190B12003 SEPA United States Environmental Protection Agency ross-Cutting Fundamental Strateg; ' 2011 Action Plan Annual Progress Repo rtrategy 1: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism Engage and empower communities and partners, including those who have been historically under- represented, in order to support and advance environmental protection and human health nationwide. Executive Summary EPA has begun a new era of outreach and conversation to include a broader range of people and communities in our day-to-day work and to expand our engagement with communities historically under-represented in our decision-making processes. In FY 2011, our actions were focused on public access to multi-lingual communication, interaction with media outlets that reach historically under-represented groups, improved access to and transparency of environmental data to support community and citizen involvement in decision- making, and lastly, to expand public awareness and opportunities for involvement during all phases of rulemaking processes. Accomplishment Highlights: • Began overhaul of Spanish language website by identifying key audiences and top tasks and inventorying content. • Launched user-friendly websites for targeted audiences, including On Campus ecoAmbassadors for college students, Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships , Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, New Bedford Harbor cleanup, and Urban Waters and began retooling the EPA Aging Initiative website . • Expanded media outreach lists encompassing TV, radio, and print to reach as many as28 million in the Hispanic community. o EPA's reach through Spanish language social media tools increased nearly 200 percent in FY 2011. • Launched innovative use of Twitter as a texting service to provide air quality monitoring information to people near the Aerovox Mill demolition project in New Bedford, MA. The Aerovox building was used for electrical component manufacturing from the 1940's until about 1978. Operations and disposal practices contaminated soil, surface water runoff, groundwater and building materials and equipment with PCBs and solvents. • In response to the Japanese nuclear emergency, EPA developed new maps and used Socrata.com to communicate radiation monitoring data. EPA also used the its Facebook page to respond to people's questions and used the EPA Facebook and Twitter accounts to provide regular updates on monitoring data. • Published over 1,600 environmental datasets, 258 geographic datasets and 64 software tools from across EPA programs on http://www.data.gov to support community and citizen involvement in environmental decision-making. • EPA expanded the capabilities of the Geodata Gateway to capture additional types of data (non-geospatial) and to make it compatible with the automated catalog harvesting service recently implemented by Data.gov. Users now only have to enter their metadata records in the Geodata Gateway and mark them as being publically accessible to ensure that they automatically appear in the Data.gov catalog. Our ongoing FY 2011 Annual Progress Report: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism ------- training program has let users know of this important change, and has led to the continued growth of our holdings in both of these catalogs. EPA has over 1,800 geospatial datasets currently registered in the Geodata Gateway, and 250 of these are available to users searching in Data.gov. • The Regulations.gov Exchange (www.regulations.gov/exchange) is an integrated application that offers the public a new way to participate and collaborate with the Federal agencies on the Regulations.gov website. It enables agencies to host on-line discussion forums and collect public feedback and consideration. This year, the eRulemaking Program hosted multiple online discussions on topics like best practices in increasing public participation in the regulatory process, the President's Executive Order 13563: Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review, and a pre-regulatory discussion on the expansion of industry sectors covered under EPCRA Section 313. • In September, 2011, The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program Division launched a new pre-regulatory discussion using the Regulations.gov Exchange. The online discussion forum allows the TRI Program to gain preliminary input from stakeholders and potentially affected industries on the expansion of industry sectors covered under EPCRA Section 313. • As part of the Community Engagement Initiative (http://www.epa.gov/oswer/engagementinitiative), EPA piloted the use of a color-coding system for communicating sampling results from contaminated sites at more than 10 sites across the U.S. with the goal of making it easier for the public and other stakeholders to quickly understand contamination levels at sites. The Agency is currently identifying improvements and ways that the systems can be used. Challenges: • Implementing the color-coding system for communicating sampling results from contaminated sites has posed several challenges: 1) complex data may be difficult to categorize/summarize; 2) color-coding system might not be applicable to all sites; 3) quick turn-around during an emergency can be difficult; and 4) finding a balance that is true to the science but understandable for multiple audiences. FY 2011 Annual Progress Report: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism ------- FY 2011 Performance Summary Strategy 1: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism FY 2011 Action Plan Activity Status/Explanation = Activity complete 1. Increase development of and public access to multi-lingual communications and informational materials (Supports Principles 1, 2, 5, and 6). • Implement EPA's Translation Protocol, an Agency-wide directive by Executive Order 13166 outlining requirements, processes, and procedures for multi-lingual communications. Final draft of the Translation Protocol is completed and in review by the Office of General Counsel. The Agency-wide plans for other pieces of the Executive Order are due at the end of the year, and the Translation Protocol will be implemented subsequently, in conjunction with those pieces. Revise and launch Spanish language website. Enhance development and quality of Spanish content in a variety of media, especially those materials focusing on environmental health issues, health advisories, and important EPA actions. Review of all Spanish content is completed and effort to overhaul the website is underway. Expected completion in FY 2012. Identifying a permanent project lead was the primary challenge. 2. Expand interactions with media outlets that reach historically under- represented groups (Supports Principles 4, 5, 6, and 7). EPA will launch at least two micro-websites tailored to specific audiences to enhance community engagement or reach historically under-represented groups. • Develop and implement regional communications plans for all ten Regions targeting new media outlets, including newspapers, magazines, and web sites that reach historically under-represented groups. All Regions have successfully expanded outreach to new media outlets with historically under- represented audiences. Formal plans are in process of being collected, and will be executed in FY 2012. 3. Improve communication of environmental sampling results to the public in environmental emergency situations and at contaminated sites by using new communication methods to improve community engagement (Supports Principles 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7). FY 2011 Annual Progress Report: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism ------- FY 2011 Performance Summary Strategy 1: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism FY 2011 Action Plan Activity Status/Explanation = Activity complete • Conduct pilot studies at a contaminated site in each often EPA Regions. Activities in pilot communities include providing simplified scientific language to explain sampling results, visual illustrations and clear explanations of contamination levels and associated risks, and recommended actions the public should take to protect themselves during environmental emergencies. Evaluate the effectiveness of a color-coded methodology to explain sampling results and provide recommendations to the Agency for potential expanded use. Pilot sites in all 10 Regions were identified and most are underway. However, the pilots will not be evaluated by the end of FY 2011. This portion of the work is being carried over into the FY 2012 Action Plan. 4. Improve access to and transparency of EPA environmental data to support community and citizen involvement in decision-making (Supports Principles 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7). Publish ten environmental data sets via data.gov that can help community action groups and citizens make informed discussions of environmental issues at local and regional levels. Develop a process to collect public input on the types of data that are most useful. • Expand the capability of the GeoData Gateway on data.gov to manage both geospatial data mapping and other types of data collection. Expand public awareness and opportunities for involvement in advance of and throughout the development of rules and regulations through social media tools including regulations.gov, rulemaking gateway, Greenversations, webinars, and other tools (Supports Principles 3, 4, 6 and 7). • Use the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System's (NPDES) electronic reporting website to provide background information in advance of the formal rulemaking process to announce upcoming stakeholders meetings, host discussion forums, etc. Evaluate the NPDES Exchange Forum pilot and post results and "lessons learned" for EPA and government-wide use. Develop options for expanded use of the Exchange tool as a viable rulemaking pre-proposal dialog tool. Identify other pre-proposal activities that could use social media tools to expand dialog with affected/impacted communities. FY 2011 Annual Progress Report: Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism ------- |