Environmental Justice in Colorado

Chris Brackett, Allison Clark, Hailey Hopkins, Rose Julian, Curran Jett-Moore, Shannon Reilly, and Daniel Dominguez Vidal

"Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies" - United States Environmental Protection Agency

A service learning project that advances our understanding of environmental justice and conservation in Colorado.

Environmental justice issues exist throughout the state at varying levels of intensity. These issues can be viewed and analyzed spatially by including a variety of socioeconomic and environmental factors in the equation. When this knowledge is provided to the public and made accessible, communities are given the power to advocate for positive change.

In order to demonstrate this power, we aimed to use various publicly available mapping tools and datasets to gain a deeper understanding of EJ issues in Colorado. Our team completed the following tasks:

• A sensitivity analysis of Colorado EnviroScreen indicators
• Multiple spatial analysis projects comparing the EnviroScreen burden score layer with datasets publicly available in CODEX, including Return on Investment, the National Landcover Dataset, CoTrex, CoMap, and Landscape Disturbance Index.

The Colorado EnviroScreen tool was launched in 2022, developed by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and intends to improve decision making and policy about EJ issues. It also identifies areas where government agencies should prioritize their resources and provides information for communities (Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, 2022). EnviroScreen uses population and a variety of environmental factors to calculate an “EnviroScreen burden score”.  The EnviroScreen burden score is calculated using 35 environmental and health indicators for an area to output a total score, with higher scores indicating higher Environmental Justice burden. This score identifies areas in Colorado that are more likely to be affected by environmental injustice (CDHPE).

On November 1, 2021, the Colorado Natural Heritage Program unveiled CODEX (Colorado Natural Heritage Program). CODEX can be utilized for several uses: “conservation planning, environmental review, evaluation of conservation portfolios, education, and more,” so CODEX can be a tool for conservation easements (Colorado Natural Heritage Program). This program is in partnership with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and several private conservation organizations (Colorado Natural Heritage Program). As a result, the general public can access information about flora and fauna on their land, so people can decide to designate their land as a conservation easement. Using CNHP’s CODEX in conjunction with CDPHE’s EnviroScreen, spatial analysis and sensitivity analysis will be done to understand how different environmental problems are affecting communities in Colorado.

The Justice 40 Initiative is a commitment by the Federal Government that 40 percent of benefits of certain Federal investments will go to marginalized and underserved communities that are experiencing environmental burdens. Categories of investments can include climate change, clean transit, sustainable housing and reduction of pollution. This is a program designed to ensure equitable distribution of Federal funding to communities that need it the most (The United States Government).

• Population 3,258
• Highest EnviroScreen Score: 94
• Justice 40 community

• Population 5,994
• EnviroScreen Score: 12
• Affluent census tract

• Population 3,892
• EnviroScreen score: 70
• Justice 40 community
• Based in Delta County

CDPHE was looking to analyze specific indicators which are used in the EnviroScreen score calculations to understand which indicators are affecting an area the most. We conducted a sensitivity analysis to look at our three tracts in Delta County and Fort Collins.

First, EnviroScreen score calculation was programmatically recreated using R language so that we could recalculate scores automatically. EnviroScreen score is calculated using set of 35 environmental burden indicators (ozone, demographics, drought, etc.). A data table of each indicator's value was used to loop through the EnviroScreen score calculation with the omission of an indicator with each iteration. This calculates a new EnviroScreen score using 34 of the 35 indicators. Omiting an indicator shows its effect on the EnviroScreen score.

These results show the impact of 35 chosen indicators by CDPHE on EnviroScreen score in three Colorado census tracts. Figures above show more negative omitted values making a higher positive impact on EnviroScreen score. This is exemplified by the large negative value in Floodplains percentile in figure 2. The Justice 40 community in Fort Collins has a recorded history of frequent and intense flooding impacts dating back to a FEMA flood insurance study in 1979. Due to agriculture and development of the area, the dry creek drainage channel is much smaller and has impacts on the Justice 40 community in Fort Collins. Combining this factor with low income and other environmental effects (air pollution, proximity to oil and gas, etc.) shows how this community is vulnerable to environmental burden. Given this context, it is evident why this community has such a high EnviroScreen score compared to the other two tracts. The Justice 40 community has a score of 54.4 (The score of the urban low-burdened community and that of the rural high-burden community are 14.0 and 20.2 respectively) and an EnviroScreen percentile of 94.2, which means that 94.2% of areas in Colorado are less likely to be burdened as much as this area.

Overall, it seems like specific indicators affected the Justice 40 Community more than the other two, but the Delta community is also highly affected by some indicators, whereas the affluent community is much less affected, as the analysis only created a difference of around 2 percentage points (Figure 3). Extreme heat days brought the score down significantly across all three tracts, which means that there must other areas in Colorado that are significantly more affected by extreme heat days (e.g. heat islands in Denver). Further, life Expectancy is high in the Affluent Fort Collins community and that could be the reason why Cancer is more prevalent in this community. Delta County was significantly impacted by Drought and Wildfire Risk according to the data gathered on these variables during 2016-2020. However, today Delta County does not show much vulnerability in relation to drought or wildfire. This discrepancy might be due to the fact that the data on these variables is somewhat outdated, but it may also pose further questions as to the accuracy of the score for these particular indicators.

Return on Investment (ROI) is the annual benefit of ecosystem services by land type which is an estimated calculation in USD (CNHP).

The ROIs were collected for each census tract on CODEX, and analysis was completed in Excel. The following results were broken down based on total and per an acre. Census tract 9651 (rural high burden) has the highest total. Based on per acre, census tract 13.04 (urban high burden) has the highest ROI. The top three categories for ecosystem types for census tract 9651 are agriculture (8,117.7 acres or 75% of area), developed - low impact (985.4 acres or 9% of area), and woody wetland (918.58 acres or 8% of area). In addition, 10% of the area within this census tract is a wetland. The top three categories for ecosystem types for census tract 13.04 are agriculture (326.2 acres or 38% of area), developed-low intensity (261.9 acres or 30% of area), and grassland/herbaceous (122.6 acres or 14% of area), and 13% of the area was wetland within the census tract. The top three categories for ecosystem types for census tract 13.08 are agriculture (3,297.9 acres or 43% of area), developed - low impact (1,497.9 acres or 20% of area), and grasslands (1,378.1 acres or 19% of area). 4% of the area within census tract 13.08 was a wetland.

Based on the ROIs, the results were to a certain extent perplexing by defying expectations. Census tract 13.04 (urban high burden) which was a Justice40 community had the highest ROI per an acre, and this differs from expectations because as a Justice40 community, the assumption was the ROI per an acre would have been lower. However, the higher ROI per an acre may be due to the higher percentage of wetlands which has a higher value per an acre compared to agriculture. In addition, on the higher end of an ROI, developed - low intensity urban is $2,000.90 while the wetland types, emergent herbaceous wetlands and woody wetland, are $1,456.27. For census tract 13.04 having 30% developed - low intensity urban and 13% combine wetland types, the combination of the two may lead to a higher per acre ROI. However, a concern with proximity to a wetland is flooding which census tract 13.04 (urban high burden) scores high on for this EnviroScreen indicator. Therefore, examining the overlaps between burden scores and ROIs may be beneficial.

We used the national landcover dataset (NLCD) to determine the percentage of open space compared to the amount of impervious/cultivated and developed land within each census tract (Fig. 1). With this information, we hope to demonstrate how areas with greater cumulative environmental burdens, thus higher EnviroScreen scores, have less access to environmental amenities and ecosystem services. Our findings confirmed our hypothesis that the tract with the highest socioeconomic status (Census Tract 13.08) would house the highest percentage of open space (Table 2). The amount of open space in Delta, CO (Census Tract 9651) paled in comparison to the urban least burdened tract (17% and 45% respectively). Interestingly, the urban high-burden tract in Fort Collins, CO (Census Tract 13.04) had an almost equal proportion of the three land cover types (36% developed, 30% impervious/cultivated, 34% open space). Our results exemplify areas more likely to experience Environmental Justice issues align with areas with lower percentages of open space, perpetuating a cycle of worse environmental outcomes for vulnerable populations. 

We used the most current version of the Colorado Ownership, Management, and Protection (COMaP) dataset to find the acreage of public access land within each census tract, as well as the percentage of public access land area for tracts with low, medium, and higher EnviroScreen burden scores for all of Colorado. Inside our three study tracts, public access land comes mostly in the forms of city parks and city open spaces, and doesn’t include any private land with restricted access. Because residents of these tracts aren’t confined to the tract's borders, a 1 mile buffer around each tract was implemented as well to account for any nearby accessible land.

This analysis shows that in census tracts with higher burden scores, there is much less public access land available for their residents. This is an issue of environmental justice as these communities who are already disproportionately affected by environmental justice issues as shown by their burden scores, also have disproportionately less access to public access land in their communities. Increasing availability to public access land in these communities could be a focus of future policy and activism to help to alleviate these burdened communities.

Landscape disturbance inputs include development at low/high/medium intensity, agriculture tilled/untilled/primary, primary/secondary/local & primitive roads, active/inactive oil and gas wells, active/inactive surface mines, and solar plants. A distance decay curve was chosen for each input, along with an impact weight and cutoff distance. Distance decay curves simulate the spatial effect of a certain disturbance type, while impact weight is used to quantify the level of anthropogenic impact the parameter causes. A generalized landscape disturbance index is calculated using the prevalence of these inputs and their weights, and can be visualized on a map (available in CODEX!) with “level of disturbance” shown in categories from low to high. 

As for our case studies...

When computing mean LDI within each census tract, the Fort Collins Justice 40 Tract 13.04 (urban high burden) had the highest (most disturbed) score. Interestingly, the Affluent Fort Collins Tract 13.08 (urban low burden) had the next highest score, with the Delta County Justice 40 Tract 9651 (rural high burden) having the least disturbed landscape of the three tracts.

There's more to environmental justice than level of disturbance...

While layers that allow visualization and analysis of a landscape’s level of disturbance are important and useful, they cannot paint an accurate picture of EJ issues in any given area. EJ mapping and screening tools like EnviroScreen factor in landscape disturbance, along with a vast array of other indicators, to more accurately quantify the level of burden communities face.

The Colorado Trail System, now titled the Colorado Trail Explorer (COTREX), is working to map every trail in the state of Colorado. Trails data comes from a variety of sources including USFS, BLM, local parks, recreation departments, and local governments. The COTREX layer is available for viewing, use and download within the CODEX program (CNHP).

There is a direct relationship between access to designated trails and the EnviroScreen score of census tracts in Colorado. Census tracts that experience more environmental injustice factors have a smaller total amount of trails. This could be due to a variety of reasons, however this information could be used to fundraise and implement new trails in more burdened areas. Physically being immersed in the natural environment is a way to encourage people to care about environmental justice in their communities.

Codex provides a platform for a public audience to have access to geospatial datasets that give users an understanding of demographics, ecology, and environmental justice issues in their state. Recent additions of new layers like EnviroScreen burden scores allow for important and powerful possibilities for future environmental justice action. Combining many of these datasets which are readily available in Codex allows for expanded future possibilities for addressing areas sensitive to environmental burdens. For example, categories of environmental justice issues that need to be prioritized by resolving through conservation could be identified through Codex datasets and potentially implemented. The public availability of Codex also provides an opportunity for anyone to help find prevalent environmental justice issues in any area in Colorado and explore the factors that may contribute to those issues. Public exposure to these issues and factors surrounding them can help to inform future policy decisions regarding areas with disproportionate environmental burden scores to reduce environmental injustice in Colorado.

Special thanks to Robin Reid, David Anderson, Daniel Carver, and Rani Kumar for continued support on this project