Accountability Through Action

The Air District has prepared the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan to guide our work, and more importantly to hold ourselves accountable. We have discussed with the Board of Directors, community leaders, industry, and local governments much of what is described in this plan. We have even begun to make progress, with many actions already underway. Some actions will take longer to address, as they are dependent on the completion of others. Although all the strategies and commitments in the plan cannot be implemented at the same time, they all reflect our priorities over the next five years.

The 2024-2029 Strategic Plan empowers communities, the Board of Directors, and Air District employees to clearly see and understand all our five-year priorities and commitments. It also allows us to assess whether our actions are in alignment with 4. Accountability Through Action these commitments and the needs of the communities we serve. It enables us to track our progress in meeting commitments. This strategic plan is a mechanism to hold us accountable.

Commitments in Action

Making commitments aligned with our Board of Directors, communities, and core values is a critical step in achieving our mission, vision, and goals. Acting on those commitments is even more important. Without action, nothing is achieved.

To ensure we honor our commitments, we have already begun developing action plans, initiatives, and programs to advance the strategies in the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan. We will also develop performance timelines, milestones, metrics, and targets. In our annual budget process, we will ensure resources are made available to complete the actions identified in action plans. We will annually report progress and transparently communicate what we have accomplished. Every five years, we will do a full review of the strategic plan and update it to reflect current conditions and priorities.

Action Plans

Over the next several months, we will continue developing implementation, or “action,” plans to address one or more strategies in the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan. Through conversations with the members of the Community Advisory Council, we have identified actions to support many of the strategies in the plan. Many of the actions we need to take to finish implementing adopted community emission reduction plans through AB 617 will also be building blocks of action plans to advance the strategic plan. In consultation with our Board of Directors and through other employee-led efforts, we have also identified actions we can take to implement strategies and, in some cases, have begun to act.

Performance Metrics

We will create performance metrics for each strategy and associated actions to better enable us to report progress. Metrics will be specific and tangible. Quantitative metrics will be used where possible, along with qualitative measures and milestones. We will track and annually report progress on each metric to our Board and communities.

Resource Alignment

As described in Strategy 4.11 Align Resources, we will ensure that we properly resource the strategies and supporting action plans in the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan. We will reorient our annual budget process, including the allocation of funds, to support the plan’s implementation. Each annual budget cycle will be an opportunity to evaluate whether our commitments in the plan are adequately resourced, and to adjust if necessary.

Progress Reports

Each year, we commit to reporting progress on our efforts to implement the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan, as described in Strategy 4.12 Report Progress. In the annual progress report, we will include a summary of all actions we have completed, along with associated performance metrics. We will describe actions not taken and why. Progress reports will be used to determine whether we need to revise our action plans to be more effective.

Additionally, our strategic plan website will be an opportunity to showcase progress on a more regular basis, to allow communities to see our progress throughout the year. There will be details on individual commitments and milestones, along with progress dashboards.

As described above, we will also align the annual progress reports with the development of our annual budget, allowing for the assessment of additional resource needs, or reallocation of existing resources.

Annual progress reports will be an opportunity to hear from our community partners on how we are doing, and if we are continuing to meet their needs and expectations. Each annual budget cycle and the accompanying progress report will allow the Air District and communities to reassess and reaffirm alignment on shared priorities. And as we have learned by our discussions with Community Advisory Council members to identify actions to advance environmental justice, such partnership is important to ensure alignment.

Updating the Strategic Plan

Every five years we will perform a comprehensive strategic plan update. The five-year update will be an opportunity to reassess our priorities, considering current conditions and resources. As with the development of the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan, we will consult with communities, employees, our partners, and the Board of Directors in the plan update.

Actions Underway

We are already actively working to implement the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan. Below is a snapshot of some of the actions we have taken or are taking to realize the plan’s vision and goals through the implementation of specific plan strategies.

Changing Approach to Air Quality

We are working with communities in West Oakland, Richmond, North Richmond, and San Pablo to identify pollution sources of concern in their neighborhoods. We are developing methods to better understand local risks from fine particulate matter, like those used to understand health risks from toxic air contaminants. We also recently completed neighborhood-scale computer modeling of all known air pollution sources in West Oakland and Richmond-North Richmond-San Pablo to determine which sources are driving exposure to air pollution in each neighborhood. These efforts support implementation of Strategy 1.1 Change Approach to Air Quality.

Better Responding to Air Quality Incidents

The Air District Board of Directors recently approved new approaches and improvements to how we respond to air quality incidents. The changes will improve how we communicate about incidents and how we coordinate with government agencies in our response. We will improve information accessibility regarding our air quality incident response and investigation. The revisions will also improve how we collect information about an incident’s impact on the surrounding community. As a first step, we will work with community members near refineries to develop a program to sample and analyze particulate matter emitted during incidents and to communicate the results.

We are also working closely with industries, such as oil refineries, to install continuous monitors near their equipment to better estimate emissions from flaring events. These actions will help us provide more timely and relevant information to communities potentially impacted by an incident.

These actions support Strategies 4.8 Air Quality Incidents and 2.2 Collect Community Data. Many are also consistent with actions in the Richmond-North Richmond-San Pablo Path to Clean Air.

Stronger Regulations

Two adopted community plans, Owning Our Air and Path to Clean Air, for reducing local air pollution in West Oakland and in Richmond-North Richmond-San Pablo contain commitments for stronger regulations. Some of the priority areas for both communities include to reduce dust, restaurant related emissions, metal recycling and foundry operation emissions, smoke from backyard wood fires, open burning, recreational fires and fireplaces, marine and rail emissions, and air pollution from oil refineries. To meet these commitments, and to support Strategy 1.2 Stronger Regulations, we have developed a priority list of regulations to direct our regulation efforts over the next few years.

We have also recently updated permitting regulations to set stricter air pollution requirements and to require expanded public notice for new and modified sources of toxic air pollution in communities overburdened by air pollution. We are also developing stricter regulations for dust sources such as construction sites, batch plants, and materials handling facilities.

Minimizing Flaring

We are evaluating data from flaring incidents to understand what material is being flared and how often the incidents take place. We are also talking with communities near refineries to understand their concerns about flaring, including how they are notified and what the possible health impacts are. These actions will help us decide what additional steps we need to take to minimize flaring.

In addition, the recently adopted Richmond- North Richmond San Pablo Path to Clean Air includes a strategy to reduce “persistent” flaring from oil refineries. The strategy includes six actions. Actions include working with the community and the City of Richmond to strengthen their local ordinance on industrial safety, coordinating with the community to improve and expand communications about flaring events, collaborating with Contra Costa County to improve their Community Warning System, and evaluating potential updates to the Air District’s flaring regulations. These actions will be the starting point for a detailed action plan for Strategy 1.3 Minimize Flaring.

Climate Solutions

We are partnering with local governments, community-based organizations, and community advocates to begin developing a regional climate plan. This plan will complement the statewide climate plan and facilitate local and regional actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as described in Strategy 1.7 New Climate Solutions. We are also assisting a network of local governments in its efforts to electrify the homes of thousands of low-income families and to develop new policies to advance building electrification, also in support of Strategy 1.7.

Understanding Local Air Pollution

We are evaluating five years of air quality data from the Purple Air monitoring network, which gives us information about air quality in specific locations across the Bay Area. In Richmond, we sent a van containing air monitoring equipment to conduct more detailed studies of toxic air pollution and particulate matter, with direction from community members. We are planning a similar effort in East Oakland, in partnership with Communities for a Better Environment. These actions support Strategy 2.7 Understand Local Air Pollution.

Improving the Permitting Process

To improve the timeliness of permits, we have identified all backlogged permits and where in the process the permit is getting delayed. We are developing plans to address these sticking points. We are also taking steps to improve the efficiency of our permitting requirements for large, complex industries, back-up generators, and composting. These include improving our process for testing emission levels at specific facilities, which is often part of the permit process at complex facilities. In addition, we are looking at ways we can change regulations to streamline the permitting process.

To improve permit consistency, we have recently overhauled our permit handbook, which provides emission calculations, applicable regulations, and standard permit conditions. This new handbook will be piloted internally to see if it indeed improves permit consistency and timeliness. To improve transparency of the permitting process, we are developing a public dashboard on permit application status, where applicants and members of the public can see the status of permit applications. These actions support Strategies 4.1 Timely Permits, 4.2 Transparent Permit Process, and 4.3 Consistent Permits.

Improving Air Quality Monitoring

We are evaluating our network of air monitors to see if we need to change the locations of any monitors to better measure air quality in communities overburdened by air pollution. We are also taking steps to improve our air quality data system, so the public can be confident the data are reliable and secure. These actions are the first steps to implement Strategy 4.4 Improve Air Monitoring.

New Policy for Directing Penalty

Funds to Community The Board of Directors adopted a policy in May 2024 to allocate a significant portion of penalty funds to benefit affected communities. For the largest penalties, 80 percent of the penalty will go to the community impacted by the air quality violation. The broader region will also benefit from penalties. Implementation of this groundbreaking policy is underway. This action supports Strategies 2.8 Community-Directed Funds and 1.4 Reimagine Funding.

Recognizing Employees and Supporting their Development

We have developed action plans to recognize our employees for their outstanding performance and to support our employees’ professional development and growth through their career life cycles. We have already taken the first steps, including creating ways to spotlight employees’ successes, launching a learning program for supervisors, and expanding our mentoring program. These actions support Strategies 3.5 Recognize Employees and 3.6 Support Employee Success.

Strategic Plan Aligns With Community Plans

As described in Chapter 1, Assembly Bill 617 requires the state to select communities to partner with local air districts to develop plans for community monitoring and for reducing pollution in communities. Since the law passed, we have worked with two communities, West Oakland and Richmond-North Richmond-San Pablo, to develop and adopt a community monitoring plan and emission reduction plans. We are now working with East Oakland and Bayview Hunters Point-Southeast San Francisco on similar plans.

These community plans and partnerships have inspired the transformative focus of the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan. They have also inspired many of the strategies in the plan; the plan’s strategies are consistent with or supportive of strategies and actions in both the West Oakland and Richmond-North Richmond-San Pablo plans.

In the West Oakland plan, Owning Our Air, we committed to reporting on enforcement activities and to strengthening a variety of regulations. In the Richmond area plan, Path to Clean Air, there are strategies calling for stronger regulations to control dust, pollution from backyard fires and restaurant cooking, and marine and rail activity. There are also strategies about more imaginative incentives, the consideration of land use and cumulative impacts, a just transition away from fossil fuels, improving permitting to ensure better health protection, minimizing flaring, holding violators accountable, and ensuring resources are aligned to deliver the commitments made to community.

Many of the actions we need to take to finish implementing West Oakland’s Owning our Air and to begin implementing Path to Clean Air will benefit other communities and the region more broadly. The ideas developed in the adopted community plans will also be building blocks of action plans to advance strategies in the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan.