CalEnviroscreen Version 1.1 - OEHHA - State of California

CalEnviroScreen 1.1
Stakeholder
Involvement
Transparency and public input into government decision making and
policy development are the cornerstones of environmental justice. In that
spirit, the framework for the CalEnviroScreen was developed with the
assistance of the Cumulative Impacts and Precautionary Approaches
(CIPA) Work Group, consisting of representatives of business and nongovernmental
organizations, academia and government. The CIPA Work
Group also reviewed draft versions of this report and provided critical
feedback and input that guided the development of this tool. We
appreciate the considerable time and effort that the Work Group has
devoted to this project since 2008. We also appreciate the input from
the general public we heard during the Work Group meetings.
Cal/EPA also received input on a previous draft of this document at a
series of regional and stakeholder-specific public workshops and an
academic workshop. 2 Input from California communities, businesses, local
governments, California tribes, community-based organizations, and
other stakeholders as well as academia was critical in the development
of this project and is reflected in changes made to the final document.
Work in this field continues and presents opportunities to refine the tool.
Thus, over the next several years we plan to release new versions of the
tool that include improvements to the indicators used, the geographic
scale, the methodology employed and the accessibility of the tool to the
public. Cal/EPA remains committed to an open and public process in
developing future versions of the tool.
This report describes CalEnviroScreen’s methodological approach, which relies on the use of
indicators to measure factors that affect pollution impacts in communities. The report describes
the indicators and the criteria used to select them as well as the geographic scale used to
define communities. Data representing the indicators for the different areas of the state were
obtained and analyzed and are presented here as statewide maps. 3 All the indicators for a
locale are combined to generate a score for the community. The report concludes by providing
general results for the statewide evaluation, presented as maps showing the top 5 and10
percent of the most impacted communities in California.
2 Additional information on these workshops as well as the CIPA Work Group meetings and the
development of the tool are available at www.oehha.ca.gov/ej/index.html.
3 The community scores for individual indicators are available online at
http://www.oehha.ca.gov/ej/index.html.
2