Equity and Environmental Justice Ad Hoc Committee for the 2024 NPDES MS4 Permit
Final Report to Ecology February 2022
Background
In October 2021, the Ad Hoc Committee on Equity and Environmental Justice (EEJ)
requirements in the NPDES municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) permit was formed.
The main purpose of the committee was to prepare ideas and recommendations for Ecology
regarding EEJ requirements in the Phase I and II MS4 permits that will be reissued in 2024.
Another key purpose was to build and expand relationships among people in the region who
are interested in EEJ and how it can be manifested in various ways.
The committee, which met three times from November 2021 to January 2022, consisted of
fifteen people representing five Phase I permittees, four Phase II permittees, and three other
interested parties, all of whom voluntarily joined in order to provide their input and
recommendations. A list of participants is appended to this report. The co-leads for the
Committee were Mary Rabourn, King County, and Bill Leif, Snohomish County.
Two guiding principles for the discussions were (1) to find as much agreement as possible,
and (2) to focus on ideas that seem implementable by Ecology in the MS4 permits. However,
another principle was to draw out and discuss ideas that don’t fit easily in the existing permit
and/or that challenge the status quo. Committee members were encouraged to present topics
and viewpoints that did not fit in this mold. Early in the process we decided to focus less on
achieving group consensus and focus more on articulating clear statements. After we had
crafted these statements, each committee member was given an anonymous survey in which
to express their level of agreement with each statement. Eight of the fifteen members
responded. This method allowed us to not be overly constrained trying to achieve group
consensus on any given statement, which can tend to make the statement more general. It
also avoided the pressure to combine overlapping or contradictory ideas into a single
statement.
The next section of this report contains the statements we developed, the results of the level-
of-agreement survey, and related notes. Post-survey committee discussion of Statements 9
and 12 revealed multiple interpretations of a statement, which led either to people saying they
would change their votes and/or to proposed rewording of the statement. This is discussed
below.
The final section of the report contains additional comments that one or more members of the
committee wanted to include in the report. These comments are included as provided and
were not reviewed or edited by other members.
Statements and level-of-agreement survey results (8 out of 15 members voted)
Topic 1. EHD data, tools, and resources
Statement 1: To the extent that Ecology might require Permittees to identify and delineate
overburdened communities within their jurisdiction as part of the 2024 Permit, Ecology should
allow permittees to select among various decision-making tools, and should not require
permittees to use the WA DOH EHD tool.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Related notes / comments for Statement 1
EHD may be useful in some situations, but may not be fine-grained enough for some
applications, and does not do a good job characterizing overburdened communities that are
not geographically based. Some permittees have already created or are in the process of
creating alternative tools.
Statement 2: The WA EHD tool can be useful on a case-by-case basis but the data may not be
fine-grained enough and the margins of error too large for small / medium municipalities to use
in decision-making.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Statement 3: To the extent that Permittees might need time to review and assess equity tools
for use in their decision-making, such review and assessment should not qualify as grounds for
delay of Permit implementation or compliance.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Topic 2. Specifics of permit requirements
Statement 4: Ecology should consider applying an equity lens to each permit section to identify
areas where equity requirements would be most appropriate to include in the 2024 Permit.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Statement 5: EEJ requirements in specific permit programs should consider the nature and
scale of actions in a program, for example, a capital project in the Structural Stormwater
Controls program versus the source control program which involves hundreds of inspections
per year.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Statement 6: Ecology should require permittees to perform a self-evaluation of EEJ
implementation of the SWMP, and include it in an annual report.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Statement 7: Ecology should require participation in EEJ training sessions.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Statement 8: Ecology should allow participation in EEJ training sessions to count towards
compliance, which would help smaller permittees get off the ground with EEJ implementation.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Statement 9: Ecology should require both Phase I and Phase II Permittees to consider
overburdened communities when planning and implementing their SWMPs and other Permit
requirements in the 2024 Permits.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Related notes / comments for Statement 9
Committee discussion after the survey showed varying interpretations of the statement. Some
members interpreted the statement as “the permit should generally have such a requirement”
and others thought it meant “the requirement should continue to be in the SWMP Plan Public
Involvement requirement.” The members present for this discussion agreed the permit should
contain EEJ requirements, but that should be removed from the Public Involvement section,
and instead Ecology should write EEJ requirements in specific program requirements, as is
currently the case in the Public Education and SMAP permit conditions.
A related concern raised by the committee is that the Public Involvement requirement implies
the desire to get overburdened communities to specifically review the SWMP Plan document.
The SWMP Plan is long and most of it is not pertinent to the daily lives of most people. The
feeling was that asking for review of this document from overburdened community members
would actually add burden and survey fatigue to people whose burdens we are trying to
reduce, and would be counterproductive to achieving equitable engagement goals. It would be
better to focus on providing opportunities for input into individual SWMP actions or programs
that had a direct impact on overburdened community groups, for example, business
inspections at restaurants where business owners speak English as a second language or not
at all.
One committee member who works with the public, including with overburdened communities
wrote this following the meeting: “I continue to hear that those in marginalized communities
lack time, energy and means to engage – it does NOT mean that they are not interested. It
does mean that it may not be their top priority for how they are able to invest themselves. The
question back to Ecology remains, to what purpose? What is the intended result of their
participation / involvement? Marginalized communities do not want government agencies to
do something that simply “checks a box,” rather they want to see meaningly ways to have their
needs met. That is what Ecology needs to wrestle with related to the Permit. And what
Permittees want to figure out and invest themselves with.”
Topic 3 – Identifying overburdened communities
Statement 10: Ecology should recognize that some overburdened communities are not
geographically based, and are thus not well represented by a geographically-based tool like
the EHD tool.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
See also Statement 1
Topic 4 – Regional efforts
Statement 11: Ecology should allow permittees to meet EEJ requirements through participation
in programs or actions led by other permittees.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Related notes / comments for Statement 11
This would allow smaller permittees to leverage limited resources and take advantage of
opportunities they couldn’t run on their own. It also allows for regional collaboration in order to
most effectively understand and engage an overburdened, marginalized, or under-resourced
community that is present within multiple jurisdictions.
Topic 5 – Recognizing differences in capabilities, resources, and existing conditions
among jurisdictions
Statement 12: Ecology should have a ‘sliding scale’ of requirements based on a permittee’s
resources.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Related notes / comments for Statement 12
The statement came from early discussion about “sliding-scale” requirements among
permittees that reflect variable levels of resources among permittees. However, committee
discussion after the survey showed varying interpretations of the statement. Some members
had expressed disagreement out of concern about a lack of EEJ compliance metrics that are
well-defined, uniformly measured, and nonarbitrary. The members present for the final
discussion generally agreed that with this concern and concluded that Ecology should not
include EEJ compliance metrics unless they meet those criteria.
Statement 13: Ecology should not be prescriptive in crafting EEJ requirements, and allow each
permittee to make progress from their current status.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Statement 14: Ecology should not require each permittee to have a dedicated EEJ staff person
or interdisciplinary team.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Statement 15: Requiring each permittee to have a dedicated EEJ staff person or
interdisciplinary team would place a significant burden on smaller permittees and may hinder
participation in regional efforts.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Statement 16: Permit requirements should not base permittee compliance on the level of
participation from overburdened communities.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Topic 6 – Factoring climate change into the MS4 permit
Statement 17: Ecology should factor climate change into permit conditions.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Related comments / notes for Statement 17
The members present for the post-survey discussion that voted “Neutral” or “Disagree” were
not indicating that the issue is not important, but were concerned with the ability to
appropriately create NPDES MS4 permit conditions related to climate change.
Additional comments on survey statements from committee members
Statement 6: Ecology should require permittees to perform a self-evaluation of EEJ
implementation of the SWMP, and include it in an annual report.
• Not to be reported annually, have a one-time assessment/report out during the permit
cycle (model the stormwater planning annual report section/questions to clearly outline
what permittees need to review/answer)
Statement 14: Ecology should not require each permittee to have a dedicated EEJ staff person
or interdisciplinary team.
• This gets to one of the points from the Proportionality/Scaling/Tiering ad hoc committee
that each new permit requirement requires a new SME which overburdens many
permittees.
Other comments from committee members
Comments from the Education & Outreach Ad Hoc Committee, provided by Susan McCleary,
City of Olympia
• Based on the target audience’s demographic, the Permittee shall consider delivering its
selected messages in language(s) other than English, as appropriate to the target
audience.” I’m curious if this section could be reworded to actually get at what is
intended. Just translation does not always support actual behavior change. How else
could this be targeted?
• Ensure targeting underserved or underrepresented communities
• Languages other than English – translation may not be enough. Need to consider
cultures – transcreation.
• Some kind of language that encourages an equity and environmental justice lens be
applied to audience identification and focus (targeting language may be problematic)
• Unhoused individuals or people experiencing homelessness should be added as a
general awareness target audience Add "people experiencing homelessness" to the
general awareness audience list.
• Language needs to be stronger to ensure equitable access to E&O materials and
programs.
• There is a lack of recognition of the global impact of climate change on our work,
communities and the role of stormwater or investment – what is the overall community
engagement goal of Ecology’s work? How can we use the power of these dedicated
folks to address environmental outcomes we hope to see? Are we missing the big issue
by focusing on local details, not having an overall shared goal? E.g., strategic
messaging focus: climate change – human environmental health- economic health -role
of stormwater WQ and infrastructure. We could have a requirement for other skill sets:
social scientists, urban planners, economists to pull the big picture together – and allow
individual stormwater managers to feel successful and that they are contributing. Also –
placing education on stormwater managers risks may not be the best approach for ed –
we need to call out that skill set – rather than assuming anyone can be an educator. We
risk traumatizing or turning off students, esp. those from underserved communities.
• Wording needs to be stronger to ensure equitable access/engagement with E&O
programs. Proposed solution: Highlight overburdened communities and equity.
• Include stronger language to ensure outreach to overburdened communities
• There is inconsistent language between Phase I and Phase II permit under subject area
(a). In parentheses, it says "including school age children OR overburdened
communities". Is this intentional?
• Better direction on overburdened communities for jurisdiction's that have small
percentage of these communities. Proposed solution: Recommendations for
jurisdictions with small percentages of overburdened communities.
• Health should be added because stormwater has health impacts and overburdened
communities may not see a nexus here with the above types of activities- need to be
culturally aware and consider adding other examples to this list
Committee Members
Name
Organization
Mary Rabourn
King County
Bill Leif
Snohomish County
Lisa Werre
City of Sammamish
Alyssa Barton
Puget Soundkeepers Alliance
Blaine Chesterfield
City of Mount Vernon
Melissa Ivancevich
City of Seattle
Peggy Campbell
Snohomish County
Kym Foley
City of Olympia
Lou Leet
King County
Piper Hanson
University of Miami OH
Susan McCleary
City of Olympia
Garrett…