US EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and Office of Land and Emergency Management recently approved a policy formally incorporating environmental justice into emergency response preparedness and management. Noting that previous efforts to incorporate EJ into incident response had limited effectiveness, EPA’s new guidance document makes five concrete recommendations to ensure EJ is considered during emergency response:

1. Integrate EJ priorities into EPA’s National Approach to Response structure, and develop management and incident objectives to ensure responses are equitable.
2. Engage EJ expertise in early incident management assessment processes.
3. Incorporate EJ function and staffing support within Incident Management Teams and Emergency Operations Centers.
4. Implement training requirements.
5. Community engagement – develop and promote public participation guidelines for disaster response by relevant emergency response organizations in the public and private sectors.