1. I NTRODUCING C AL E NVIRO S CREEN 1.0 S IERRA W ATER W ORKGROUP S UMMIT – D EFINING D ISADVANTAGED C OMMUNITIES J UNE 13, 2013 Laura August, MPH Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Cal/EPA

2. C AL E NVIRO S CREEN 1.0 2  Presents a broad picture of the relative burdens California communities face from environmental pollution  Identifies 18 indicators of environmental and socioeconomic conditions  Provides guidance on potential uses of tool

3. D EVELOPMENT OF C AL E NVIRO S CREEN 1.0 2008-2013: Nine public meetings of the Cumulative Impacts & Precautionary Approaches Workgroup 2010: Framework document (“Cumulative Impacts: Building A Scientific Foundation”) released 2010-2012: Development of CalEnviroScreen 1.0 2012: 12 public workshops, including an academic workshop, > 1,000 oral & written comments January 2013: Revised draft released. 65 written submissions & comments April 2013: CalEnviroScreen 1.0 finalized 3

4. F OCUS OF C AL E NVIRO S CREEN “…exposures, public health or environmental effects from the combined emissions and discharges in a geographic area, including environmental pollution from all sources, whether single or multi-media, routinely, accidentally, or otherwise released. Impacts will take into account sensitive populations and socioeconomic factors, where applicable and to the extent data are available.” -- Working definition of “cumulative impacts” by Cal/EPA Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice 4

5. G EOGRAPHICAL U NIT : ZIP C ODE 5  Familiar scale  Publicly established  Public recognition  Not too large  Not too small

6. I NDICATORS U SED Pollution BurdenPopulation Characteristics Exposures Environmental Effects Sensitive Populations Socioeconomic Factors  PM 2.5 concentrations  Ozone concentrations  Diesel PM concentrations  Pesticide use  Toxic releases from facilities  Traffic density  Cleanup sites  Groundwater threats(Leaking underground tanks and cleanups)  Impaired water bodies  Solid waste sites and facilities  Hazardous waste facilities and generators  Prevalence of children and elderly  Asthma emergency department visit rate  Rate of low birth weight births  Educational attainment  Linguistic isolation  Poverty: Percent residents below 2x national poverty level  Race/ethnicity 6

7. ▪ Provide a good measure of the contribution to the component ▪ Pollution burden indicators should relate to issues that may be actionable by Cal/EPA ▪ Population characteristic indicators should relate to demographic factors that may influence vulnerability to disease ▪ Publicly available ▪ Statewide and location-based information ▪ Good quality data (e.g., covers the state, accurate, current) 7 C RITERIA FOR INDICATOR SELECTION

8. S CORING ComponentsMaximum Score Exposures & Environmental Effects (½) 10 Sensitive Populations & Socioeconomic Factors 10 CalEnviroScreen Score Up to 100 (= 10 x 10) 8 ▪ For each indicator, ZIP codes are assigned percentile values based on where they fall in the statewide distribution Magnitude of Indicator (i.e. percent poverty, ozone conc.) Number of ZIP Codes Example indicator

9. CalEnviroScreen Scores: Statewide H IGHEST 10% C AL E NVIRO S CREEN S CORES : S TATEWIDE Represents 176 of CA’s 1769 Zip codes. Covers 7.8 million people (21 percent of CA’s population). 9

10. 10 CalEnviroScreen Scores: Statewide C AL E NVIRO S CREEN S CORES : S TATEWIDE Represents all 1769 census ZIP codes in CA Each color represents ~10% of all ZIP codes

11. O NLINE TOOL Available at: oehha.ca.gov/ej/oehha.ca.gov/ej/ 11

12. S OME P OTENTIAL U SES OF T OOL ▪ To aid ongoing planning and decision-making within Cal/EPA ▪ Environmental Justice Small Grant program ▪ Promote greater compliance with environmental laws ▪ Prioritize site-cleanup activities ▪ Identify opportunities for sustainable development in heavily impacted neighborhoods ▪ The tool: ▪ Is not a health risk assessment ▪ Is not a substitute for a CEQA-required cumulative impacts assessment and does not determine whether a specific project’s impacts are significant under CEQA 12

13. U SES OF THE T OOL : SB 535 (D E L EON, 2012) 13 ▪ Cal/EPA shall identify “disadvantaged communities” for investment opportunities based on geographic, socioeconomic, public health and environmental hazard criteria. ▪ Department of Finance triennial investment plan for Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund must allocate: ▪ >25 percent to projects that benefit these communities ▪ >10 percent to projects located in these communities.

14. D EFINING ‘D ISADVANTAGED C OMMUNITIES ’ CalEnviroScreen is a pollution based tool  Combination of pollution and factors that make a community more vulnerable to the effects of pollution ‘Socioeconomic factors’ component is made up of 4 indicators  from 2010 Decennial census and 2007-2011American Community Survey Median household income not included because duplicative with poverty Feedback from stakeholders to include multiple indicators Socioeconomic Factors  Educational attainment  Linguistic isolation  Poverty: Percent residents below 2x national poverty level  Race/ethnicity 14

15. I MPORTANCE OF M ULTIPLE I NDICATORS  The use of multiple metrics is important to understand environmental and socioeconomic conditions  Socioeconomic Factors example: UC Berkeley ZIP Code (94720)  Education: 10 th percentile (LOW)  Linguistic Isolation: NA (no households)  Poverty: 99 th percentile (HIGH)  Race/ethnicity: 62 nd percentile (medium) 15

16. D ATA G APS AND N EXT S TEPS Geographic unit Census ZIP codes not statewide Moving to census tracts later this year Missing data i.e. fewer air pollution monitors, larger margins of error in Census data All tribal activities not always captured in state databases Drinking water indicator not completed Continue outreach with interested stakeholders on potential uses of CalEnviroScreen1.0 16 Sierra Water Workgroup

17. A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS OEHHA : John Faust Laura Meehan August George Alexeeff Rose Cendak Lara Cushing Allan Hirsch Tamara Kadir Carmen Milanes Shankar Prasad Karen Randles Robbie Welling Walker Wieland Lauren Zeise Cal/EPA : Miriam Barcellona Ingenito Julian Leichty Arsenio Mataka Gina Solomon Other thanks: Cumulative Impacts and Precautionary Approaches Work Group Cal/EPA Boards and Departments who provided comments and data; California Department of Public Health and the Public Health Institute Residents and stakeholders who participated in our regional workshops; Tara Zagofsky, consultant and facilitator, University of California, Davis, Common Ground: Center for Cooperative Solutions Dr. Rachel Morello-Frosch and academic colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley Academic expert panel who provided comments at a workshop in September 2012 Graduate students assisting in the project Laura August, email: Laura.August@oehha.ca.gov more info: www.oehha.ca.gov/ej T HANK YOU !