EPA REGION 10 Recipient: Willamette Partnership Applicant Type: Not for Profit Award Amount: $10,000,000 Title: Northwestern Environmental and Energy Justice TCTAC Location: EPA Region 10 (AK, ID, OR, WA, and 271 native tribes) Partners: Portland State University (academic) Rural Community Assistance Corporation (nonprofit) Alai Community Consulting (business) Oregon Public Health Institute (nonprofit), Verde (nonprofit) Boise State University (academic) Kearns and West (private), Community Engineering Corps (nonprofit) Goals and Description:
The Northwestern Environmental and Energy Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC) team believes that centering values of self-determination, equity, intergenerational Indigenous cultural and ceremonial practices, traditional ecological knowledge, natural resource security, stewardship, resilience, education, and community connection1 provide a platform from which communities can heal, build power, and emerge toward futures in which everyone and mother earth thrives–no exceptions.
The TCTAC will focus on underserved communities and where environmental, health, and economic burdens and capacity constraints co-occur–including Tribal and Indigenous communities, Black, Latinx, immigrant, and disabilities communities, especially in remote and rural areas. Willamette Partnership (WP) and Portland State University’s (PSU) Institute for Tribal Government (ITG) will co- manage the TCTAC with a broad diversity of partners to serve Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. We have built a vision for a community-driven TCTAC from our lived and shared experiences. This vision includes extensive community engagement that uplifts the EJ priorities defined by impacted communities.
The Northwestern TCTAC’s priorities and services will be shaped by a Community Leadership Assembly composed of TCTAC participants and partners. Through the Assembly’s guidance and the TCTAC’s services (community engagement, cohort learning and capacity building, technical assistance, and storytelling), we anticipate the following outputs each year:
80 community engagement actions, including community meeting facilitations, translation/interpretation activities, 1:1 conversations, and other actions that over five years reach a significant number of EJ communities (e.g., nearly all of the federally recognized tribes in ID, OR, and WA, at least 50% of the tribes in AK, and immigrant communities from Mesoamerica, East Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Asia, and people with disabilities); 60 direct technical assistance projects (55 in year 1) that range from light-touch navigating of existing resources, to medium-touch preparation for receiving federal funds or updating community needs assessments, to more intensive supports for construction projects or policy analysis; Cohort-style learning and leadership development for 80 community leaders and members in data justice, navigating public and private funding, just energy transitions, engaging and influencing policy, environmental justice leadership institute, and five students supporting the TCTAC; and storytelling and accountability including a quarterly newsletter, biannual case study/video shorts of success, data visualization tools of EJ priorities, monthly social media, and an annual