Draft Community Action Roadmap

Empowering Near-port Communities

EPA thanks those that submitted comments to help improve this tool.  If you have additional suggestions or thoughts, please send them to Talk About Ports (TalkAboutPorts@epa.gov).

The Community Action Roadmap: Empowering Near-port Communities (Community Action Roadmap) provides a step-by-step guide to help near-port communities effectively engage in port decisions that may impact local land use, environmental health and quality of life. This Community Action Roadmap supplements the companion document, A Ports Primer for Communities (Ports Primer). The Ports Primer provides an overview of ports planning and operations, potential benefits and impacts of ports operations, successful community strategies, and links to additional resources.

Ports can benefit near-by communities by providing jobs, infrastructure and resources to support community amenities. However ports activities can also impact near-by communities with noise, air and water pollution, traffic related to transport, loading and related industrial land uses. Near-port communities, which are often low income and/or communities of color, bear a disproportionate burden from these impacts, including reduced health and prosperity.

• Draft Community Action Roadmap (PDF)(20 pp, 803 K, July 2016, EPA-420-P-16-003)