to point out the types why these disparities continue to persist 675 00:56:14,952 --> 00:56:21,688 and to really hold government agencies to account for some of the explicit 676 00:56:21,712 --> 00:56:28,488 and then increasingly implicit standards that led to the institutional racism 677 00:56:28,512 --> 00:56:31,227 we see on the ground today on a day-to-day basis. 678 00:56:31,251 --> 00:56:37,268 So I guess I would encourage our community partners to continue to use this information 679 00:56:37,292 --> 00:56:43,828 and to continue to push us to apply it to advocate, continue to advocate 680 00:56:43,852 --> 00:56:49,760 for an explicitly racial justice frame and racial equity frame 681 00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:53,200 that includes examining things like historical, 682 00:56:53,200 --> 00:57:00,506 redline patterns and patterns that led to the intentional exclusion of people of color 683 00:57:00,530 --> 00:57:08,079 from benefits including infrastructure benefits and other environmental regulatory benefits. 684 00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:12,880 Sabrina Johnson: Okay, I think we're probably out of time for this segment, 685 00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:16,880 Charles, let me know if we have time for one more. 686 00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:24,079 Charles Lee: I think we're close to it, so why don't we, why don't we close out, 687 00:57:24,079 --> 00:57:28,887 we just want to say that we are committed to making sure figure out a process 688 00:57:28,911 --> 00:57:31,520 to make sure all the questions get answered, 689 00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:36,188 in some way shape or form and so we're gonna look for that. 690 00:57:36,212 --> 00:57:42,240 But let me just say that I want to really thank to 691 00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:47,200 Yana and Jaimie for their wonderful presentation and great insights, 692 00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:50,667 it's really important, this session was really important to us 693 00:57:50,691 --> 00:57:55,440 because we wanted to you know make sure and embrace 694 00:57:55,440 --> 00:58:00,988 that everyone knows the importance of a government agency 695 00:58:01,012 --> 00:58:08,460 fully owning this issue and embracing it in the way that CalEPA has done. 696 00:58:08,484 --> 00:58:14,612 I also want to thank the production team at the Office of Environmental Justice 697 00:58:14,636 --> 00:58:23,520 and those are people those are Sabrina Johnson and Matt Tejada and Maria Wallace, 698 00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:30,863 Rebecca Huff, Christina Motilall and Ericka Farrell for their work to support us 699 00:58:30,887 --> 00:58:32,799 for this effort. 700 00:58:32,799 --> 00:58:39,678 Our next session will focus on promoting our strategies 701 00:58:39,802 --> 00:58:45,520 to promote multi-disciplinary and multi-sector collaborations in this area work. 702 00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:50,640 We know that there's a-- this is-- we're just beginning to scratch the surface 703 00:58:50,640 --> 00:58:57,040 as far as the kind of work that Yana and Jaimie talked about and others have talked about. 704 00:58:57,040 --> 00:59:00,328 As soon as we schedule, we will inform you. 705 00:59:00,352 --> 00:59:05,508 In addition-- you heard that CalEPA's holding a virtual training workshop 706 00:59:05,532 --> 00:59:10,257 on the pollution and prejudice moving from redlining to revitalization 707 00:59:10,281 --> 00:59:15,839 scheduled for August 19th, now 10 to 12 PM on Pacific Time, 708 00:59:15,839 --> 00:59:26,960 we will send you the link to this so that you can register as soon as this session is over. 709 00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:31,280 Along with that we'll email you an evaluation form 710 00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:34,948 and appreciate you filling it out. 711 00:59:34,972 --> 00:59:41,599 So with that I think we can close and again, thank you Yana and Jaimie 712 00:59:41,599 --> 00:59:46,960 for their presentation and being a part of this conversation, 713 00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:51,411 we also of course want to thank you for being part of this conversation 714 00:59:51,435 --> 00:59:58,640 which we think is really as pointed out by Jaimie and Yana and Jaimie 715 00:59:58,640 --> 01:00:03,280 something that's really important for the future of the country. 716 01:00:03,280 --> 01:00:06,559 Thank you.