Primary Submission Category: Environmental factors
Who Bears the Cost? Leveraging Community-Academic Collaborative Efforts to Advocate for Environmental and Data Justice for North Denver Communities
Authors: Carla Nyquist Ruth Mekonnen
Presenting Author: Carla Nyquist*
Achieving progress towards environmental justice relies on broad-based action and policy change. Colorado’s North Denver communities have led the fight for these changes, calling attention to the disproportionate burden of environmental health impacts their communities have faced for decades and demanding accountability. “Who Bears the Cost?: The North Denver Environmental Justice Report & Data Audit” resulted from a multi-year partnership between community organizers at environmental justice non-profit GreenLatinos and researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health. The primary goal was to obtain comprehensive information on the wide range of services and infrastructure located in this heavily industrialized area, as well as the environmental and health consequences for nearby community members, to support environmental justice advocacy and policy change. Data accessibility is key to environmental justice and community-led advocacy. Information about environmental pollution and impacts on communities’ well-being is often not collected, collected in siloed ways, and/or held by private entities or research organizations but not shared in transparent ways with communities. “Who Bears the Cost?” summarizes key findings in the following areas: Land Use & Violations, Power Generation & Transportation Energy Production, Goods Production, Roads & Rail, and Waste Management. Any of these sectors poses a significant environmental health burden on communities; all of these interconnected sectors existing in this relatively small geographic area exposes North Denver residents to a compounding and cumulative set of burdens, while the benefits of these sectors largely flow to communities in surrounding areas. The report also highlights data and information gaps that prevent community members from knowing the true magnitude of impacts. An interactive ArcGIS StoryMap was also created to present findings in a format accessible to both communities and decision-makers.