Advance Environmental Justice
Under Goal 2, we will advance environmental justice by supporting, partnering with, and uplifting communities overburdened by pollution, so that we may work together to identify and reduce disparities in air pollution exposure.
Overview
Goal 2 of the strategic plan, "Advance Environmental Justice", establishes eleven strategies to dismantle air pollution disparities by partnering directly with overburdened communities. These initiatives focus on building community capacity through training and tools for local air monitoring, ensuring a transparent complaint process, and enabling direct public engagement in enforcement activities. A key priority includes creating a community-led process for allocating polluter penalties and advocating for stronger civil rights protections. We have made measurable progress across these strategies, with several key actions well on track for completion by 2029.
Goal 2 - Advance Environmental Justice
Strategy progress
Central to the strategic plan, this strategy empowers residents to co-develop solutions for the pollution impacting their specific communities. We are continuing our existing partnerships with community and expanding partnership to additional communities on a variety of efforts that directly advance other strategies in the strategic plan.
Strategy progress
We are building the capacity of community members to collect and interpret air pollution data by providing community members with training on air quality and air monitoring, resources to access and analyze data, training on how to best use those tools, standard data collection procedures, and data access and interpretation.
Strategy progress
We are making data accessible by giving communities better access to air quality data, understanding their data needs, including access and interpretation concerns. We have completed a data inventory and are comparing this inventory to community’s expressed needs, while convening a community technical working group. With community members guiding the design, we are also creating a software application for displaying facility information on mobile devices.
Strategy progress
This strategy empowers communities with health data to better influence policy. We have started with a review of CalEnviroScreen Draft 5.0, a "pollution report card" that ranks neighborhood vulnerability by combining environmental hazards with socioeconomic data. We analyzed how new methodologies and data shifts affect these rankings to ensure accurate policy decisions. Additionally, we are partnering with Johns Hopkins University to expand their toxicity database for assessments that more accurately reflect exposure to multiple pollutants. All these efforts to be overseen by the incoming Health Effects Officer.
Strategy progress
We are improving the Air District’s complaint process to ensure it is effective and transparent. We are exploring new ways to provide complaint information to the public, improving responsiveness and enhancing transparency of complaint outcomes.
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Strategy progress
We are developing a formal "Enforcement Town Hall Meeting" policy to establish regular dialogue on compliance issues. Simultaneously, we are updating our air monitoring approach based on Community Advisory Council feedback, improving internal coordination to support local air monitoring, and creating a comprehensive roadmap and resource toolkit for public use.
Strategy progress
We are deepening our understanding of local air pollution by sharing and discussing local air pollution data with communities, conducting mobile monitoring in East Oakland, and updating refinery community air monitoring stations and fenceline requirements. Additionally, we are conducting local air quality analysis related to trucks and updating our website describing monitoring programs.
Strategy progress
We are partnering with communities to direct penalty funds collected from air pollution violations back into community. To facilitate this work, we established a New Community Investments Office and created the Bay REPAIR program to direct penalty funds into projects that benefit community. Additionally, we are working with the Community Advisory Council and local community-based organizations to distribute additional funds through a People’s Air Grant.
Strategy progress
To enhance public health and environmental justice, we successfully advanced legislation to triple penalty ceilings for air quality violations at Title V sources, such as refineries. Alongside these increased consequences for polluters, we are strengthening our legislative partnerships through a new learning academy. Following two successful webinars in late 2025, we are developing a 2026 series to continue training legislative staff on Air District priorities and collaborative activities.
Strategy progress
We are evaluating the need to implement systematic civil rights compliance checks into our permitting processes. We are also executing our language services plan by hiring a dedicated coordinator, establishing an internal working group, and enhancing engagement with populations with limited English proficiency. Finally, we are advancing non-discrimination across all operations by strengthening the reporting and resolution process for civil rights complaints, including providing more transparent resources on our website.
Strategy progress
Cumulative impacts occur when private businesses or governments make individual decisions that, when added together, can cause impacts that accumulate over time, negatively affecting people's health, well-being, and quality of life. The Air District’s Advisory Council has developed a work plan to better understand and incorporate cumulative impacts into Air District decision making. The Council will deliver findings and recommendations to the Board of Directors by early 2027.