Integrated Water Justice in Underserved Communities

1. My time working in Integrated Water Management at Stantec has shown me how a range of sustainability leaders can collaborate to solve a collective problem and address goals while uplifting community voice.

2. Integrated water resource management (IRWM) is a holistic approach to water resources management that takes into account all that water interacts with: land, people, and policies. Personally, I have been drawn to an all-encompassing water approach through my previous work, and the inclusive aspect to IRWM pulls me in as water management and environmental planning as a whole has historically been exclusive, erasing communities that were intentionally placed at the margins by engineers and resource planners, especially in California and the western United States.

3. The projects I was involved in were contracted by the Los Angeles County Public Works’ Flood Control District (LACFCD), the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Disadvantaged Community and Tribal Involvement Program (DACTIP), and King County, Seattle’s Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD). All projects prioritized the community needs of underserved areas in the US Western region.

4-5. Safe, Clean Water Program (SCWP): Disadvantaged Community and Tribal Involvement Program and SCWP Metrics and Monitoring Study
Los Angeles County’s Safe, Clean Water Program (SCWP) is geared towards increasing the county’s local water capture through stormwater management that aims to center community-involved planning. SCWP is funded by Measure W, a parcel tax that was voted on by Los Angeles County residents in 2018. Project applicants include individuals, businesses, municipalities, and nonprofit and community-based organizations. Projects range from simply installing subsurface infrastructure to capture street water runoff to developing long-term programs that engage community members to interact with infrastructure as a community agency and educational opportunity. My role with SCWP has evolved from my work with the Luskin Center for Innovation, as I co-wrote a white paper for the LACFCD with Dr. Gregory Pierce, Dr. Mike Antos, and others to assess how the program addresses equity in projects located within or near “disadvantaged” communities.

A major takeaway from the equity and metrics monitoring paper from UCLA was that there was an over claiming of benefits to communities in “disadvantaged” areas of the county. At Stantec, I expanded on this finding and assisted the Metrics and Monitoring team of SCWP in pairing the IRWM DACTIP Greater Los Angeles County Needs Assessment led by ReDesign LA with SCWP claimed benefits data. In 2022, local organizations conducted a Greater Los Angeles County (GLAC) Needs Assessment under the regional IRWM Disadvantaged Community and Tribal Involvement Program (DACTIP). To minimize the stigma that the word “disadvantaged” may bring to those who live in underserved communities, the local DACTIP was coined “WaterTalks.” The WaterTalks Needs Assessment surveyed underserved communities across the county and generated a separate series of surveys and listening sessions for local tribal communities. In order to assess the effectiveness of SCWP on serving and prioritizing underserved communities, I paired data that informed the SCWP equity metrics study with survey data on community strengths and needs. Prior to that, I complemented the data I collected in the equity metrics white paper with project benefits data from the rest of the funded SCWP projects for the first two years of funding (Fiscal Years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022).

This pairing of SCWP and Needs Assessment data could also be helpful for people who are applying to SCWP funds to understand the already-existing needs of communities for project planning and community engagement. Some of the claimed benefits from SCWP projects were not addressed in the needs assessment survey and some of the community needs from the survey were not addressed by SCWP, like a concern for drinking water quality and wastewater runoff.

This memo resulted in identifying three major categories of how SCWP addresses community needs: met, unmet, and misaligned language use. To elaborate, some community needs, like wanting more shade trees were successfully met by projects whereas others, like wanting safer water recreation opportunities, were not. More often than not, the ways that community members were describing their needs and desires in regards to water were similar to what SCWP describes as project benefits, but the language used to describe those desires were different. For instance, communities sought to see less trash and industrial contamination in their waterways, but SCWP describes that benefit as a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), which is a term that is often used amongst environmental and water professionals. Within the program, this metric tracks zinc, bacteria, nitrogen, and “other,” which often encompasses trash. Ultimately, recommendations included mirroring the language that community members use to describe their water-related concerns throughout the program. Using community language should be a priority for a program that claims to fund community-centered projects and an institution that serves people.

Safe, Clean Water Program: Technical Resources Support
My assistance for the SCWP also took the form of aiding their Technical Resource Programs. Earlier on in the summer, I co-developed a memo for Los Angeles County Public Works’ Flood Control District’s senior civil engineer Kirk Allen. Based on recommendations the SCWP has been receiving from key stakeholders, they have been investigating ways to include and prioritize Indigenous communities and knowledge of land into their outreach, education, and program development. As a result, the Program requested Stantec to explore the possibility of including ancestral land maps into the SCWP Spatial Data Library. Prior to writing the memo of recommendations to SCWP, I consulted with Roland Pacheco, the Tribal Engagement Coordinator of TreePeople, and asked about his experience in including ancestral information into planning documents. TreePeople has used ancestral lands maps in their project plans for different watersheds, and I inquired about how institutions that have historically excluded Indigenous knowledge systems have ethically been able to include them now.

After my conversation with TreePeople and research on public mapping databases on ancestral lands, I briefed the SCWP on ways to go about building meaningful relationships with Indigenous communities in Los Angeles and across the state of California. One main takeaway from this experience was learning that maps on ancestral land and boundaries for Indigenous territories are not always representative of the places that some Indigenous groups claim due to displacement, forced assimilation, and other reasons. This could cause more conflict when institutions could rely on maps that are managed by Indigenous community members and groups like the Native American Heritage Commission are updated frequently and by members of the community instead. The SCWP is still navigating how to best educate project proponents and the non-Native public about the ancestral lands of Los Angeles County.

I was also able to assist Stantec’s role in providing technical assistance to SCWP by conducting an analysis of projects that were led by schools, often for school greening. Since not many schools have successfully applied to and received funding from SCWP, this analysis was necessary to understand possible gaps in applications. Conducting this research included tracking how much each school project applicant requested, categorizing the schools by school district, and dissecting their funding applications to further understand how the schools discussed engaging their neighborhoods, parents, and students in project plans. It was apparent that some schools requested large amounts of funding and added stormwater benefits to their application as a secondary reason for their application, with the primary reason being campus improvements. Since SCWP is a stormwater and water-specific funding pool, many of these projects were rejected. Additionally, a lot of project applicants failed to discuss in detail the academic or engagement plans for a greener campus. This memo was shared with the Flood Control District along with a working group of school greening advocates from the team of Watershed Coordinators, or people in the county housed at various organizations who conduct community outreach and engagement work for SCWP.

Safe, Clean Water Program: Regional Coordination
Another way I assisted the SCWP through Stantec was by taking on a coordinator role. I took notes for Watershed Area Steering Committee (WASC) meetings for the different watersheds in Los Angeles County. I primarily took notes for the Upper Santa Clara River, Rio Hondo River, and Upper Los Angeles River Watersheds. I was trained to take official minutes that were up to par for the county, and learned how to document project progress, write about committee member opinions from an objective lens, and communicate with county officials and District staff in a professional and timely manner. In addition to WASC meetings, I took notes for Watershed Coordinator meetings. Watershed Coordinator meetings consisted of representatives from the seven subwatersheds of Los Angeles County sharing updates from their SCWP initiatives in their communities. Watershed Coordinators hold a very unique and important role in the SCWP process as they have close ties to the communities they work in and represent for SCWP. I enjoyed getting to know the Watershed Coordinators and their work within their regions.

Safe, Clean Water Program: Metrics and Monitoring
The SCWP also has a Metrics and Monitoring Program (MMS) to track how the program is achieving its goals, which have been outlined in the county ordinance that formed Measure W, or the SCWP. A major position the ordinance takes is to prioritize “disadvantaged” or economically stressed communities that have historically been underrepresented and underserved in the planning process. During my time as a graduate student researcher at UCLA with Dr. Pierce, I assisted in tracking equity in the program and benefits the projects claimed to provide them. The report that resulted from that analysis provided many insights on how SCWP can improve on providing multi-benefit solutions from their stormwater projects equitably.

Disadvantaged Community and Tribal Involvement Program in Los Angeles County: WaterTalks
Beyond the memo on the WaterTalks Needs Assessment and SCWP project benefits, I also helped the WaterTalks team with research on their project concepts. One of the first project concepts I was introduced to by Atley Keller, a public affairs specialist for the Sacramento office, was looking into possible funding solutions for septic system users in the Upper Santa Clara River Watershed. My preliminary research included looking into news sources for possible septic solutions in Los Angeles County to inform possible collaborations.

Another WaterTalks project concept I assisted in was delving into the work that exists on vended and retail water, its quality, and its affordability in California. Vended water is water that is dispensed from a water vending machine, which can be a standalone vending machine or a machine in a water store. This water is usually sourced from the same provider that sends water to the tap in an area, and has additional filtration, commonly reverse osmosis. I began my research by reading papers written at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, documents by the California Department of Public Health, and the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law. I sought to determine whether the quality of vended or retail water is actually better than water from the tap as communities that tend to not trust their tap water resort to purchasing water from a retail water facility or water vending machine. I was also curious about whether the testing requirements for vended and retail water compare to the requirements for testing under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Beyond this, transparency of this information to consumers of vended and retail water came to my attention, so I dug into how vended and retail water providers publicize information on the quality of their water and whether or not their machine(s) or facility has received any violations. From my research, I found that the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law has the most robust information on California’s standards for vended and retail water. There was a single study in 2004 on the water quality of water vending machines, which helped inform me about the kinds of violations that could be possible. This work led me to realize that more research is needed on vended and retail water to ensure that standards are transparent and set for possible violations as communities that rely on alternative sources of drinking water are more vulnerable than communities who tend to trust their tap water for drinking.

In a similar thread of tap water trust work, I also assisted WaterTalks with their concept of developing a regional tap water testing program, similar to the work being done in the Bay Area. I aided the WaterTalks team in conducting research on premise plumbing, or the plumbing on a property that is connected to a water service provider line. Often, drinking water issues are results of aged or poor quality plumbing on a property, and there are many other implications, such as if the property is owned by those living in it or if the residents are renters and the property is owned by an agency or a landlord. To determine whether or not premise plumbing issues that result in poor drinking water quality are of the tenant’s or landlord’s responsibility, I looked into California habitability standards, and researched a variety of tenant-led organizations in Los Angeles. The issue of premise plumbing is tricky as household taps are not legally considered sources of drinking water, but municipal or private water providers claim that tap water is drinkable. It was surprising to me that there are many organizations across the state that specialize in providing equitable access to drinking water, yet the issue of premise plumbing is a gap across drinking water work. The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation has been a very helpful resource in my research as much of the novel research regarding premise plumbing and tap water trust more broadly has been produced by them. Stentec’s next steps in developing a regional tap water testing program include finding reputable organizations or institutions that can house such a program. Testing for premise plumbing issues is a delicate process as it includes providing people with equipment to test water in their homes, so a level of care and respect for judging the quality of where someone lives is necessary. Ultimately, I discovered that it is of the responsibility of a landlord or property owner to replace plumbing that could be causing poor water quality for residents, but the process of holding landlords accountable requires a lot of labor on behalf of tenants.

King County Wastewater Treatment Division: West Point Capital Program and Environmental Social Justice
I also aided Stantec in research for the Wastewater Treatment Division in King County, Seattle. King County has a unique Capital Infrastructure Program that dedicates a percentage of funding to the arts, and they launched a similar pilot program to dedicate a percentage of funding to environmental and social justice initiatives. My research centered around leveraging King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division as an anchor institution to dedicate a percentage of their capital investments to environmental and social justice. West Point Treatment Plant in King County is not located within an economically “disadvantaged” community, but it is downstream of many communities that classify as such. By developing a program that dedicates funding to environmental and social justice, it was important to highlight in the memo that the program would not only apply to the community proximate to the plant, but to the communities whose waters flow into the plant. I read through the capital appropriations processes for projects housed under the Wastewater Treatment Division to gather how project applicants were discussing the relationship between their projects and environmental and social justice to build a case as to where in the capital appropriations process an environmental and social justice requirement could exist. I also compiled interviews conducted by my supervisor Mike Antos and Emily Finnegan, a public affairs specialist in the Stantec Sacramento office, that were from employees of the Wastewater Treatment Division to corroborate information found in capital appropriations. The memo was recently sent to King County.

Miscellaneous Projects
I also aided Stantec on miscellaneous tasks. I attended an equity in water management workshop hosted by the California State Water Resources Control Board and compiled notes for Stantec’s key collaborators. I also helped my supervisor regain a connection with Rajendra Singh, who does water resource advocacy in India, to chat with the Flood Managed Aquifer Recharge (Flood-MAR) team of the California Department of Water Resources. Lastly, I aided in outreach and design for engineering projects including the retrofitting of the SCWP-funded Pedley Spreading Grounds Enhancement Project in Pomona, CA.

6. As someone who has been in the academia and non-profit worlds for the majority of my career journey thus far, working in a private company setting has been challenging. First, there is a sense of daily urgency and specificity for both large projects and detailed work that is necessary to be successful in the private sector. As someone who has chased time-consuming curiosity thus far, this was difficult to get used to, as a majority of my days outside of the private sector ended with more questions than answers, and answers were needed on a specific timeline in this position. I am one to take on any task I am given as I do love challenges, but I am definitely still adjusting to that agenda. My work was quite fragmented, which reflected the nature of the work conducted by my supervisor. I learned that I am quite good at researching, so much of my work fell into that bucket. I will likely continue conducting research once I graduate. I do wish I had more opportunities to connect with people who are on the ground doing water equity work, as much of my role was behind a screen. I am still unsure how to balance my desire for conducting research and my need to connect with people. I have secured a position in the company as a full-time Community Water Planner.