Environmental Justice neighborhoods are the focus of the state's Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs' (EEA) Environmental Justice (EJ) Policy, which establishes EJ as an integral consideration in all EEA programs, to the extent applicable and allowable by law. For more information please visit EEA's Environmental Justice Web page, which includes a detailed fact sheet as well as text of the full policy.More details...Polygons in the 2020 Environmental Justice (EJ) Populations layer are 2020 Census block groups across the state that meet one or more of the criteria listed below. (i) the annual median household income is not more than 65 percent of the statewide annual median household income; (ii) minorities comprise 40 percent or more of the population; (iii) 25 percent or more of households lack English language proficiency; or (iv) minorities comprise 25 percent or more of the population and the annual median household income of the municipality in which the neighborhood is located does not exceed 150 percent of the statewide annual median household income.Map service also available.

The three criteria defined in Chapter 8 of the Acts of 2020 were evaluated with American Community Survey 2015-2019 5-year-estimatetables:Percent block group Median Household Income as percent of MA Median Household Income: Table B19013(B19013_001E / 85843) * 100MA median HHI 2019: $85,843 Table: DP03 (5-yr estimate)==> Any Block Group with a median HHI as percent of the MA median HHI in 2019 (B19013) less than or equal to 65.49 [56,220] was designated an EJ population.English Language Isolation: Table C16002(C16002_004E:Estimate!!Total:!!Spanish:!!Limited English speaking household +C16002_007E: Estimate!!Total:!!Other Indo-European languages:!!Limited English speaking household +C16002_010E: Estimate!!Total:!!Asian and Pacific Island languages:!!Limited English speaking household +C16002_013E: Estimate!!Total:!!Other languages:!!Limited English speaking household) /C16002_001E: Estimate!!Total: *100==> Any Block Group with 24.5% or more limited English-speaking households was designated an EJ population.Percent Minority Population: Table B03002: ((B03002_001E:Estimate!!Total: - B03002_003E:Estimate!!Total:!!Not Hispanic or Latino:!!White alone)/ B03002_001E:Estimate!!Total:) * 100==> All block groups with 39.5% or more minority population were designated an EJ population. ==> All block groups with a minority population between 24.5% and 39.5% AND with a MHHI less than 150.5% of the state MHHI were designated an EJ population. Additional data adjustments:Block groups with a total population of less than 25 were removed.

Map applications included arethe November 2022 release of the updated 2020 block groups designated as EJ2020 EJ attributes for all MA block groupsLanguages spoken within census tract ACS data from 2015 and DESE data from 2021 (2022?)Redlining in Massachusetts

Environmental Justice 2010 Populations

Current, March 2024 revision, IMPO Environmental Justice Areas based on 2020 Census Block Groups selected by the 2020 MPA boundary. https://www.indympo.org/maps-and-data/maps/demographics-environmental-justice “Environmental Justice (EJ) refers to the process of evaluating and analyzing the planning process in reference to the most disadvantaged populations. Environmental Justice populations are identified by the federal government as low-income and minority populations. As part of our planning process, we evaluate the impact our projects have on these populations." “For each census block group within the Metropolitan Planning Area, 2022 ACS Five-Year data was used to compare the rate* of a specific EJ population within the block group to the rate of that population in the overall region. The map identifies which EJ populations for each block group exceed the regional rate for that population. Because the IMPO is federally mandated to consider the benefits to and burdens of minoritized people and low-income households, those categories are specifically highlighted in the map and considered to be Environmental Justice Areas of Attention (EJAs). The map also identifies five other EJ populations including people with limited English proficiency, low educational attainment, households with no automobiles available, people over the age of 65, and households with disabilities. These groups are not federally mandated for consideration but are indicated here by the IMPO because they can also be disproportionately impacted by transportation projects."

The Environmental Justice Index (EJI) is a tool that may aid in identifying environmental justice populations using demographic data at the Census block group and Tract levels. This dataset includes raw data associated with the EJI at the Block Group level. Consult the user guide for more information.Executive Order 12898 defines environmental justice populations as low-income and minority groups. This rule states that federally-funded agencies must identify and address disproportionately high and adverse impacts of their programs, policies, and activities on environmental justice populations. In addition, Executive Order 13985, signed on January 20, 2021, requires the federal government to pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity. Equity is defined as “the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals,” including people of color, religious minorities, LGBTQ+ persons, people with disabilities, people who live in rural areas, and people “otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.” This order may affect how equity is addressed in transportation planning in the future.The Environmental Justice Index can support implementation of US Department of Transportation environmental justice principles during transportation planning and project delivery. Because federal transportation agencies recommend against using bright-line thresholds while identifying environmental justice populations, the regional percentages in the Environmental Justice Index should be a starting point for planning, analysis, and outreach. Communities in block groups below the regional percentage threshold should not be excluded. The applications described below are synthesized from educational materials developed and published by federal transportation agencies and from analyses conducted by NCTCOG. The applications may not be appropriate for all analyses and do not represent all potential uses of environmental justice data.

EJSCREEN is an environmental justice mapping and screening tool that provides EPA with a nationally consistent dataset and approach for combining environmental and demographic indicators. EJSCREEN users choose a geographic area; the tool then provides demographic and environmental information for that area. All of the EJSCREEN indicators are publicly-available data. EJSCREEN simply provides a way to display this information and includes a method for combining environmental and demographic indicators into EJ indexes.

EJSCREEN includes:

11 environmental indicators 6 demographic indicators 11 EJ indexes

Link Downloaded here

Environmental Justice neighborhoods are the focus of the state's Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs' (EEA) Environmental Justice (EJ) Policy, which establishes EJ as an integral consideration in all EEA programs, to the extent applicable and allowable by law. For more information please visit EEA's Environmental Justice Web page, which includes a detailed fact sheet as well as text of the full policy.Polygons in the 2020 Environmental Justice (EJ) Populations layer are 2020 Census block groups across the state that meet one or more of the criteria listed below. (i) the annual median household income is not more than 65 percent of the statewide annual median household income; (ii) minorities comprise 40 percent or more of the population; (iii) 25 percent or more of households lack English language proficiency; or (iv) minorities comprise 25 percent or more of the population and the annual median household income of the municipality in which the neighborhood is located does not exceed 150 percent of the statewide annual median household income.More details...Feature service also available.

Environmental Justice areas in this guide have been defined by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The Department defines an environmental justice area as any census tract where at least 20 percent of the population lives in poverty, and/or 30 percent or more of the population is minority.

Support for Health Equity datasets and tools provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) through their Health Equity Initiative.

Potential Environmental Justice Areas (PEJA) is defined in the PEJA field. PEJA's have been identified based on data from the 2014-2018 5-year American Community Survey (ACS), conducted by the US Census Bureau. Environmental justice efforts focus on improving the environment in communities, specifically minority and low-income communities, and addressing disproportionate adverse environmental impacts that may exist in those communities. The information balloon for each census block group area displays the census block group ID, population, percent minority, percent below poverty level, county, municipality, and a link to more information on the Department of Environmental Conservation's website https://www.dec.ny.gov/public/333.html The data was collected by the US Census Bureau as part of the American Community Survey. Reported income and race/ethnicity data were analyzed by OEJ to determine the presence of Potential Environmental Justice Areas. The designated areas are then considered for additional outreach within the permitting process, for grant eligibility, and for targeted enforcement of Environmental Conservation Law violations. Utilized established methods as originally detailed in the Interim Environmental Justice Policy, US EPA Region 2, December 2000, and recommended by the Environmental Justice Advisory Group, Recommendations for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Environmental Justice Program, January 2, 2002. Individual thresholds for low-income populations (statewide), minority populations (rural communities), and minority populations (urban communities) were determined by using ArcGIS 10.3 (used to indicate if census block groups overlapped Census designated urban areas) and IBM SPSS Statistics 26 (to conduct a K-means clustering algorithm on ACS data for the three categories).View Dataset on the Gateway

The Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG) is committed to ensuring fairness and equity in its transportation planning activities.This webmap includes information on the following Environmental Justice populations:- Racial minorities: Black or African-American, Asian, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Some Other Race, Two or More Races- Hispanic/Latino ethnicity origin populations- Limited English Proficiency populations- Elderly populations: any person age 65 and over- Young populations: any person age 17 and under- Populations with a disability- Low-income households- Single female-headed households- Zero-car householdsSpatial data developed from the American Community Survey 2020 5-year estimates by block group or census tract.

Environmental Justice 2023 Set is comprised of two layers: Environmental Justice Block Groups 2023 and Environmental Justice Distressed Municipality 2023. All Census and ACS data used in the creation of these data are the latest available from the Census at time of calculation. Environmental Justice Block Groups 2023 was created from Connecticut block group boundary data located in the Census Bureau's 2022 Block Group TIGER/Line Shapefiles. The poverty data used to determine which block groups qualified as EJ communities (see CT State statute 22a-20a) was based on the Census Bureau's 2021 ACS 5-year estimate. This poverty data was joined with the block group boundaries in ArcPro. Block groups in which the percent of the population below 200% of the federal poverty level was greater than or equal to 30.0 were selected and the resulting selection was exported as a new shapefile. The block groups were then clipped so that only those block groups outside of distressed municipalities were displayed. Maintenance – This layer will be updated annually and will coincide with the annual distressed municipalities update (around August/September). The latest ACS 5-year estimate data should be used to update this layer. Environmental Justice Distressed Municipalities 2023 was created from the Connecticut town boundary data located in the Census Bureau's 2022 TIGER/Line Shapefiles (County Subdivisions). From this shapefile, "select by attribute" was used to select the distressed municipalities by town name (note: the list of 2023 distressed municipalities was provided by the CT Department of Economic and Community Development). The selection was then exported a new shapefile. The “Union” tool was used to unite the new shapefile with tribal lands (American Indian Area Geography) boundary data from the 2020 TIGER/Line files. In the resulting layer, the tribal lands were deleted so only the distressed municipalities remained. Maintenance – This layer will be updated annually when the DECD produces its new list of distressed municipalities (around August/September).Note: A distressed municipality, as designated by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, includes municipalities that no longer meet the threshold requirements but are still in a 5-year grace period. (See definition at CGS Sec. 32-9p(b).) Fitting into that grace period, ten towns continue to be eligible for distressed municipality benefits because they dropped off the list within the last five years. Those are Bristol, Enfield, Groton, Killingly, Naugatuck, New Haven, North Stonington, Plainfield, Preston, and Stratford.

Abstract

MEJ aims to create easy-to-use, publicly-available maps that paint a holistic picture of intersecting environmental, social, and health impacts experienced by communities across the US.

With guidance from the residents of impacted communities, MEJ combines environmental, public health, and demographic data into an indicator of vulnerability for communities in every state. MEJ’s goal is to fill an existing data gap for individual states without environmental justice mapping tools, and to provide a valuable tool for advocates, scholars, students, lawyers, and policy makers.

Methodology

The negative effects of pollution depend on a combination of vulnerability and exposure. People living in poverty, for example, are more likely to develop asthma or die due to air pollution. The method MEJ uses, following the method developed for CalEnviroScreen, reflects this in the two overall components of a census tract’s final “Cumulative EJ Impact”: population characteristics and pollution burden. The CalEnviroScreen methodology was developed through an intensive, multi-year effort to develop a science-backed, peer-reviewed tool to assess environmental justice in a holistic way, and has since been replicated by several other states.

CalEnviroScreen Methodology:

• Population characteristics are a combination of socioeconomic data (often referred to as the social determinants of health) and health data that together reflect a populations' vulnerability to pollutants. Pollution burden is a combination of direct exposure to a pollutant and environmental effects, which are adverse environmental conditions caused by pollutants, such as toxic waste sites or wastewater releases. Together, population characteristics and pollution burden help describe the disproportionate impact that environmental pollution has on different communities.

• Every indicator is ranked as a percentile from 0 to 100 and averaged with the others of the same component to form an overall score for that component. Each component score is then percentile ranked to create a component percentile. The Sensitive Populations component score, for example, is the average of a census tract’s Asthma, Low Birthweight Infants, and Heart Disease indicator percentiles, and the Sensitive Populations component percentile is the percentile rank of the Sensitive Populations score.

• The Population Characteristics score is the average of the Sensitive Populations component score and the Socioeconomic Factors component score. The Population Characteristics percentile is the percentile rank of the Population Characteristics score.

• The Pollution Burden score is the average of the Pollution Exposure component score and one half of the Environmental Effects component score (Environmental Effects may have a smaller effect on health outcomes than the indicators included the Exposures component so are weighted half as much as Exposures). The Pollution Burden percentile is the percentile rank of the Pollution Burden score.

• The Populaton Characteristics and Pollution Burden scores are then multiplied to find the final Cumulative EJ Impact score for a census tract, and then this final score is percentile-ranked to find a census tract's final Cumulative EJ Impact percentile.

• Census tracts with no population aren't given a Population Characteristics score.

• Census tracts with an indicator score of zero are assigned a percentile rank of zero. Percentile rank is then only calculated for those census tracts with a score above zero.

• Census tracts that are missing data for more than two indicators don't receive a final Cumulative EJ Impact ranking.

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This resouce contains two spatial datasets.

MPCA Environmental Justice Areas
MPCA Census Tribal Areas

These data represent areas of consideration for MPCA environmental justice efforts. Our goal is to highlight regions where community members are disproportionately impacted by environmental issues. The data fields in this layer are a mix of American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates and calculations performed by MPCA staff. Margins of error are not considered when determining potential areas of consideration.

As an attempt to highlight environmental justice areas of concern, we show census tracts where the estimated percentage of the population that identify as people of color is 40% or greater, the estimated percentage of economically disadvantaged community members is 35% or greater, as well as the estimated percentage of the population that has limited English proficiency is 40% or greater. We also include language information for each census tract and highlight the top three estimated languages spoken by those who report that they do not speak English well.

Income Threshold:
The federal government defines poverty thresholds on an annual basis (https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-thresholds.html). For MPCA use, we show an income threshold at 2 times the federal poverty threshold.

2022:
2 x $13,590 = $27,180 (individual)
2 x $27,750 = $55,500 (family of four)

This resource also contains Tribal Areas. These areas are derived by taking the maximum extent of two spatial datasets: the U.S. Census Bureau's 2022 TIGER/Line Shapefiles, Current American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian Areas for United States; and Minnesota Department of Transportation's Tribal Government in Minnesota.

Open government data (OGD) are critical for environmental justice (EJ) policymaking, characterized by power differentials and information asymmetries between government agencies, affected populations, and advocacy and interest groups. We contend that not only should state governments provide OGD, but they should remove burdens associated with its access and use to address the data divide and facilitate participation of vulnerable populations in policymaking. Applying a user-oriented approach, this article evaluates the degree of completeness, usability, and accessibility of EJ-OGD initiatives across the 50 US states. Results show that only one out of five states achieves at least half points on our EJ-OGD Implementation Score, suggesting that most states do not provide OGD to answer two core EJ questions: “To what extent is my community exposed to environmental harms and health hazards? Is the exposure disproportionately high given the community’s socioeconomic characteristics?” We discuss implications for equity and next steps for government.

This is Census 2020 block data specifically formatted for use by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in-development Environmental Justice Analysis Multisite (EJAM) tool, which uses R code to find which block centroids are within X miles of each specified point (e.g., regulated facility), and to find those distances. The datasets have latitude and longitude of each block's internal point, as provided by Census Bureau, and the FIPS code of the block and its parent block group. The datasets also include a weight for each block, representing this block's Census 2020 population count as a fraction of the count for the parent block group overall, for use in estimating how much of a given block group is within X miles of a specified point or inside a polygon of interest. The datasets also have an effective radius of each block, which is what the radius would be in miles if the block covered the same area in square miles but were circular. The datasets also have coordinates in units that facilitate building a quadtree index of locations. They are in R data.table format, saved as .rda or .arrow files to be read by R code.

Environmental Justice 2024 Set is comprised of two layers: Environmental Justice Block Groups 2024 and Environmental Justice Distressed Municipality 2024. All Census and ACS data used in the creation of these data are the latest available from the Census at time of calculation. Environmental Justice Block Groups 2024 was created from Connecticut block group boundary data located in the Census Bureau's 2024 Block Group TIGER/Line Shapefiles. The poverty data used to determine which block groups qualified as EJ communities (see CT State statute 22a-20a) was based on the Census Bureau's 2023 ACS 5-year estimate. This poverty data was joined with the block group boundaries in ArcPro. Block groups in which the percent of the population below 200% of the federal poverty level was greater than or equal to 30.0 were selected and the resulting selection was exported as a new shapefile. The block groups were then clipped so that only those block groups outside of distressed municipalities were displayed. Maintenance – This layer will be updated annually and will coincide with the annual distressed municipalities update (around August/September). The latest ACS 5-year estimate data should be used to update this layer. Environmental Justice Distressed Municipalities 2024 was created from the Connecticut town boundary data located in the Census Bureau's 2024 TIGER/Line Shapefiles (County Subdivisions). From this shapefile, "select by attribute" was used to select the distressed municipalities by town name (note: the list of 2024 distressed municipalities was provided by the CT Department of Economic and Community Development). The selection was then exported a new shapefile. The “Union” tool was used to unite the new shapefile with tribal lands (American Indian Area Geography) boundary data from the 2024 TIGER/Line files. In the resulting layer, the tribal lands were deleted so only the distressed municipalities remained. Maintenance – This layer will be updated annually when the DECD produces its new list of distressed municipalities.Note: A distressed municipality, as designated by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, includes municipalities that no longer meet the threshold requirements but are still in an eligibility grace period. (See definition at CGS Sec. 32-9p(b).) Fitting into that grace period, nine towns continue to be eligible for distressed municipality benefits. Those are Bristol, East Haven, Groton, Killingly, New Haven, North Stonington, Preston, Stratford, Voluntown.

This submission includes publicly available data extracted in its original form. Please reference the Related Publication listed here for source and citation information If you have questions about the source data, please contact the CDC Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Place and Health - Geospatial Research, Analysis, and Services Program (GRASP) (eji_coordinator@cdc.gov). If you have questions about this metadata entry, please contact CAFE (climatecafe@bu.edu) "Environmental justice means the just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of income, race, color, national origin, Tribal affiliation, or disability, in agency decision-making and other Federal activities that affect human health and the environment so that people: Are fully protected from disproportionate and adverse human health and environmental effects (including risks) and hazards, including those related to climate change, the cumulative impacts of environmental and other burdens, and the legacy of racism or other structural or systemic barriers Have equitable access to a healthy, sustainable, and resilient environment in which to live, play, work, learn, grow, worship, and engage in cultural and subsistence practices The Environmental Justice Index uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, OpenStreetMap, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to rank the cumulative impacts of environmental injustice on health for every census tract. Census tracts are subdivisions of counties for which the Census collects statistical data. The EJI ranks each tract on 36 environmental, social, and health factors and groups them into three overarching modules and ten different domains." [Quote from https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/place-health/php/eji/index.html]

The Association of Central Oklahoma Governments (ACOG) is committed to ensuring fairness and equity in its transportation planning activities.This webmap includes information on the following Environmental Justice populations:- Racial minorities: Black or African-American, Asian, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Some Other Race, Two or More Races- Hispanic/Latino ethnicity origin populations- Limited English Proficiency populations- Elderly populations: any person age 65 and over- Young populations: any person age 17 and under- Populations with a disability- Low-income households- Single female-headed households- Zero-car householdsSpatial data developed from the American Community Survey 2020 5-year estimates by block group or census tract.

Areas of the state where people who are vulnerable to health, social, and environmental inequities are also highly impacted by criteria air pollution.Using multiple sources of air quality data and environmental justice information, Ecology identified 16 areas of the state containing multiple overburdened communities, neighborhoods, and towns that are highly impacted by criteria air pollution. The places are a mix of urban, suburban, and rural. They vary greatly in population, from about 1,500 to more than 200,000 people. They also range vastly in area, from less than 3 square miles to 173 square miles. Collectively, they represent more than 1.2 million people, or about 15.5% of Washington’s population. We heard from Tribes, the public, members of the Environmental Justice Council, and other environmental justice advocates about identifying the people and places in Washington that are overburdened and highly impacted by criteria air pollution. We have not yet included any communities on Tribal land. More information about how communities were identified can be found on our website: ecology.wa.gov/overburdenedDISCLAIMER: This is not a diagnostic tool. These are communities identified for a specific purpose under the Climate Commitment Act.