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Title: Environmental Justice: Principles, Policies, Guidance, and Effective Practices


1
Environmental Justice Principles, Policies,
Guidance, and Effective Practices
  • FTA Region VI Civil Rights Colloquium
  • March 29, 2006

2
The Environmental Justice Movement
  • 1982--Protests in Warren County, NC against
    siting a landfill in predominantly
    African-American and low-income community,
  • 1983--The GAO found that 3 out of 4 hazardous
    waste landfills in the South were located in
    minority and low-income communities.
  • 1990s--The first national people of color
    environmental leadership summit.
  • 1992--EPA creates office of environmental equity.
  • 1994Executive Order on Environmental Justice

3
Executive Order 12898
  • Each Federal agency shall make achieving
    environmental justice part of its mission by
    identifying and addressing, as appropriate,
    disproportionately high and adverse human health
    or environmental effects of its programs,
    policies, and activities on minority populations
    and low-income populations in the United States.

4
Principles of Environmental Justice
  • To avoid, minimize, or mitigate
    disproportionately high and adverse human health
    and environmental effects, including social and
    economic effects, on minority populations and
    low-income populations.
  • To ensure the full and fair participation by all
    potentially affected communities in the
    transportation decision-making process.
  • To prevent the denial of, reduction in, or
    significant delay in the receipt of benefits by
    minority and low-income populations.

5
Terms and Concepts
  • Minority--defined according to census categories.
  • Low-Income--means a person whose median household
    income is at or below the Health and Human
    Services policy guidelines.
  • Low-income population--low-income persons who
    live in geographic proximity or geographically
    dispersed/transient persons.

6
Terms and Concepts
  • Adverse effect--can include economic as well as
    effects to the human and natural environment.
  • Disproportionately high adverse effects are those
    effects that are
  • Predominantly borne by a minority or low-income
    population or
  • Effects that will be suffered by the minority or
    low-income population and is appreciably more
    severe or greater in magnitude than the adverse
    effect that will be suffered by the non-minority
    or non-low-income population.

7
The DOT Order on Environmental Justice
  • This order incorporates environmental justice
    principles into the DOTs existing programs,
    policies, and activities.
  • DOTs Planning and programming activities will
    include explicit consideration of the effects of
    the activities on minority and low-income
    populations.
  • DOT will continuously monitor its programs,
    policies, and activities to ensure that
    disproportionately high and adverse effects to
    minority and low-income populations are avoided,
    minimized, and mitigated.

8
The DOT Order on Environmental Justice
  • The U.S. DOT Order applies to all policies,
    programs, and other activities that are
    undertaken, funded, or approved by the Federal
    Highway Administration (FHWA), the Federal
    Transit Administration (FTA), or other U.S. DOT
    components
  • Policy Decisions.
  • Systems Planning.
  • Metropolitan and Statewide Planning.
  • Project Development and Environmental Review
    under NEPA.
  • Preliminary Design.
  • Final Design Engineering.
  • Right-of-Way.
  • Construction.
  • Operations and Maintenance.

9
The DOT Order on Environmental Justice
  • In making determinations regarding
    disproportionately high and adverse effects, DOT
    will consider mitigation and enhancement measures
    and offsetting benefits provided to minority and
    low-income population, as well as the design,
    comparative impacts, and number of similar
    elements in non-minority and non-low-income
    areas.

10
DOT Order on Environmental Justice
  • Activities that have adverse and
    disproportionately high effects on minority and
    low-income populations will only be carried out
    if mitigation measures and alternatives that
    would avoid these effects are not practicable.

11
The National Environmental Policy Act
  • The National Environmental Policy Act seeks to
    ensure that public projects take into account
    social goals
  • Specifically, NEPA seeks to
  • Prevent or eliminate damage to the environment
  • Stimulate the health and welfare of man
  • Enrich the understanding of ecological systems
    and the natural resources important to the
    nation.

12
The National Environmental Policy Act
  • Under NEPA, the Federal responsibility is to
  • Act as trustees of the environment
  • Assure, safe, healthful, productive,
    aesthetically and culturally pleasing
    surroundings
  • Attain the widest range of benefit without
    degradation or undesirable and unintended
    consequences
  • Preserve important historic, cultural, and
    natural aspects
  • Achieve a balance between population and resource
    use
  • Enhance the quality of the environment

13
Essential Elements of NEPA
  • Scoping
  • Alternatives
  • Impacts
  • Mitigation
  • Public Involvement
  • Interagency Coordination
  • Documentation

14
Scoping
  • The purpose of scoping is to define the
    objectives, scope, and impacted areas of a
    project.
  • Determine whether a potentially affected area
    includes minority populations or low-income
    populations.
  • Develop a strategy for effective public
    involvement.

15
Alternatives
  • NEPA requires that project sponsors identify a
    reasonable array of alternatives that meet the
    purpose and need of the project and that a no
    build alternative be evaluated.
  • Evaluate environmental justice issues for all
    reasonable alternatives.
  • Alternatives should be developed that mitigate
    and avoid effects to both the population at large
    and any disproportionately high and adverse
    effects on minority and low-income populations.

16
Impacts
  • Identify the direct, indirect, and cumulative
    impacts of a project to the human and natural
    environment.
  • For each alternative, identify whether there
    would be adverse and disproportionate effects on
    minority and low-income populations.

17
Mitigation
  • Consider measures that would avoid, minimize,
    preserve, repair, rehabilitate, or restore the
    human and natural environment.
  • Mitigation measures should be developed
    specifically to address disproportionately high
    and adverse effects to minority and low-income
    communities.
  • Ensure that the affected community receives its
    fair share of the benefits of the proposed action

18
Public Involvement
  • Make a targeted effort to overcome linguistic,
    institutional, cultural, economic, historical, or
    other barriers that may prevent minority and
    low-income persons and populations from
    effectively participating in a recipients
    decision-making process.

19
Public Involvement
  • Examples
  • Coordination with individuals, institutions, or
    organizations in the affected predominantly
    minority and/or predominantly low-income
    communities to reach out to members of the
    community.
  • Provision of opportunities for public
    participation through means other than written
    communication, such as personal interviews or use
    of audio or video recording devices to capture
    oral comments.
  • Use of locations, facilities, and meeting times
    that are local, convenient and accessible to the
    disabled, low-income, and minority communities.
  • Use of different meeting sizes or formats, or
    variation in the type and number of news media
    used to announce public participation
    opportunities, so that communications are
    tailored to the particular community or
    population.
  • Implementing the Department of Transportations
    policy guidance concerning recipients
    responsibilities to limited English proficient
    persons to overcome linguistic barriers to public
    participation.
  • Providing assistance to people with disabilities,
    including individuals who are blind or have
    low-vision or are hearing impaired.

20
Interagency Coordination
  • Coordinate with other Federal agencies to
    identify and address possible adverse and
    disproportionate impacts to minority and
    low-income populations.

21
Documentation
  • Environmental Impact Statements and Environmental
    Assessments should contain an environmental
    justice section that identifies and addresses
    adverse and disproportionate effects of project
    alternatives on minority and low-income
    populations.
  • Applications for a documented categorical
    exclusion should also reference any environmental
    justice issues.

22
Resources
  • Effective methods for Environmental Justice
    Assessment

23
Resources
  • DOT Environmental Justice Website ,
    www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/ej2.htm
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