Table of Contents
Action Items
Action
Item
| Develop compatible and
appropriate Agency-wide approaches to using GIS to
address potential environmental justice concerns. |
In an effort to give the public increased access to
geographic-based information on pollutants, demographics, and
facilities, OSWER, in a collaborative effort with the
Department of Commerce (DOC) through their Bureau of the
Census and the DOC National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, has developed LandView II TM (LandView), a
computer compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM) publication
of environmental, geographic, and demographic information.
LandView integrates demographic and economic information, as
well as information from several of EPA's program databases.
The information contained in this system will assist local
communities as they participate in decision-making processes.
EPA uses LandView II to enhance its Brownfields initiative.
EPA has distributed copies of the LandView II system to each
of the 78 Brownfields Pilots. LandView II can be used to
enhance the understanding the environmental, geographic, and
demographic information around Brownfields by the Pilot's
management and enhance the involvement of the community.
EPA OSWER, OSPS is working with EPA Region 6 to develop an
enhanced version of LandView II, called BRIMS (Brownfields
Redevelopment Information Management System) that includes
the additional ability to track and manage individual
Brownfield properties. BRIMS was developed and tested in the
City of Dallas and the State of Texas. It is currently being
distributed to EPA's other Regions.
| James Maas |
(202) 260-8927 |
To sensitize the Region's HWMD Program staff to the
socioeconomic differences between communities, to widen its
vision to environmental justice and the need to
"FOCUS" its community relations efforts to better
serve its customers and carry out EPA's mission on a more
equitable basis, Region 3 has begun identification of the
socioeconomic make-up of communities in the Region across
several of its program areas.
This initiative has been done in two phases. In the first
phase, EPA personnel used 1990 census data to generate maps
depicting minority distribution, poverty distribution,
educational level distribution, and population density. In
the Superfund program, the Division then amended its
policy/procedures for site investigations to include the
generation of demographic maps. The RPMs and CRCs are trained
to use maps and databases for the initial review of the site
to better understand the potential of environmental justice
in the communities. The object of integrating the maps and
data early in the remedial phase is so that the awareness of
environmental justice is interwoven with the entire process
and not simply layered on top.
In the RCRA program, GIS maps were obtained for each high
National Corrective Action Prioritization (NCAP) facility
that will use the latest census information for demographic
data. Information was gathered from various data bases (e.g.,
CERCLIS, RCRIS, etc.) for program-specific information
regarding releases from a particular facility. To ensure a
thorough Community Relations Plan, the facilities involved in
the Scope of Work will be required to refer to the RCRA
Community Involvement Manual for guidance as well as Region
3-specific guidance that will be developed for including
environmental justice concerns. The RCRA program completed a
GIS analysis of all RCRA corrective action sites under order
or permit. Three maps were developed for each facility
showing poverty distribution, minority distribution, and
population density. The Region will use these maps to improve
community outreach as it makes decisions on site cleanups.
Pennsylvania and Delaware are incorporating hazardous
waste data into their own GIS system to meet environmental
justice planning during FY96 in Superfund as well as RCRA.
Maryland is also developing a GIS system which will support
environmental justice data layers on site information under
the RCRA program.
| Walter Graham, Superfund |
(215) 566-3146 |
| Peg Leva, RCRA |
(215) 566-3389 |
Region 5 is using the LandView II software to identify
demographics, including minority and low-income population
surrounding Superfund sites, until a Division-wide GIS
capability is established. Fifteen LandView experts from the
Superfund Division have been recruited and trained. These
experts are responsible for creating environmental justice
profiles for the Removal/Remedial and Federal facilities
programs within the Region. These profiles will be used as an
initial screening tool to determine if the site has possible
environmental justice concerns or issues.
| 12/95 |
Completed LandView training. |
| 2/96 |
Met with environmental justice
experts to identify concerns and problems. |
| 3/96 |
Completed initial screening for
first round of sites. |
| 4/96 |
Second round of sites to be
evaluated by experts identified. |
| Oliver L. Warnsley |
(312) 886-0442 |
Region 7 conducted a screening, using GIS in conjunction
with CERCLIS, RCRIS, and demographic information (population
density, ethnicity, and income), to identify counties that
have a high co-occurrence of minority or lower-income
population, and RCRIS/CERCLIS listings. As a result of this
screening, the Region selected St. Louis and St. Louis County
as an environmental justice pilot area for more intensive
scrutiny.
The Region completed the GIS mapping for the City of St.
Louis in February 1996 and identified and located all
industrial facilities subject to RCRA, CERCLA, UST, LUST, the
Clean Air Act, and the Toxics Release Inventory on a series
of GIS maps. The Region also included blood lead information
and plotted this information on a map. The Region overlaid
this information with socio-economic data on poverty levels
and racial makeup obtained from the Census Bureau. Based on
this data, the Region identified five areas in St. Louis that
it felt could have the potential for environmental justice
concerns. On May 2-3, 1996, several Regional staff screened
each of these neighborhoods to obtain first-hand information
and knowledge on the accuracy of the data and maps that the
Region had developed. The Region determined that the maps and
data were extremely accurate in identifying potential
environmental justice concerns. Two neighborhoods in
particular were identified as having a higher potential for
environmental justice concerns than the others.
The Region has recently established a community based
environmental protection (CBEP) team to address environmental
issues in the City of St. Louis. The information collected as
part of this environmental justice data collection effort has
been passed on to this team. The team plans to incorporate
this information into its own data collection efforts and may
target the two neighborhoods identified in the environmental
justice effort for special emphasis. The Region will also
utilize this data to focus both multi-media and single media
compliance/inspection/enforcement efforts in areas in St.
Louis. The Region will work with the Missouri Department of
Natural Resources (MDNR) to utilize State resources in this
effort.
The Region has decided to further analyze the data
collected from this effort in St. Louis and determine its
reliability before beginning similar data collection efforts
in other parts of the Region. The Region will probably make
this decision in early FY97.
| 1/94 |
Selected St. Louis and St. Louis
County as an environmental justice pilot area. |
| 11/94 |
Conducted address matching process. |
| 1/96 |
Established a community based
environmental protection (CBEP) team in the City of
St. Louis. |
| 2/96 |
Completed GIS mapping of the City of
St. Louis. |
| 5/96 |
Screened five regions identified for
potential environmental justice concerns to determine
accuracy of data. |
| David Doyle |
(913) 551-7667 |
Region 9 has undertaken an Assessment Project to identify
and create GIS maps of areas with potential environmental
justice concerns. The Region developed criteria and
parameters for mapping minority and low-income communities
and has been incorporating this information into the Region's
GIS. The Assessment Project will analyze all States in the
Region for demographics and potential and measured sources of
pollution. The goal of the project is to locate communities
that are affected by numerous pollution sources but are
getting insufficient attention from agencies to address these
hazards.
Based on preliminary GIS maps, Region 9 surveyed the
cities in the Region with environmental justice problems to
determine when they will be revising their General Plans to
include making environmental justice a goal, targeting
pollution prevention and enforcement efforts in mixed use
areas, attracting clean industry, creating buffer zones
between housing and polluting industry, developing a land use
or business permitting process that considers cumulative
impacts, developing an ordinance requiring no net increase in
pollution, and assuring an open public process to find
environmental justice solutions.
For example, Los Angeles incorporated most of the Region 9
recommendations into the draft General Plan, including making
environmental justice a policy goal, targeted pollution,
prevention, green planning, etc. The revised plan was adopted
by the full City Council in October 1996. In West Oakland,
community input has resulted in the Region's awareness of new
sources of pollution not in EPA databases.
| 2/95 |
Selected pilot communities. |
| 2/95 |
Developed outreach plan. |
| 3/96 |
Completed compilation of demographic
information and composed preliminary maps. |
| 3/96 |
Made recommendations to cities on
environmental justice problems based on GIS maps. |
| 10/96 |
Los Angeles City Council adopted
General Plan. |
| Nancy Nadel |
(415) 744-2041 |
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