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
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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
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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
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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
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