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You are invited to learn about new methods to understand
cumulative impacts for environmental justice programs including AB 617
and SB 673. AB 617 led to establishing CARB’s Community Air Protection
Program and SB 673 addresses community vulnerability in hazardous waste
permitting criteria. This seminar will cover the following contract
projects:
- Capacity-building training and technical
assistance of air quality monitoring under AB 617
- Evaluation of community-engaged AB 617
implementation
- Application of novel methods to derive new
indicators of cumulative impact and community vulnerability
The result of this contract will help to ensure better
understanding of how AB 617 is being implemented and how both AB 617 and
SB 673 can benefit environmental justice communities while also
recommending improvements.
Date:
May 17, 2021
Time: 1:00
p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Location: Webinar
Spanish interpretation of this seminar will be available
for attendees via Zoom.
La interpretación al español de este seminario estará
disponible para los asistentes a través de zoom.
Background
In 2015, the California legislature passed SB 673 and in
2017 passed AB 617. Both laws aim to improve environmental regulations to
better protect community environmental health by more systematically
integrating cumulative impacts into regulatory decision-making,
enforcement activities, and programs at the California Air Resources
Board—CARB (AB 617) and the Department of Toxics Substances Control –
DTSC (SB 673). Both AB 617 and SB 673 require developing methods
for assessing cumulative impacts and integrated indicators of community
vulnerability for the implementation of regulatory programs and community
monitoring. This report describes findings from three distinct yet
inter-connected project elements: (1) a capacity-building training and
technical assistance program to support community-based air quality
monitoring under AB 617, (2) a community-engaged evaluation of AB 617
implementation, and (3) leveraging data sources and applying novel
methods to derive new geographic indicators of cumulative impact and
community vulnerability that can be integrated with or supplement
existing spatial tools such as CalEnviroScreen (CES) for the purposes of
AB 617 and SB 673 implementation. Key results for the three elements of
this project are identified is the following section. For Element 1
(Community-based air quality monitoring trainings), topics identified as
most helpful among trainees included, planning and designing an air
monitoring network, choosing monitor technologies, and ensuring data
quality, use of monitoring data and how to sustain a monitoring network.
For Element 2 (Community engaged evaluation) the most useful findings
included, analysis of surveys, key informant interviews, field
observations and documents analysis that showed that AB 617 has great promise
as a pilot program, but more progress is needed for it to effectively
transform air quality management in California, particularly at the
community-level. For Element 3 (Cumulative Impacts Assessment)
important findings included, analysis for enhancing cumulative impacts
assessments which showed that while CalEnviroScreen is a robust and very
well-regarded spatial screening tool, additional measures could
complement and strengthen analytical methods for systematically
integrating environmental justice assessments for purposes of AB 617 and
SB 673 implementation.
Biographies
Rachel Morello-Frosch is Professor in
the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and the
School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. As an environmental health
scientist and epidemiologist, her research examines social determinants
of environmental health among diverse communities with a focus on
inequality, psychosocial stress and how these factors interact with
environmental chemical exposures to produce health inequalities.
Morello-Frosch has also collaborated with communities and scientists to
develop science-policy tools to assess cumulative impacts of chemical and
non-chemical stressors to improve regulatory decision-making and advance
environmental justice.
Jonathan K. London is an educator, researcher, and
community-builder with over 30 years of experience in rural community
development, participatory research, and community engaged
planning. His research addresses conflicts and collaboration in
environmental management, with a particular emphasis on environmental
justice in rural communities. Jonathan holds a B.A. in Environmental
Studies from Brown University; a master’s degree in City and Regional
Planning and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science Policy and Management from
UC Berkeley. He is Associate Professor at UC Davis in the Department of
Human Ecology/ Community and Regional Development; Faculty Director,
Center for Regional Change; and Co-Director: Community Engagement Core,
Environmental Health Science Center.
David Chang, MA, Project Coordinator: currently serves as Project
Coordinator for Tracking California where he works alongside other
Tracking California staff to provide technical assistance to several
community organizations funded by year 1 and year 2 AB 617 community air
grants. He has expertise in development of both youth and adult
focused environmental justice and environmental science curricula. For
this project, David worked with colleagues and with partners to
coordinate the logistics of the workshops, develop content, and
facilitate different sections at each of the three workshops.
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