Larimer County reviews environmental-justice impact assessment to guide Climate Smart Future Ready actions

Larimer County commissioners on Feb. 4 reviewed an Environmental Justice Impact Assessment intended to guide the county's Climate Smart Future Ready plan and help prioritize climate mitigation strategies in communities the state identifies as disproportionately impacted.

The assessment, presented by David Varjas, a professor of environmental epidemiology at Colorado State University, summarized six weeks of community engagement, an analysis that compared seven mitigation strategies and recommendations for where in the county to begin implementation.

Varjas said the assessment's purpose was to "evaluate where are those strategies, what are the evidence that support those strategies, what are the factors related to environmental justice that will be impact that could be increased or reduced in injustices, and also integrate the community feedback." He told the commissioners the objective was to "generate recommendations to maximize the benefits and minimize any risk, always with a lens of environmental justice."

The assessment examined seven strategies drawn from the county's Climate Smart Future Ready plan: (1) building energy efficiency and codes, (2) incentives, education and workforce…