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Photo credit: Health and Human Services |
What is Environmental Justice?
Environmental justice joins social and environmental movements by addressing the unequal environmental burden often borne by minority and low-income populations. Environmental justice seeks to lessen unequal distributions of environmental burdens (pollution, industrial facilities, crime, etc.), equalize benefits and balance access to nutritious food, clean air & water, parks, recreation, health care, education, transportation, safe jobs, etc. in a variety of situations. Self-determination and participation in decision-making are key pieces of environmental justice.
When associated with transportation projects, environmental justice effects may include disruptions in community cohesion, restricted commercial access, presence of hazardous materials, raised noise levels, or increased water and or air pollution among others.
Environmental justice analysis is the process of identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health and/or environmental effects on minority or low-income populations.
There are three major principles of environmental justice:
- 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.
- Ensure the full and fair participation by all potentially affected communities in the transportation decision-making process.
- Prevent the denial of, reduction in, or significant delay in the receipt of benefits by minority and/or low-income populations.
What are the Applicable Statutes and Regulations?
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the main federal law that prohibits discrimination. The federal agencies are responsible for overseeing nondiscrimination when federal money is involved for transportation projects. We need to comply with Title VI mandates even on our projects that do not use federal money. This means we need to show that we are not discriminating. Following are the main statutes, regulations and guidance that relate to environmental justice.
If you would like more detail on related laws, regulations and policies, you can find it in the Annotated Bibliography for Community Impacts and Environmental Justice (pdf 56 kb)
Frequently Asked Questions and More
Do you have more environmental justice questions or need assistance? For a brief overview to help you understand how we analyze environmental justice effects for WSDOT projects, review the flowchart (pdf 39kb) and the step by step (pdf 34kb).
If you still have questions, review the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page. Also, see Related Topics and Resources. For analysts performing an EJ analysis, Analysis Tools along with the FAQs will provide assistance.
Training and Resources
Some training is available on environmental justice and transportation.
- FHWA has a national two-day training available that can be scheduled locally.
- The local FHWA division has a guidance document Environmental Justice: What You Should Know.
- Small group training is available. However, first read through the frequently asked questions on this website since they are from past WSDOT EJ training. Contact us for assistance.
For distribution at public meetings: Title VI form in English (pdf 27kb), in Spanish (pdf 35kb), in Korean (pdf 66kb), in Russian (pdf 72kb), in Tagalog (pdf 30kb), in Vietnamese (pdf 79 kb), in Traditional Chinese (pdf 170kb) and in Simplified Chinese (pdf 153kb).
We funded a research project called The Impacts of Tolling on Low-Income Persons in the Puget Sound Region. The research results, completed by the University of Washington, improves our understanding of how tolling will affect low-income populations.
Why do we feel environmental justice is important?
WSDOT's environmental policy acknowledges "the state's vital interests in protecting and preserving natural resources and other environmental assets and its citizens' health and safety". The WSDOT executive order on context sensitive solutions states "that a proposed transportation project must be planned not only for its physical aspects as a facility serving specific transportation objectives, but also for its effects on the aesthetic, social, economic and environmental values, needs, constraints and opportunities in a larger community setting".
Therefore, we pay attention to and address community concerns so that our projects are welcome additions to the neighborhood.