In limbo: Will Washington codify environmental justice into law?
Posted on Jul 12, 2020 by Guy Oron, Thea White, Frances Lee and Jadenne Radoc Cabahug
Since this article was written in collaboration with other fellows, below are the sections that I wrote. To read the full story, click on the link above.
In Ekua-Yaaba Monkah’s neighborhood, Tukwila-Allentown residents carry a higher risk of death from cardiovascular diseases and all types of cancer due to environmental pollution in their community.
Prior to her internship with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (PSCAA), Monkah was unaware of the pollution in her community. However, during her time with the PSCAA, she was shown the environmental disparities on a color coded map between places like her hometown in Tukwila and Chinatown-International District in comparison to places like Northgate or Mercer Island.
The Washington State Environmental Health Disparities Map highlights colors ranging from blue (typically good) to red (typically bad).
Monkah’s home just south of Seattle rested in a sea of red, indicating the worst environmental impacts in that particular legislative district.
“That was the moment where I realized that this was such a huge issue and [it] also startled me because I [didn’t] know about this and I’m sure that a lot of other community members and residents in these high polluted areas don’t know either,” Monkah said.
Most residents are not even aware that their zip code reflects the chances of environmental factors influencing their health. This is subject to change with the fairly recent established Washington State Environmental Health Disparities Map.
Monkah’s community is only one of the many marginalized minority communities that are subject to environmental injustice because of socio-economic factors, disproportionate environmental hazards, economic insecurity and racist housing policies.
During the 2019 legislative session in Olympia, the proposed Healthy Environment for All Act (HEAL) promised to prioritize and address directly impacted communities. However,the legislature failed to pass the bill after a grueling legislative process of proposed substitutions, amendments, and committees.
In its place: a temporary task force where agencies such as Front and Centered, the Association of Washington Business, and Senator Rebecca Saldaña’s office are working together to ensure environmental justice into law. Saldaña, D-Seattle, initially proposed the bill and said that the task force is looking to understand and direct how the circumstances revealed within the Washington State Environmental Health Disparities Mapping Tool will shape public policy.
The Task Force is set to ave a final report for the Washington state legislature and Governor by Oct. 31, which would restart the legislative process to codify environmental justice into law as Saldaña originally intended.
Saldaña wanted Washington to shine a lens of equity on the state’s environmental work. She ended up with a temporary task force to create a report with no set definition of its usage, forcing environmental justice into limbo on Washington. It remains only a potential with no definite when or how despite the strong effect of climate change on communities of color.
Prior to her internship with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (PSCAA), Monkah was unaware of the pollution in her community. However, during her time with the PSCAA, she was shown the environmental disparities on a color coded map between places like her hometown in Tukwila and Chinatown-International District in comparison to places like Northgate or Mercer Island.
The Washington State Environmental Health Disparities Map highlights colors ranging from blue (typically good) to red (typically bad).
Monkah’s home just south of Seattle rested in a sea of red, indicating the worst environmental impacts in that particular legislative district.
“That was the moment where I realized that this was such a huge issue and [it] also startled me because I [didn’t] know about this and I’m sure that a lot of other community members and residents in these high polluted areas don’t know either,” Monkah said.
Most residents are not even aware that their zip code reflects the chances of environmental factors influencing their health. This is subject to change with the fairly recent established Washington State Environmental Health Disparities Map.
Monkah’s community is only one of the many marginalized minority communities that are subject to environmental injustice because of socio-economic factors, disproportionate environmental hazards, economic insecurity and racist housing policies.
During the 2019 legislative session in Olympia, the proposed Healthy Environment for All Act (HEAL) promised to prioritize and address directly impacted communities. However,the legislature failed to pass the bill after a grueling legislative process of proposed substitutions, amendments, and committees.
In its place: a temporary task force where agencies such as Front and Centered, the Association of Washington Business, and Senator Rebecca Saldaña’s office are working together to ensure environmental justice into law. Saldaña, D-Seattle, initially proposed the bill and said that the task force is looking to understand and direct how the circumstances revealed within the Washington State Environmental Health Disparities Mapping Tool will shape public policy.
The Task Force is set to ave a final report for the Washington state legislature and Governor by Oct. 31, which would restart the legislative process to codify environmental justice into law as Saldaña originally intended.
Saldaña wanted Washington to shine a lens of equity on the state’s environmental work. She ended up with a temporary task force to create a report with no set definition of its usage, forcing environmental justice into limbo on Washington. It remains only a potential with no definite when or how despite the strong effect of climate change on communities of color.
Toward HEALing
While the coming legislative session is months away, the task force is busy working to see how the map can be applied in Washington, said David Mendoza, Director of Government Affairs at Front and Centered and the co-chair of the Environmental Justice Task Force. When meeting, they break into groups to have neighborhood-based conversations so they can hear directly from the public.
“We thought that it’s a better way to give people an opportunity to tell us about the concerns they see,” he said, “and it’s better than the two minute public testimony format – we also do that, but we add onto it by having these deeper conversations.”
The task force is still currently holding public meetings in various locations through August 2020, to develop recommendations for state agencies on how to best utilize the map. They are expected to create a final report for the Washington state legislature and Governor by October 31, 2020.
Out of the organizations that endorsed the HEAL Act’s initial bill, most agencies like Shift Zero and PSCAA who work with communities on environmental issues anticipate and support the work of the task force.
Mendoza says that the HEAL Act was the first step in addressing the environmental concerns of Washington localities. Every community will need a unique, targeted approach.
“Each of the problems you face in these communities are multi-faceted and will take a broader range of work and services to address health disparities, the level of pollution and toxics we find, but that simply directing government focus and work on that is a significant step for it,” said Mendoza.
Whether the task force is enough to mitigate the environmental damage already done and prevent further harm in most impacted communities is yet to be seen. Supporting agencies of the original HEAL Act and community members are optimistic for the recommendations the task force will produce, and how state agencies will use that information. The HEAL Act and the new Environmental Health Disparities Map represent a solid springboard for future policies to be created to reduce the burdens of those most directly affected by environmental health risks and diseases.
Henry said he’s encouraged, watching Mendoza leading the charge on this task force, that environmental justice is headed in the right direction in Olympia.
“To see a group of agency heads huddled around an advocate from a nonprofit organization just rapt with attention and wanting to hear what he has to say, that’s a win,” he said. “But ultimately, that could all be more nothing if we don’t take action.”
“We thought that it’s a better way to give people an opportunity to tell us about the concerns they see,” he said, “and it’s better than the two minute public testimony format – we also do that, but we add onto it by having these deeper conversations.”
The task force is still currently holding public meetings in various locations through August 2020, to develop recommendations for state agencies on how to best utilize the map. They are expected to create a final report for the Washington state legislature and Governor by October 31, 2020.
Out of the organizations that endorsed the HEAL Act’s initial bill, most agencies like Shift Zero and PSCAA who work with communities on environmental issues anticipate and support the work of the task force.
Mendoza says that the HEAL Act was the first step in addressing the environmental concerns of Washington localities. Every community will need a unique, targeted approach.
“Each of the problems you face in these communities are multi-faceted and will take a broader range of work and services to address health disparities, the level of pollution and toxics we find, but that simply directing government focus and work on that is a significant step for it,” said Mendoza.
Whether the task force is enough to mitigate the environmental damage already done and prevent further harm in most impacted communities is yet to be seen. Supporting agencies of the original HEAL Act and community members are optimistic for the recommendations the task force will produce, and how state agencies will use that information. The HEAL Act and the new Environmental Health Disparities Map represent a solid springboard for future policies to be created to reduce the burdens of those most directly affected by environmental health risks and diseases.
Henry said he’s encouraged, watching Mendoza leading the charge on this task force, that environmental justice is headed in the right direction in Olympia.
“To see a group of agency heads huddled around an advocate from a nonprofit organization just rapt with attention and wanting to hear what he has to say, that’s a win,” he said. “But ultimately, that could all be more nothing if we don’t take action.”
This investigative piece was reported by The Seattle Globalist’s Environmental Justice Investigative Journalism Fellowship Program. Four fellows worked on investigating, reporting and writing as a team and will be producing their own individual piece through summer 2020. The Fellowship was made possible by The Environmental Justice Fund from the City of Seattle’s Office of Sustainability and Environment in partnership with the Seattle Foundation.