West Oakland Toxics Reduction Collaborative Fall 2007West Oakland, California, is a low income community of 25,000 people, 90 percent of whom are people of color. Since recovering from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the community has been on a trajectory of redevelopment. Occupying four square miles and entirely surrounded by freeways, the community is directly adjacent to the Port of Oakland, the fourth largest container port in the United States with throughput projected to triple by 2020. Despite facing economic, environmental, and social challenges, the community has maintained a culture of involvement and activism.
Step 1: Joining Together Community members first joined together in 2000 to tackle environmental health conditions, forming the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP). Out of that success grew the West Oakland Toxics Reduction Collaborative (the Collaborative), which was subsequently funded by EPA through a CARE Level II grant in September 2006. The WOEIP and EPA negotiated a joint partnering agreement, which includes having a community representative and an EPA staff person co-chair each action team and using a neutral facilitator. The Collaborative is open to all stakeholders, meets three times a year, has a paid neutral facilitator, and is coordinated by a steering committee. The Collaborative has formed eight action teams, each tackling a specific problem. Step 2: Identifying Problems, Solutions After reviewing West Oakland sources of toxic pollution with stakeholders, each of the eight action teams developed a work plan and goals and has been meeting to identify and implement toxic reduction efforts. Deborah Jordan, EPA Air Division Director, center, giving CARE grant check to Margaret Gordon and Brian Beveridge of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project. Step 3: Implementing Solutions, Reducing Risks Overall, the teams have successfully taken on the challenge of addressing a wide range of West Oakland’s environmental impacts.
Step 4: Becoming Self-Sustaining In the Collaborative, members “vote with their feet,”; one measure of sustainability is that, two years after their convening, the number of stakeholders and their productivity continues to grow. The WOEIP has also developed numerous funding sources in addition to EPA, with one team funded entirely by a state agency partner. A budget for sustaining the Collaborative has been developed and used in fundraising with partnering stakeholders. Beyond that, the Collaborative's strategy has always included as a goal the development of the capacity of the WOEIP and other community partners. Partners
Richard Grow (grow.richard@epa.gov), US EPA Region 9 Project Lead (415) 947-4104 Brian Beveridge, CARE Project Lead West Oakland EIP (510) 451-3227 |
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