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EPA Funds Awarded to Shape Efforts for Environmental Justice Across the Northwest

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has funded $10 million to Willamette Partnership, Portland State University, Rural Community Assistance Corporation, and partners one of two northwest Environmental and Energy Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center for Region 10, or “TCTAC,” an acronym pronounced like the mint candy TicTac. The northwest TCTACs are centers that will provide technical assistance, training, and other support to environmental justice communities in Alaska, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.

What’s a TCTAC?

The TCTAC is part of the federal government-wide Justice40 Initiative, to increase environmental justice and economic opportunities in communities on the frontlines of environmental, energy, and climate issues.

Our Vision

Our vision of the center is woven from Indigenous values, place-based connections, and relationship building to promote cycles of healing that counter the ongoing damages caused by settlement, displacement, racism, and colonialism. Through a network of state organizers and partners in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, the center will provide frontline communities with direct technical assistance, cohort learning and leadership development, ethical storytelling, and systems change and accountability. We will pay particular attention to communities where environmental, health, and economic burdens and capacity constraints co-occur–including Tribal and Indigenous communities, Black, Latinx, immigrant, and people with disability communities, especially in remote and rural areas. Center services will be provided through a lens of Indigenous values that embrace diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, encompassing technical assistance, training, and support activities for environmental and energy justice.

Expanding Environmental and Energy Justice in the Northwest

“We Build It Together” by Kim Nguyen for OBI x Fine Acts https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

The Pacific Northwest is rich with historic and present community leaders and advocates who have been leading the national EJ movement. Tribal fishermen in the 1960s staged a series of fish-ins to protest the State of Washington’s limited recognition of treaty rights during the Fish Wars. Alaskan Natives have spent more than a century fighting mining and drilling practices in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to protect wildlife, water quality, and cultural resources. In Oregon, Black community advocates have pushed for recognition, reconciliation, and reparation for the Vanport flood of 1948 that killed 15 people and displaced 17,500 Black residents from the Portland Metro area. Latinx leaders have successfully addressed pollutants in land, water, and air related to agro-industrial processes. Despite these efforts, data shows that the impact of colonization, racist policies, violence, and environmental destruction are still causing significant inequity in our communities. Throughout our region, Indigenous and Black communities are two and nearly three times (respectively) as likely to experience poverty as their white neighbors. Communities of color in urban areas from Boise to Anchorage are more likely to live along major transportation corridors that increase their exposure to air pollution and increase their risk of developing asthma.

We also know that climate change will only exacerbate these inequalities. Coastal towns and villages are facing erosion and flooding. The 2021 extreme heat event killed nearly 800 people in the Pacific Northwest, and smoke from longer wildfire seasons has increased hospitalizations for vulnerable communities, especially rural communities, low-income communities, and communities of color. Our region already has the community leadership, knowledge, and people to build a more just future. The center will partner with and support the growing capacity for local leadership and connect community leaders to resources essential to making meaningful change in the face of our present challenges. 

The Northwestern TCTAC will be a place where Indigenous values and knowledge are centered and honored, where communities can access the expertise and resources needed to responsively create justice. Together, we can build the connections within and amongst communities needed to look seven generations into the future where ALL communities can thrive–no exceptions.

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“This important funding serves as recognition of the injustices faced for decades by long-suffering and self-determined Indigenous peoples of rural Alaska. The methods for this work approved by US EPA allows tribal governments and their members to identify and prioritize the needs they will see addressed for their individual community. We at RCAC are looking forward to supporting the tribes in this valuable work!”

– Kristin K’eit, RCAC Alaska Field Manager and Environmental Finance Center Manager based in Anchorage, Alaska.

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Our Services

1. Community engagement and technical assistance

The organizational structure of how partners will work together to achieve the TCTAC.

The center will engage with EJ communities all over the Northwest with organizers in each state. We will provide direct technical assistance projects to EJ communities that range from light-touch navigating communities to existing resources, to medium-touch preparation for receiving federal funds or updating community needs assessments, to more-intensive support for policy analysis or construction projects.

2. Cohort-style learning and leadership development

The center will offer five cohort learning opportunities where EJ community leaders and organizations can participate in training, be part of a facilitated community of practice for a year or longer, and access tools and assistance. Each annual cohort will include 10-20 participants:

• Data Justice
• Money, Finding It and Using It
• Just Energy Transitions
• Policy Navigation
• Environmental Justice Leadership Institute
• Student Engagement and Leadership Development

3. Ethical storytelling

Student walking at PSU’s Native American Student and Community Center, credit to NashCo

The center recognizes the power of lifting stories and changing narratives in energy and environmental justice. The center will stay in touch and lift EJ stories of success via social media, video shorts, and other media, and share information and resources via regular newsletters, blogs, and an annual sharing of feedback and lessons learned.

4. Accountability– to community, to changing systems

The center needs to be community-led and accountable to its commitments to equity and centering Indigenous values. The center recognizes that justice means changing the systems that shape how we live, work, and play. We will adjust center services and priorities annually based on community feedback and will act with community and government partners to adjust policy, process, and institutions.

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“Together with our partners, including Portland State University’s Institute for Tribal Government and Rural Community Assistance Corporation, we are ready to walk shoulder to shoulder with frontline communities for social mobility, environmental and energy justice, and climate resilience. Our region already has the community leadership, knowledge, and people to build safe and healthy environments for all, and this investment is a crucial step toward resourcing communities to tackle ongoing injustices. We believe this opportunity will drive meaningful change and build a more just future for all who live, work, play, and pray in our region.”

– Lynny Brown, Willamette Partnership TCTAC Co-Manager based in Portland, Oregon

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“This particular funding addresses some fundamental concerns around taking care of community — which is really about resources,” said Direlle Calica, Director of the PSU Institute for Tribal Government based in Portland, Oregon. “In Tribal communities, we take care of resources and they take care of us. This allows us to translate that into the day-to-day work that we do.”

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