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New Directions in Environmental Justice Research at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Incorporating Recognitional and Capabilities Justice Through Health Impact Assessments

2021; Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.; Volume: 14; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1089/env.2021.0019

1939-4071

Emily Eisenhauer, Kathleen C. Williams, C. Warren, Tami Thomas-Burton, Susan Julius, Andrew M. Geller,

Mining and Resource Management

Environmental JusticeVol. 14, No. 5 CommentariesOpen AccessCreative Commons licenseNew Directions in Environmental Justice Research at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Incorporating Recognitional and Capabilities Justice Through Health Impact AssessmentsEmily Eisenhauer, Kathleen C. Williams, Camilla Warren, Tami Thomas-Burton, Susan Julius, and Andrew M. GellerEmily EisenhauerAddress correspondence to: Emily Eisenhauer, Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460, USA E-mail Address: eisenhauer.emily@epa.govhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-1754-4149Dr. Emily Eisenhauer is a Social Scientist Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Kathleen C. Williams is a Geographer at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Camilla Warren is an Environmental Engineer and Brownfields and Land Revitalization Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Tami Thomas-Burton is a Public Health Specialist and Regional Environmental Justice Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dr. Susan Julius is an Assistant Center Director at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Andrew M. Geller is a Senior Science Advisor at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Durham, North Carolina, USA.*These authors contributed equally to this work and are considered to be cofirst authors.Search for more papers by this author, Kathleen C. WilliamsDr. Emily Eisenhauer is a Social Scientist Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Kathleen C. Williams is a Geographer at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Camilla Warren is an Environmental Engineer and Brownfields and Land Revitalization Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Tami Thomas-Burton is a Public Health Specialist and Regional Environmental Justice Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dr. Susan Julius is an Assistant Center Director at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Andrew M. Geller is a Senior Science Advisor at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Durham, North Carolina, USA.*These authors contributed equally to this work and are considered to be cofirst authors.Search for more papers by this author, Camilla WarrenDr. Emily Eisenhauer is a Social Scientist Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Kathleen C. Williams is a Geographer at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Camilla Warren is an Environmental Engineer and Brownfields and Land Revitalization Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Tami Thomas-Burton is a Public Health Specialist and Regional Environmental Justice Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dr. Susan Julius is an Assistant Center Director at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Andrew M. Geller is a Senior Science Advisor at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Durham, North Carolina, USA.Search for more papers by this author, Tami Thomas-BurtonDr. Emily Eisenhauer is a Social Scientist Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Kathleen C. Williams is a Geographer at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Camilla Warren is an Environmental Engineer and Brownfields and Land Revitalization Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Tami Thomas-Burton is a Public Health Specialist and Regional Environmental Justice Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dr. Susan Julius is an Assistant Center Director at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Andrew M. Geller is a Senior Science Advisor at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Durham, North Carolina, USA.Search for more papers by this author, Susan JuliusDr. Emily Eisenhauer is a Social Scientist Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Kathleen C. Williams is a Geographer at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Camilla Warren is an Environmental Engineer and Brownfields and Land Revitalization Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Tami Thomas-Burton is a Public Health Specialist and Regional Environmental Justice Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dr. Susan Julius is an Assistant Center Director at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Andrew M. Geller is a Senior Science Advisor at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Durham, North Carolina, USA.Search for more papers by this author, and Andrew M. GellerDr. Emily Eisenhauer is a Social Scientist Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Kathleen C. Williams is a Geographer at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Camilla Warren is an Environmental Engineer and Brownfields and Land Revitalization Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Tami Thomas-Burton is a Public Health Specialist and Regional Environmental Justice Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dr. Susan Julius is an Assistant Center Director at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Dr. Andrew M. Geller is a Senior Science Advisor at the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Durham, North Carolina, USA.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:4 Oct 2021https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2021.0019AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail INTRODUCTIONThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) mission is to protect human health and the environment for all people and communities in the United States, guided by environmental science. However, the traditional scientific approaches that support the agency's work, such as risk analysis and assessment, have well-known limitations for advancing Environmental Justice (EJ).1,2 The dependence upon particular kinds of data analysis can lead to delays, failure to consider multiple and cumulative stressors and underlying conditions, limited choices for remediation, and reinforcement of existing power relationships without engaging communities.3As a result, communities and tribes often report feeling like objects of research rather than collaborators,4 having little control over research or how data developed within their communities were used and reported and too often finding few material benefits from the research.5 However, using research approaches that encourage new and more democratic ways of doing science brings community members into the process and provides a way for them to be active contributors to research that informs community solutions. Such approaches are showing significant potential to address EJ issues.6Residents of the Proctor Creek watershed, a 16 square mile area between downtown Atlanta and the Chattahoochee River,7 have long raised concerns about contamination of the creek. As early as 1901, Black leaders protested sewage releases in the creek, leading the city to install one of the first sewage plants.8 By the early 2000s, extensive development and impervious surfaces over the headwaters of the creek frequently resulted in downstream flooding and combined sewer overflows (CSOs) that caused the creek to overflow its banks and sewers to back up into homes.9 Neighborhood organizations and community members have conducted extensive community research and citizen science documenting these conditions, including sewage releases, illegal dumping, mosquitoes, and unhealthy housing conditions due to inundation from flash flooding and compromised water quality.10Despite this long history of activism, Proctor Creek is one of many examples11 where environmental injustices have persisted, with resolutions delayed by lack of recognition and the limitations of formal regulatory processes. EPA's definition of EJ calls for "fair treatment and meaningful involvement" in the process of environmental protection,12 but numerous institutional, legal, cultural, and individual barriers have hindered the realization of this vision.13 Indeed, fair and meaningful may be contested terms, understood differently by residents and city officials or other experts14 and not seen as meaningful or as having a satisfactory impact on outcomes.15 Given this array of limitations, scholars now argue that meaningful EJ work requires a deeper theoretical foundation for EJ that goes beyond distributional and procedural justice and includes attention to recognition and capabilities.16 Recognitional justice is based on the understanding that failure to acknowledge the lifeways, culture, and values of those affected by environmental problems devalues individuals and communities, thereby allowing injustice to exist.17 Capabilities justice acknowledges that equity cannot be achieved without attention to the contexts in which people live, and to the provision of goods and opportunities for people to participate in governing processes and that allow them to live the life they chose.18 Distributional, procedural, recognitional, and capabilities justice are intertwined; without recognition and capabilities, fair distribution and meaningful involvement cannot be achieved.19In this commentary, we provide an example of how a broader conceptualization of EJ that includes these four dimensions can elevate community voices to achieve more just outcomes. In Proctor Creek, although the EPA Region 4 Office was supporting local efforts to return the creek to Clean Water Act compliance through technical assistance and small grants, residents felt that their concerns about the impacts of flooding and contamination were not being adequately addressed and asked EPA to become more involved in addressing these EJ issues. Recognizing that the communities in the watershed were experiencing environmental injustice, the EPA Regional Office began a concerted effort to engage and build long-term relationships with the communities in the watershed, which brought additional attention and resources to the concerns of residents. As part of this engagement, EPA initiated a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) to study how implementing Green Infrastructure (GI) in the watershed could address their EJ concerns.20 This assessment process provided a path for meaningful engagement among the community, stakeholders, and EPA through the recognition of community concerns, a procedure to facilitate engagement with citizens and agencies, and a fairer distribution of environmental goods through the addition of GI. By using health as an integrating concept and HIA as a methodology, community and government stakeholders were able to take concrete steps to address the interrelated issues of poor water quality, flooding, environmental degradation, public health impacts, and lack of economic opportunity, enabling them to be considered together while implementing GI projects, thereby improving community capabilities. In this commentary, we demonstrate the promise of HIA's and community engaged approaches generally as a way for EPA to address EJ issues, and argue for an expanded approach to EJ that incorporates these four dimensions to create the conditions for collaborative solutions that have material impact on the human health and environment in our communities.THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN EJ RESEARCH AND PRACTICEWhile early EJ research on the distribution of exposures and impacts was critical to advancing the emerging EJ movement,21 the field has broadened to include issues of access to environmental amenities, long-term community resilience, and promotion of health and well-being,22 and to incorporate additional dimensions of justice, namely recognitional justice and the capabilities approach.23 Recognitional justice ensures individuals' and communities' claims for participation in decision making affecting them are acknowledged and enacted.24 Recognition of one's culture, identity, and place in society underlies one's ability to participate as a full member of society, and thus, misrecognition hinders both procedural and distributional justice. EJ researchers are demonstrating how the lens of recognition can introduce specific knowledge related to a community's culture, history, or economic situation, which may be left out of risk analysis, a technical scientific process to identify acceptable amounts, toxicity, and exposure potential for a chemical.25 For example, Holifield26 traced the ways that the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe's (LLBO) struggle for recognition of their tribal territory and culture played a role in a risk assessment process at a Superfund site. EPA's failure to adequately recognize the tribe, their culture, and relationship to the land in the original research led to potentially greater risk of exposure for tribal members. The LLBO's demands for recognition led to greater consideration of their traditional tribal lifeways and local knowledge in the risk assessment process, and, in turn, led to results that were more appropriate for their interactions with the environment than are the national standards that are based on more suburban lifeways. The LLBO example illustrates how the complicated relationship between indigenous groups and the U.S. government, still largely based on colonial ways of knowing and being, means that only partial recognition may be possible and shows how lifeways and experiences can be rendered invisible unless tribes affirmatively assert their rights.The capabilities approach to justice grew out of the human development work of Amartya Sen27 and Martha Nussbaum28 and "focuses on the specific range of basic needs and capabilities (including recognition) that human beings require to function."29 For Nussbaum, capabilities are the opportunities for functioning and choice that are available to people, and which is each person's human right, and the capabilities approach is "concerned with whether people are able to translate those protections and goods into actual achievements that characterize a life that is worthy of the dignity of human beings (p. 321)."30 Examples of capabilities are economic and social relations and resources, physical and mental health, emotional resources, and control over one's environment. Capabilities are the "real freedoms" that are "not merely the formal freedom to do or be something, but the substantial opportunity to achieve it."31 For Sen, functioning is actualized through choice,32 which in the context of governing requires additional consideration to ensure that agencies facilitate public input processes that are transparent, genuinely consider input, and are not perfunctory. Capabilities, distribution, recognition, and procedural justice are interconnected; scholars argue that it may be impossible to achieve justice of capabilities unless there is intentional focus on distributional justice, which requires some type of redistribution of environmental "bads" and "goods". It may aslo be impossible to achieve such redistribution without recognition and meaningful procedure.33Public engagement procedures by governmental agencies, including EPA, are formal meetings, often held toward the end of the research or decision and organized to fulfill agency requirements by streamlining the collection of public input.34 This type of formal process reflects structural inequalities in society, discouraging participation by community members who do not feel comfortable in those settings or feel their input will not impact any change.35 Recommended improvements to these processes, such as those developed by the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee,36 incorporate principles from recognitional and capabilities justice as well as procedural justice to make community engagement processes more meaningful and effective. Research by environmental agencies can also facilitate new modes of engagement that serve both communities and the agency. EJ can be advanced by conducting research that demonstrates the ways in which communities are misrecognized or denied the necessary capabilities, and incorporates recognitional and capabilities justice in the research process.37 While EPA has supported community engaged research externally for some time,38 it has more recently begun to build greater capacity for community engaged approaches through partnerships between the EPA ORD and EPA Regional offices, which administer EPA programs and policies with their states and lead agency efforts to address environmental issues at the community level. Through these efforts, research is playing a role in addressing EJ issues that goes beyond traditional distributional and procedural justice approaches.One approach that holds significant promise for incorporating recognitional and capabilities justice into EPA's community engagement processes is Health Impact Assessment (HIA). HIA features significant stakeholder engagement and community participation at the beginning and throughout the process as part of the methodology and is based on core values of democracy and health equity. HIAs assess how social determinants of health, which are related to capabilities in that they call attention to factors underlying health and well-being, are impacted by policy changes.39 HIAs that analyze impacts on environmental decisions further address environmental decisions as a "meta-capability," which Holland40 argues are instrumental to all other capabilities in supporting the health of individuals and communities.EPA has worked with community and government partners to evaluate and pilot HIAs in the context of local decision making around flooding and sanitary sewer issues, school renovation, and site remediation41 to determine whether community-engaged equitable processes yield decision outcomes that result in long-lasting benefits to the community. In the following section, we provide an example of HIA and Story Mapping conducted in the Proctor Creek watershed in Atlanta, Georgia, as an example of how research and science-based decision processes can incorporate recognitional and capabilities justice, in addition to furthering distributional and procedural justice.RECOGNITIONAL AND CAPABILITIES JUSTICE IN HIA AND STORY MAPPING IN THE PROCTOR CREEK WATERSHEDIn this section, we first describe how the HIA and Story Map unfolded and then follow with a discussion of how these activities incorporated the four dimensions of justice, and the impacts and limitations of this approach.A thriving area in the first half of the twentieth century, environmental and economic conditions in the Proctor Creek watershed have declined since midcentury due to disinvestment and population decline driven by urban renewal and suburbanization, with several neighborhoods in the watershed experiencing high poverty, unemployment, vacancy, and crime rates.42 Although within walking distance of downtown Atlanta, physical barriers such as a highway and convention complex inhibit connectivity, and issues related to the creek such as flooding, dumping, and contamination are significant barriers to economic activity. Community members and community-based organizations (CBOs) such as the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, Eco-Action, and neighborhood groups had been active for some time in promoting better environmental conditions through water sampling and cleanup activities, educational programs, and advocacy with the city of Atlanta.43 Interest among these groups and the city in GI as part of the solution to the problems stemming from the degraded condition of the creek was growing, and in 2009, neighborhood residents reached out to a local nonprofit organization Park Pride to investigate GI solutions to stormwater issues. Park Pride led a coalition of neighborhood residents and organizations in identifying flood-prone areas and developing a plan for implementing GI and increasing green space in the watershed, culminating in a major report, the 128-page Proctor Creek North Avenue Watershed Basin study.44The city identified funding to implement a demonstration project from the plan, the "Boone Boulevard Complete Streets Project," to address water quality issues and relieve the burden on the existing inadequate stormwater infrastructure. Community and government stakeholders recognized that the issues of poor water quality, flooding, environmental degradation, public health impacts, and lack of economic opportunity were interrelated and needed to be considered together in implementing GI projects to adequately address EJ concerns. EPA, as part of its efforts to expand engagement with community stakeholders and support their efforts, proposed conducting an HIA. The HIA would elevate community concerns and integrate these concerns and community knowledge around health issues with scientific knowledge to provide evidence-based recommendations to the city for addressing the problems with the creek and its impacts in the neighborhoods. Discussions with community leaders, the city, and other stakeholders determined that there was sufficient interest and willingness to participate in the HIA, and the city provided information on specific points in the project planning process where information from the HIA could inform decisions.HIA is defined by the National Research Council as "a systematic process that uses an array of data sources and analytical methods and considers input from stakeholders to determine the potential effects of a proposed policy, plan, program or project on the health of a population and the distribution of those impacts within the population (NRC 2011)." The HIA methodology begins with collaborative problem formulation based on the social determinants of health and uses an iterative approach with community engagement throughout the process. It includes building an evidence base to assess the potential impacts of different development options on community- and other stakeholder-defined objectives, especially health impacts. HIA follows a rigorous six-step process: (1) screening, (2) scoping, (3) assessment, (4) recommendations, (5) reporting, and (6) monitoring and evaluation. The process involves working with a team of community members stakeholders to identify potential health risks and benefits of a proposed policy, program, or plan, such as the Boone Boulevard project, from the earliest part of the process to then guide its implementation and maximize positive impacts while minimizing negative ones.The Boone Blvd Project HIA was led by Region 4 and EPA's Office of Research and Development with a core team responsible for the heavy lifting of data collection, analysis, and project management. The core team worked closely with a group of CBO representatives and other community members and leaders, and an advisory group that provided technical expertise and local knowledge and included representatives from multiple EPA Region 4 divisions, CBOs, City and County departments, six federal agencies in the Urban Waters Federal Partnership (UWFP), universities, and the state of Georgia (Table 1). During the conceptual design stage with the city, points were identified in the planning process where the HIA could influence decision making. The process included gathering community input on key concerns, conducting a literature review, and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data to characterize and rate potential impacts of decision alternatives on the strength of the evidence. Community input was used during the scoping phase to identify 12 health determinants for study, including water and air quality, flood management, economy and jobs, social capital, access to green space, and health care, and to refine and score final recommendations.Table 1. Stakeholder Participation in the Boone Boulevard Health Impact AssessmentHIA core project teamEPA Region 4, EPA ORD, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, WAWA, Georgia State University, Fulton County Department of Health and WellnessHIA advisory groupFederal AgenciesCDC, HUD, USDA Forest Service, FEMA Region IV, Federal Highway AdministrationState AgenciesGeorgia Department of Transportation, Georgia Department of Public Health, Georgia Environmental Protection DivisionLocal Public AgenciesCity of Atlanta Deparment of Planning and Community Development, City of Atlanta Neighborhood Planning Unit, Atlanta Regional Commission, City of Atlanta Department of Waste Management, Invest AtlantaNGOsThe Conservation Fund, WAWA, Atlanta Beltline, Inc., Trust for Public Lands, Environmental Community Action, Inc., English Avenue Neighborhood Association, Park Pride, Community Improvement Association, Inc., Chattahoochee RiverkeeperAcademic InstitutionsGeorgia State University, Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State University, Spelman University, Emory UniversityCDC, Centers for Disease Control; EPA, Environmental Protection Agency; FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency; HIA, Health Impact Assessment; HUD, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; USDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture; WAWA, West Atlanta Watershed Alliance.After the HIA report was released in 2016, community members expressed the desire to have a format that would make information about health concerns and GI projects for the entire watershed more easily accessible. EPA worked with a group of CBO and community leaders to produce a Story Map,45 an online platform for displaying maps and textual information, that provides information about additional GI projects being implemented throughout the watershed and displays data on watershed areas most likely to experience flooding, heat impacts, and mosquito infestations, noting those as locations where future GI projects could have the greatest benefit for the community. The Story Map is a coproduced resource that makes the HIA findings more widely available than a standard report document because it is highly visual and interactive. It provides additional resources to support inclusion of residents' health and quality-of-life concerns in GI project planning implementation in the watershed, although it does not include project-specific recommendations.The HIA findings and recommendations were intended to be applicable to the Boone Blvd Project as well as support further GI projects in the watershed. The Boone Blvd Complete Streets project was expanded by the city of Atlanta into a more robust GI program, portions of which were funded by private foundations and the first ever publicly offered Environmental Impact Bond.46 Through the efforts of the partners convened for the HIA, the watershed is now home to 21 completed or planned GI projects, both publicly and privately funded (EPA 2020). The Army Corps of Engineers completed an Ecosystem Restoration Study47 as part of an agreement with the city of Atlanta that included working with community members, CBO leaders, and the UWFP. As a result of the ongoing community and CBO "Parks with Purpose" initiative,48 two parks were created with GI features, one that, at the request of community members, included an underground cistern for holding potentially contaminated stormwater to further reduce flooding risk. The parks provide recreation and social space, and local residents were trained and employed in construction of the parks. These parks and other GI projects contribute to the equitable distribution of environmental amenities, including ecosystem services such as flood control, green space, and clean waterways in Atlanta.DISCUSSIONAgyeman et al. note that "the concepts and practices of EJ are open to, and encompass, varied notions of justice as they apply to given contexts and concerns."49 We would contend that the HIA was an open and transparent process, where input from the community was recognized and meaningfully considered—reflecting both recognitional justice and capabilities in addition to enhancing the distributional and procedural justice aspects. Table 2 illustrates how the Boone Boulevard Project HIA goals reflect each dimension of justice. Goal 1 reflected procedural and recognitional justice by actively involving those who are directly impacted in decision making, going beyond simple public comment, and legitimizing their observati