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2013 Spring | Environmental Justice, Policy & Regulation

Air Pollution and Environmental Justice in EPA Region 10

Student(s):

Carlos Cruz

Program or Department(s):

  • Program on the Environment
  • University of Washington

Site supervisor(s):

Madonna Narcaez

Partner(s):

  • United States Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10

Faculty advisor(s):

Charles Tresser, Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington

During my time with the Environmental Protection Agency Region 10’s Air Toxics unit, I worked with a new screening tool the agency has adopted called Environmental Justice Screening or EJSCREEN. As the name suggests, EJSCREEN is a nationally consistent EJ screening tool in use by the agency that takes into account environmental factors such as air toxics respiratory risk as well as demographics. The program identified multiple vulnerable communities in order to assign priorities. In addition, I designed a decision making model in order to prioritize communities in terms of which were at the greatest risk for air toxics.