Transcript Role of Environmental Justice in Shankar B. Prasad, M.B.B.S.

Role of Environmental Justice
in
Land Use Planning
Shankar B. Prasad, M.B.B.S.
Community Health Advisor
California Air Resources Board
May 11, 2001
Statewide Air Quality Conference for Local Elected Officials, 2001
Vision
To
Success
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How to Handle E J - A Hot Issue ?
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What is Environmental Justice ?
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Federal Definition of E J
“… identifying and addressing, as
appropriate, disproportionately high and
adverse human health or environmental
effects of its programs, policies, and
activities on minority populations and lowincome populations in the United States
and its territories and possessions…”
From: U.S. Executive Order 12898 (1994)
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Our State’s Definition of EJ
“… the fair treatment of people of all
races, cultures, and incomes with
respect to the development,
adoption, implementation, and
enforcement of environmental laws,
regulations, and policies.”
From: Senate Bill 115 (Solis, 1999)
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What Are the Goals of E J ?
• Equity in
environmental risk
distribution
• Improving quality of
life by reducing risk
burdens from all
sources
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Why Are We Concerned ?
• Not all communities benefit equally
from regional air quality improvements
• Environmental regulations and policies
not applied uniformly for all affected
communities
• Past practices leading to inequity
needs to be addressed
• Future inequity needs to be prevented
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Cumulative Risk
• The total risk to a community is
due to all emissions released by
all nearby sources
• The risk burden to a community is
high when surrounded by multifacility clusters
• The health consequence of multitoxics exposure is not clear
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How to Break the Barriers ?
•Technical
•Fiscal
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Technical Barriers
• Cumulative risk / Exposure
– local permitting & land-use decisions
• Air monitoring / modeling challenges
– regional vs. neighborhood-scale
• Policy framework Limitations
– EJ in the context of CEQA
– demographic consideration
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Potential Fiscal Barrier Solutions
• Incentives to go beyond minimum
controls
• Spend fines to benefit affected
community
• Target efforts where burden is highest
• Expand outreach on pollution
prevention & funding programs
• Establish a trust fund for corrective
action
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Take Home Message
• E J concerns are real
• Traditional approaches not likely to
solve the problem
• Need to be creative in overcoming
technical / fiscal barriers
• E J needs to be a primary
consideration in land-use decision
process to avoid clusters
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Thank You !
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