Capacity Building Toolkit for Near-Port Communities

Location: Nationwide| Client: EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality | Project Date: November 2014 – June 2016

Project Images

Links and Resources

EPA Project Report

Ports Primer for Communities

Community Action Roadmap – Empowering Near-Port Communities

Environmental Justice Primer for Ports – The Good Neighbor Guide to Building Partnerships and Social Equity with Communities

Project Description

Situation

Skeo supported EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality with the development and publication of a Capacity Building Toolkit for ports and near-port communities. The toolkit is intended to educate ports and near-port communities about each other’s concerns and common interests. It also provides tools for developing shared understanding and recommendations for step-by-step processes to improve productive engagement.

Solution

The toolkit includes the following draft documents, which are currently posted on EPA’s website for public review and comment:

The Ports Primer for Communities tool, designed as an interactive PDF and in a web-based format, provides communities with a crash course on “Ports 101.” It includes an extensive overview of ports planning and operations, potential benefits and impacts of ports operations, success stories of effective engagement with ports from other communities, and links to more resources.

The Community Action Roadmap – Empowering Near-Port Communities tool provides a step-by-step guide to help near-port communities assess their quality-of-life needs, identify and understand port planning processes that may provide opportunities for input and feedback, and effectively engage in decisions that impact local land use, environmental health and quality of life.

The Environmental Justice Primer for Ports – The Good Neighbor Guide to Building Partnerships and Social Equity with Communities tool is designed to inform the port industry sector of the perspectives, priorities and challenges often unique to communities with environmental justice (EJ) concerns. It highlights success stories of effective port engagement that have improved port-community relationships and furthered port interests while also improving quality-of-life in near-port communities. Additionally, the tool provides a step-by-step Good Neighbor Roadmap process that incorporates EJ principles and parallels the Community Action Roadmap.

Outcome

The Capacity Building Toolkit is now being tested in New Orleans, Savannah and Seattle through the Port and Near-Port Community Pilot Projects. Skeo is providing technical assistance services for these projects.