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3 V. Environmental Justice – Sassaman reminded CFE members of Commissioner Mark Dorosin’s interest in the CFE including some information on environmental justice issues in the State of the Environment report. Sassaman said he had reported back the BOCC that the CFE would begin to educate itself about the issues in Orange County and see what data could be gathered and presented in future editions of the report. Sassaman introduced Chip Hughes (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences). Hughes apologized that his colleague, Sharon Beard, could not attend the meeting. He provided some background on environmental justice issues, beginning with the illegal dumping of PCBs in Warren County, NC in the 1970-80 time period. Hughes described the fight for environmental justice as making sure that in situations where there adverse environmental impacts that the impacts are not placed on minority populations disproportionately from the neighboring communities. He gave the example of the solid waste landfill on Eubanks Road sited next to the Rogers Road community, and the positive changes that have resulted for that community in the past few years. Hughes said there may be some metrics available for incorporating environmental justice issues in the SOE report, such as some kinds of environmental inequities. Hintz noted that the 2014 SOE report included data on the amount of protected land in Orange County. He suggested the CFE evaluate whether minority communities have fairly equal access to public parks and open spaces. Do they live in close proximity to the parks? Newby said there is community data available from the US EPA that may be useful for these determinations. He said the Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (BenMAP) is an open-source computer program that calculates the number and economic value of air pollution-related deaths and illnesses. The database includes many of the concentration-response relationships, population files, and health and economic data needed to quantify these impacts. Bouma said he agrees that this could be a useful source of data for evaluating some potential environmental justice issues. O’Connor said the CFE Land Resources Committee monitors the protection of significant natural resource lands in Orange County, but is not aware of anyone determining whether the publicly-assessable lands are benefiting underprivileged communities. Gronback said as a public school teacher she is a witness to significant problems associated with income gaps among the families that attend her high school. Hintz said he observed disproportional numbers of minority school children taking part in certain outdoor activities during his tenure as high school science teacher in Chapel Hill. Sassaman said he has discussed environmental and social justice issues with Reverend Campbell and David Caldwell. Sassaman agrees the CFE is in a position to address some portion of the issues in future SOE reports, including some recommendations on what the County and individual residents can do to make improvements. Bouma observed that many of the County’s advisory boards have a role in addressing environmental justice and/or social justice issues. He suggested the CFE also consider what are the environmental benefits of establishing equity among the different segments of the community. O’Connor suggested lower-income residents of the community could benefit in many ways if they had access to solar energy. Wegman suggested that it might be a good idea to convene a broader meeting of advisory boards to discuss the overall and to identify measures that could be implemented across the boards. The CFE thanked Hughes for joining the advisory board in this discussion.