Outreach to Impacted Communities

[Connie Tucker <socejp@igc.org>]

I am Connie Tucker with the Southern Organizing Community for Economic and Social Justice and the African American Environmental Justice Action Network.  Both are southwide organizations that address environmental assaults primarily and strategies to achieve environmental justice in communities of color and low-income communities.

Although EPA must involve all stakeholders, we believe that the major stakeholders are those adversely impacted by environmental assaults and their early notification and involvement in discourse with EPA is essential and primary.  To this end, informing and identifying the impacted community is the first step to outreach to affected communities.  This first step should start with communities that are located fence-line to the assault and follow all exposure routes, i.e. surface waters, e.g. channels, creeks, etc. that may carry contaminants away from the site.  Fence-line communities also get the major hit from air borne pollutants, but down-wind communities are also impacted.  Informing and identifying the impacted community as the first step was comprehensively covered by Betty Winter in her comments at 09:08 and should be reviewed.  As she indicated, use of a variety of outreach avenues is most effective, radio and television public service announcements and talk shows, news stories; newspaper paid ads, public service announcements, and news stories, public meetings and meetings with neighborhood and community organizations, open houses and the like.  Letters to impacted residents are more effective when these other avenues are employed.  Churches and libraries are a good place to distribute information, also barber and beauty shops; any place where impacted residents frequent. Bottom line, EPA, must role up its sleeves to inform and involve the impacted community.  One of the most effective outreach strategies is to intimately involve impacted community organizations that have been formed to address the environmental assault or existing impacted community orgnaizations that address the assault as a primary goal of the organization.  These orgnaizations, called environmental justice organizations are more effective than the best EPA outreach in informing and involving the affected community.

A word of caution, we have observed the creation of sham organizations to thwart the efforts and influence of vocal impacted community organizations.  EPA must avoid empowering sham organizations.  An organization representing the impacted community should have the support of the impacted community and it should provide information and outreach and conduct community meetings at the very least.