Martha Page, CT Food System Alliance, Hartford, CT

Hello Everyone! Kristin Barendregt-Ludwig - Program Manager, Yale Center for Environmental Justice, EEJ Working Group Co-Chair

Hi everyone! Sarah Lowe - Dept of Social & Behavioral Sciences, Yale School of Public Health - Public Health and Safety Working group

Hi all! Allison Pilcher, Policy Director with the Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs

Hi everyone. Anne Hulick, CT Director of Clean Water Action, nurse and long time member/liaison to the CT Nurses Association

Good evening,! Kathy Fay, Director of Community Sustainability, NHS of New Haven

Hi there! Brenda Bergeron, Deputy Commissioner, DESPP/Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.

Hi All - Diane Mas, Chief Resilience Officer at Fuss & O’Neill, Public Health & Safety Working Group.

Hello! Aicha Woods, FC Center for Housing Opportunity, EJ wg

Good afternoon everyone. This is Richard Branigan, Regional Chief Operating Officer for the American Red Cross in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Annie Harper, Research Scientist, Yale Department of Psychiatry

Hi all, Mary Buchanan, Community Resilience Planner at CIRCA

Good evening. Rebecca French here, Director of the Office of Climate Planning and joined by Office of Climate Planning team members Ashley Benitez and Alanis Allen to help run tonight's meeting.

Hi, everyone! I forgot to introduce myself. Ashley G. Benitez-Ou, Environmental Analyst, Office of Climate Planning at DEEP.

Tonight's agenda: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DEEP/climatechange/GC3/GC3-2022-agendas-and-minutes/GC3-EEJ-Public-Health-and-Safety-Agenda-111522.pdf

Alex is summarizing the GC3 2020 public participation guidance found here: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DEEP/climatechange/GC3/GC3-2022-agendas-and-minutes/EEJ-Public-Guidance-Excerpt.pdf

Hello Everyone I am Heather Aaron Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Public Health.

Hello everyone, I am Lori Mathieu, Public Health Branch Chief, Environmental Health & Drinking Water Branch, CT DPH

If anyone has clarifying questions about the training presentations tonight, please put them in the chat

https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Environmental-Justice/Environmental-Justice-Communities

https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/Environmental-Justice/Demographics-and-Affecting-Facilities-Web-Map

If questions come to mind, you can post them here and we can answer in the chat.

Good Evening - I forget to introduce myself also. I am Michael Pascucilla and I am with the East Shore District Health Department.

Edith.Pestana@ct.gov for any questions regarding CT Environmental Justice Communities.

Thank you for the presentations. I need to leave for another meeting. Have a good evening.

Please come on camera!

Follow the ground rules for respectful discussion attached to the agenda and keep this list in your mind.Focused, no-fault problem-solving.Step forward, step back.Open, honest, safe space.Listen with open minds, believe in everyone’s best intentions.Action-oriented. Decide what we want, when we want it, and plan for its happening.Collaboration!Start, proceed, and end on time, honor the agenda.

Discussion questions for today’s working group meeting:-What successful applications of the equity and environmental justice lens did you hear in the presentation today?This group focused on mental health, food insecurity and urban heat islands in their first three meetings. Please discuss how the different definitions of equity can be applied to these issues.-What strategies might the Public Health and Safety working group consider to further integrate the different definitions of equity into their work on these topics?

Great comments Anne

The Public Health & Safety working group discussed several topics including Overview of 2020 Public Health & Safety Recommendations, Brief Presentation of Progress on Public Health and Safety 2021 Recommendations and two discussion of subject area priorities: 1) Heat Islands and 2) Food Security & Mental Health.

Agree on mental health. It is so often overlooked.

I want to acknowledge the great collaboration between DPH & DESPP that have emerged from GC3! Thank you for all your work!

Thank you, we have a very productive team!

I see our friends Jennifer O'Brien and Stephanye Clarke here tonight. Alanis and I co-created a workshop in New London and Groton and we have a local public health director as one of our speakers. At first I think she did not see that public health connection, but this working group has shined a light on the intersection that we applied in that workshop.

Second question:-What strategies might the Public Health and Safety working group consider to further integrate the different definitions of equity into their work on these topics?

@richard if you have examples of how and where you have conducted meetings or other tools that would help us better engage faith leaders, please share.

DEEP tracks community water quality monitoring projects

I think the air quality monitoring project mentioned by DPH where DEEP is also a partner is another example of citizen science

Citizen science gets flack for being poor quality data, but the truth is that it's really high quality, “equaling or even surpassing professional data collection" in most cases. (https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1436)

That's right, Max! Thanks for sharing.

Citizen/participatory mapping is also another great tool to work together with communities and build on local knowledge.

We appreciate feedback from everyone on the working groups about in person vs. Zoom engagement as we look ahead to 2023.

If anyone would like to provide public comments let me know!

Agreed - these volunteers are passionate and care about their communities. And many of them are scientists. They also help us get support for policy and funding. And yes, their data is solid when CS projects are well organized.

We can also think of participatory mapping as a tool for engaging communities in climate decision-making—particularly if we can pay them to do it.

Compensation has come up in Mitigation Strategies as well for engagement.

I want to highlight the Climate and Equity Grant and UConn CIRCA and DEEP are co-sponsoring. @mary Buchanan here tonight is the program manager. https://circa.uconn.edu/2022/10/20/applications-open-for-climate-and-equity-grant-program/

In terms of contextual equity: documents and findings should be distributed in more languages.

In the EJ Mapping tool, there will be direct statewide engagement to hear what environmental health concerns residents have then work on spatial representations (instead of presuming what they see as important) to put that in the map so it will 'meet' with mapping layers that are known to represent determinants of health.

The statewide EJ Mapping tool that is currently in progress also has an associated Mapping Tool Advisory Committee (grant-funded to compensate for participants' time), through which both community-based organizations and individuals with lived experience will repeatedly meet to review and engage with the drafts of the mapping tool as it's developed and refined. Here's the website for the EJ Mapping Tool: https://connecticut-environmental-justice.circa.uconn.edu/

That's great, Joanna!

It is important to allocate both funds and time to foster community engagement. Agencies need to keep in mind that putting together engagement events and getting feedback from communities requires a longer time frame than "business as usual."

Anyone for public comments?

Great work from CIRCA!

CIRCA is also working with a consultant to develop a vulnerability index for extreme heat, which will be a statewide layer that can be mapped in GIS.

I think there is a lot of leveraging we can do with new federal resources focused in this space too. We had a great presentation from former EEJ working group member Adrienne Houel on a project she is doing with Dept. of Energy.

That was in mitigation strategies

Yes on the heat islands too, thank you, DC Bergeron.

Heat is definitely a new focus on climate adaptation and resilience nationally.

My deepest appreciation to our EEJ working group members for your presence in all the meetings we had in the previous days!Thank you to the PH&S for your participation today! So great to hear from all of you.

Thank you for your wonderful presentations, all!

I also would not dismiss the power of remote engagement. At the beginning of the pandemic very few of us were skilled at meeting remotely, but the GC3 process was able to engage many more community stakeholders over a more sustained duration than in the original round. Similarly, in the local community many more people are able to meet remotely now compared to a few years ago. Of course it isn't the same as meeting in person, but it is valuable due to removing travel issues.

Thank you!

thank you