Environmental Justice Screening Tool and Reports
Environmental justice is not a slogan or catchphrase but a mission that we need to accomplish. Our organization encourages youths to support the environmental justice movement and take immediate action against environmental injustice. Learning more about environmental justice is crucial and EJSCREEN is a great tool to explore a variety of factors that concern environmental justice on multiple scales.
EJSCREEN (Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool) examines and provides demographic and environmental information. It helps people understand which areas may need more environmental justice consideration by advocates, decision-makers, and lawmakers because those communities have a higher potential of being vulnerable to negative environmental impacts.
EJSCREEN is a web-based, user-friendly tool created by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). It includes 11 EJ indexes that are combinations of 11 environmental indicators and 6 demographic indicators.
According to US EPA, the 11 environmental indicators include:
1. Particulate Matter
2. Ozone
3. NATA Diesel PM
4. NATA Air Toxics Cancer Risk
5. NATA Respiratory Hazard Index
6. Traffic Proximity and Volume
7. Lead Paint Indicator
8. Superfund Proximity
9. RMP Proximity
10. Hazardous Waste Proximity
11. Wastewater Discharge Indicator
According to US EPA, the 6 demographic indicators include:
1. Percent Low-Income
2. Percent People of Color
3. Less than high school education
4. Linguistic isolation
5. Individuals under age 5
6. Individuals over age 64
Please note that EJSCREEN does not identify Environmental Justice communities but the tool can help identify potential environmental justice issues.
Be an upstander again environmental injustice!
Understanding EPA's EJSCREEN tool can help you support and advance environmental justice and promote advocacy. Our organization periodically hosts Environmental Justice Training sessions, and Racial Understanding, Inclusion & Equity forums.
Launch EPA's EJSCREEN tool!
Source: United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2020. EJSCREEN. Retrieved: December 19, 2021, https://ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/.
EJSCREEN is an important tool for identifying potential environmental injustice issues and extracting critical environmental information about communities in the United States. For example, by using this tool, you can clearly view the proportion of ethnic minorities and low-income households in the particular area that you select. Other information about your selected area, such as the percentage of residents who have not completed high school education or cannot speak English well, can be viewed using EJSCREEN as well. You can also compare the environmental issues in your selected area and compare them to that of other places in the United States.
We used EPA's EJSCREEN tool to view the following three areas as examples for identifying their potential environmental issues: Fresno, CA (Zip Code: 93780); Detroit, MI (Zip Code: 48217); and Bakersfield, CA (Zip Code: 93307). We utilized EJSCREEN to generate standard reports for each selected area. By reading and analyzing each report, you can identify if the selected area may need additional review, research, and improvements. These reports can also help support advocacy and outreach efforts.
Fresno, California (Zip Code: 93780)
Source: United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2020. EJSCREEN. Retrieved: December 19, 2021, https://ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/.
Detroit, Michigan (Zip Code: 48217)
Source: United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2020. EJSCREEN. Retrieved: December 19, 2021, https://ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/.
Bakersfield, California (Zip Code: 93307)
Source: United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2020. EJSCREEN. Retrieved: December 19, 2021, https://ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/.