State officials are updating guidance to make developers more mindful of environmental issues their projects might have on vulnerable communities.
The Department of Environmental Quality recently released a draft document that lays out exactly how builders should determine and address potential environmental justice impacts, and now wants the public to weigh in.
The state defines environmental justice communities as areas with predominantly lower incomes or residents of color. They have traditionally faced disproportionate problems from industry, such as air and water pollution.
In 2020, the General Assembly passed the Virginia Environmental Justice Act, which made it policy to promote environmental justice, ensuring fair treatment of and meaningful engagement with such communities.
A few years later, DEQ drafted guidance for the permitting process, but it was never finalized.
The updated version incorporates direction from state lawmakers earlier this year to better measure the cumulative impacts of polluting projects.
It applies to projects such as new or expanded landfills, power plants, gas compressor stations and facilities that discharge into waterways or pump groundwater.
The guidance also adds data centers as projects of concern if they include a fossil fuel-based power source onsite, such as a generator.
The state developed a method to combine information such as census data, expected greenhouse gas emissions and the number of industrial buildings nearby — along with the environmental issues the residents already experience — to predict problems.
Kim Sudderth, an environmental justice advocate and policy director at the nonprofit Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, said she’s pleased to see the emphasis on cumulative impacts.
“Right now, one polluting facility plus one polluting facility plus another equals one polluting facility,” she said.
But “we that live in environmental justice communities, we don't experience that pollution one at a time. We experience it all at once.”
Sudderth lives in the historically Black Berkley neighborhood of Norfolk, for example, which is sandwiched between shipyards.
“We are surrounded by industry,” she said. “It would be encouraging to the environmental justice communities that finally, the total impact of pollution on our communities is being considered.”
Virginia developed an interactive map compiling stressors by census block to help applicants.
If the assessment finds probable issues, the state recommends developers consider redesigning or relocating a project “to prevent adding stressors to an already overburdened environmental justice community.”
If that’s not possible, the applicant should try to minimize the effects through measures such as changing equipment or scaling back specific features.
Finally, applicants may need to compensate when the effects are unavoidable, such as conducting air monitoring or completing environmental projects such as tree planting elsewhere in the area.
Through it all, community members should be meaningfully involved, including being notified of the permit request immediately, the state says.
The guidelines, however, are not mandatory.
Sudderth said stronger guidance is a step in the right direction. “But it’s not law, and that’s what we need.”
DEQ spokesperson Irina Calos said in an email that though the guidance is not required, the agency anticipates that permit applicants will follow it.
“The results of the comprehensive cumulative impact assessment may impact how the project is approved,” Calos said. “For example, the assessment may result in additional permit conditions to mitigate potential impact on environmental justice communities.”
DEQ is accepting public comments about the draft guidance through Oct. 23 and will issue a final version by the end of the year. It will go into effect next spring.
