Allison Acevedo, formerly an attorney with the U.S Department of Labor and more recently a consultant with several Philadelphia nonprofits, has been named to head the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Environmental Justice.
Her appointment, along with a proposal to redefine and expand the number of environmental justice communities in the state, is the latest attempt to breathe life into an environmental justice program that has been underfunded and understaffed since its creation 16 years ago. The program also has been unable to address the impacts of thousands of shale gas wells, compressor stations and pipelines on minority or poor, rural communities.
The proposal, contained in DEP’s draft 2018 Environmental Justice Participation Policy, would identify additional “EJ” communities based on smaller census blocks rather than larger census tracts, as is done now. That change would reflect more accurately community demographics, according to the DEP, and increase the number of Pennsylvanians who live in those areas by 12 percent, to include almost one-third of the state’s residents.
“The proposed change would result in more EJ areas and an additional 450,000 people impacted in those areas,” said Ms. Acevedo, 51, who lives in Philadelphia but grew up in the Homewood-Brushton neighborhood of Pittsburgh and graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School. “More people will be involved in public participation, and more communities will be involved.”
The draft policy is available for public review and comment through Aug. 28. The DEP plans to finalize the policy before the end of this year.
Under its existing policy, the DEP defines an environmental justice tract as one where at least 20 percent of the residents live at or below the federal poverty line, and/or at least 30 percent or more are non-white, and that will not change.
The DEP, has identified 851 Environmental Justice census tracts in the state, 128 of them in Allegheny County. Under the proposed change to the smaller census blocks, the DEP would designate 3,436 blocks as EJ areas, 385 in Allegheny County.
“We want to be talking with these communities first about what the issues are and how the DEP can get involved from an environmental justice perspective,” said Ms. Acevedo, who will initially oversee a staff of two, with plans to add a third community advocate in the eastern end of the state later this year. “We want to provide consistent and constant information and education.”
EJ area residents are automatically eligible to receive advance and expanded public notice and information about most industrial facilities proposed for location in them.
However the new DEP policy proposal, like the existing policy, continues to exclude shale gas wells, pads, compressor stations and pipelines from the industrialized operations, like mining, factories or landfills, that would automatically trigger such notifications.
According to the proposed policy, “trigger permits” are permits “relating to regulated activities that have traditionally led to significant public concern due to potential impacts to the environment, human health, and communities.”
In 2015, then-DEP Secretary John Quigley said shale gas permits would be added to the trigger list, but Mr. Quigley resigned shortly after making that promise and the change never happened.
DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell said the state’s 45-day permit review and approval time frame for shale gas operations doesn’t allow enough time for the extended EJ information, review and comment process.
Instead, Mr. McDonnell said, the DEP is “working on a process to look at the cumulative impacts of oil and gas operations and engage with communities on that total impact.”
Neil Shader, a DEP spokesman, said those impacts could include traffic, noise, and other environmental complaints related to shale gas development and other industries.
“The ultimate goal,” he said, “is to have an open dialogue between industry and residents to ensure that their community is not being burdened by development.”
Statewide, the DEP has granted permits to more than 500 oil and gas operations in EJ communities by 2015, none of which triggered enhanced review.
Mr. McDonnell said the proposed policy, for the first time, includes as a trigger permit applications for deep wastewater injection well sites, but there are significantly fewer of those — just a couple dozen — in the state.
The failure to include shale gas development permit applications as automatic “triggers” for review by the EJ office was a common criticism by many commenters at a series of nine public meetings last year on the DEP’s environmental justice policies.
Among the three public comments so far on the proposed EJ policy changes, two urge the department to allow oil and gas operations to trigger more in-depth public review.
Sharon Furlong, co-founder of Bucks Environmental Action, wrote that proposed changes to the state EJ policy, though well-meaning, still exclude a significant segment of the state’s population — many of them rural poor — from getting the information they need about oil and gas development in their communities. And that’s “neither correct nor moral,” she wrote.
She urged the DEP to find a solution to what she termed the “technical dilemma” of the 45-day oil and gas permit review rule.
“Anyone living near these facilities is in danger from the fumes, the chemicals that are trade secrets, the truck traffic, the abrogation of land rights, the destruction of their way of life, and the promise of compromised health,” Ms. Furlong wrote. “They are not wealthy and, indeed, are often quite poor. They need some protections and a way to address how they are being killed by a thousand cuts. Find a way to give it to them.”
A new online mapping tool, The Environmental Justice Areas Viewer, is under development by the DEP to provide the public with improved access to geographic, demographic and permitted facilities data. The department plans to complete the viewer and offer training on its use to EJ community partners and the public later this year.
Comments on the proposed policy can be submitted here (https://www.ahs.dep.pa.gov/eComment/).
The last policy update was in 2004. The DEP was forced to begin paying attention to environmental justice in 2002, when it it was sued in federal court for environmental racism by Chester, a poor and minority community southwest of Philadelphia, where the agency was considering approving a sixth solid waste disposal facility.
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1983, or on Twitter @donhopey.
First Published: July 30, 2018, 11:30 a.m.