Poster #36 - Engaging Communities to Advance Environmental Justice: A Review of the Washington State HEAL Act

• In Event: Friday Poster Reception

Abstract

Policymakers increasingly recognize that durable and equitable solutions to environmental challenges require collaboration with communities. In 2021, Washington State enacted the Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act, which directs state agencies to center environmental justice in their decisions. A key component of the law requires agencies to meaningfully engage historically overburdened communities when assessing the impacts of major policies and projects. However, the law offers limited guidance on what meaningful engagement looks like in practice. Agencies must decide when to involve communities during the policy process and what engagement methods to use—choices that carry major consequences for equity, inclusion, and legitimacy.

This paper examines how state agencies are implementing the HEAL Act’s engagement requirements by analyzing 144 Environmental Justice Assessments (EJAs) launched between July 2023 and March 2025. We combine document analysis with qualitative interviews to investigate two core questions: When do agencies engage communities within the project cycle? And how do agencies choose specific engagement tools and strategies?

Early review suggests that agencies vary widely in how they approach both timing and methods of engagement. Some agencies front-load engagement during planning, while others delay it until later stages. Similarly, we anticipate that most agencies rely on a limited range of engagement tools that do not fully defer authority to communities, which is at the highest spectrum of community engagement according to the official community engagement guide. These choices likely reflect differences in agency capacity, risk tolerance, and interpretations of legal mandates, which will be further investigated through qualitative analysis of interviews. 

By identifying how agencies operationalize community engagement under the HEAL Act, we aim to offer practical guidance for policymakers working to build equitable and resilient governance. We also speak to broader debates about how public institutions can collaborate with communities in ways that go beyond symbolic inclusion. As states across the country adopt environmental justice mandates, our research offers timely insights for those seeking to design participatory processes that distribute power more fairly and advance structural change.

Authors

• Yulan Kim, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• Mark Nepf, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Grant Blume, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Co-Author