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Chapter 5: Environmental Justice

5.1 Introduction

This chapter of the EA considers whether minority populations and/or low-income populations 

would experience potential environmental or health impacts from the Build Alternatives and 

whether any such impacts would fall disproportionately on those populations. It also discusses the 

public outreach efforts undertaken to inform and involve minority and low-income populations who 

may be affected by the Build Alternatives. 

Executive Order 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations 

and Low-Income Populations (February 11, 1994), requires Federal agencies to identify and 

address disproportionately high and adverse effects of their actions on minority and low-income 

populations. Executive Order 12898 also requires Federal agencies to work to ensure greater 

public participation in the decision-making process. The CEQ, which has oversight of the Federal

government’s compliance with Executive Order 12898 and NEPA, has developed guidance to 

assist Federal agencies with their NEPA procedures so that environmental justice concerns are 

effectively identified and addressed. Federal agencies are permitted to supplement this guidance 

with more specific procedures tailored to their particular programs or activities, as the USDOT has 

done. This environmental justice analysis was prepared to comply with the guidance and 

methodologies set forth in the USDOT’s Final Environmental Justice Order,

130 FTA’s 

environmental justice guidance,131 and the CEQ environmental justice guidance.132 

Consistent with those documents, this analysis involved four basic steps:

1. Identify the area where the Build Alternatives may cause adverse impacts (i.e., the study 

area);

2. Compile race and ethnicity and income data for the census block groups in the study area and 

identify minority and low-income populations;

3. Identify the potential adverse impacts of the Build Alternatives on minority and low-income 

populations; and

4. Evaluate the potential adverse effects of the Build Alternatives on minority and low-income 

populations relative to effects on non-minority and non-low-income populations to determine 

whether it would result in any disproportionately high and adverse effects on minority or lowincome populations.

5.2 Delineation of the Study Area

The study area for environmental justice encompasses the area most likely to be affected by the 

Build Alternatives and considers the area where potential impacts resulting from construction and 

130 U.S. Department of Transportation, Final Environmental Justice Order 5610.2(a), Actions to Address 

Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations, on May 2, 2012.

131 Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Circular FTA C 4703.1, Environmental Justice Policy Guidance 

for Federal Transit Administration Recipients, August 15, 2012.

132 Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental Justice Guidance under the National Environmental 

Policy Act, December 1997. 
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operation of the Build Alternatives could occur. The study area for environmental justice follows 

the 1⁄4-mile study area used for the analyses of land use and social conditions. The study area 

includes two block groups in Albany, Albany County Census Tract 2 Block Group 1 and Census 

Tract 11 Block Group 1, and three block groups in Rensselaer, Rensselaer County Census Tract 

515 Block Group 2 and Census Tract 516 Block Groups 1 and 2 (see Figure 5-1). 

5.3 Identification of Environmental Justice Populations

Based on the 2015-2019 ACS of racial and ethnic characteristics and poverty status (shown in 

Exhibit 5-1) and the guidance documents described above, potential environmental justice areas 

were identified as follows: 

• Minority communities: FTA’s Environmental Justice Circular 4703.1 defines minorities to 

include American Indians or Alaskan Natives, Asian, African Americans or Black persons, 

Hispanic or Latino persons, and Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders. This 

environmental justice analysis also considers minority populations to include persons who 

identified themselves as being either “some other race” or “two or more races.” Applicable 

guidance indicates that minority populations should be identified where either: (1) the minority 

population of the affected area exceeds 50 percent; or (2) the minority population percentage 

of the affected area is meaningfully greater than the minority population percentage in the 

general population or other appropriate unit of geographic analysis. Using Albany County and 

Rensselaer County as the statistical reference areas, block groups in the study area that have 

a minority population percentage greater than that of their county (i.e., 27.8 percent for Albany 

County and 16.8 percent for Rensselaer County) are considered environmental justice areas.

• Low-income communities: According to the applicable guidance, low income means a person 

whose median household income is at or below the U.S. Department of Health and Human 

Services (HHS) poverty guidelines.133 Low-income population means any readily identifiable 

group of low-income persons who live in geographic proximity, and, if circumstances warrant, 

geographically dispersed/transient persons (such as migrant workers or Native Americans) 

who will be similarly affected by a proposed USDOT program, policy or activity. Using Albany 

County and Rensselaer County as the statistical reference areas, block groups with a 

percentage of individuals living below the poverty level of greater than 11.9 percent and 11.7

percent, respectively, are considered low-income communities. 

5.4 Environmental Justice Populations in the Study Area

Exhibit 5-1 shows the minority and income characteristics for populations in the study area in 

comparison to Albany and Rensselaer Counties. As shown in the exhibit, with the exception of 

Rensselaer Tract 516 Block Group 2, each individual block group in the study area has a minority 

population higher than the percentages for the county in which the block group is located.

Exhibit 5-2 uses information from Exhibit 5-1 and the definitions of minority and low-income 

communities provided above to identify environmental justice communities. As shown in Exhibit 

5-1 and illustrated in Figure 5-1, four of the five block groups in the study area have a minority 

population higher than the percentage for the county in which the block group is located and four

of the five block groups have a low-income population higher than the percentage for the county 

in which the block group is located. Considered as a whole, the overall study area and all five 

individual block groups in the study area can be considered environmental justice communities. 

133 U.S. Census Bureau poverty data is used in the analysis, which provides the basis for the HHS poverty 

guidelines. The U.S, Census Bureau provides updated poverty thresholds annually, which vary by the 

number and age of adults and the number of children under age 18 in the family unit. 


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a minority and/or low-income population, or would be appreciably greater for the minority and/or 

low-income population than for the non-minority and/or non-low-income population. Effects that 

may occur as a result of a proposed action may be considered in the context of associated 

mitigation measures and offsetting benefits when determining whether disproportionately high and 

adverse effects would occur. 

The Project is in an area that can be considered an environmental justice community, and 

therefore, any adverse impacts from the construction or operation of the Build Alternatives would

occur in an environmental justice community. 

As indicated in earlier sections of this EA, adverse effects would occur to historic resources in 

Albany and Rensselaer (related to the loss of the bridge itself) and to natural resources during 

bridge construction and demolition activities. The historic resource impacts would be mitigated 

through the Section 106 consultation process and the natural resource impacts would be mitigated 

through the applicable permitting processes. These adverse effects would not affect the 

environmental justice communities to a greater degree than the broader population, and therefore, 

these effects would not be disproportionately high and adverse to environmental justice 

communities. 

While some localized adverse effects, such as noise and potential dust, would occur throughout 

the study area during the Project’s construction in both environmental justice block groups and 

non-environmental justice block groups, these effects would be temporary and would end once 

construction is complete. Moreover, construction would be managed to minimize the potential for 

adverse effects through the use of best management practices such as dust control. Furthermore, 

environmental justice communities closest to the Project site would be buffered from construction 

by distance and intervening vegetation. Most construction activity would occur in the water, where 

the approach spans and movable span would be installed, working from limited onshore staging 

areas. This would limit the potential for disruption to nearby uses in Rensselaer and Albany, since 

the activities would not be immediately nearby. Some construction staging would occur on the 

east side of the bridge, which would be buffered from the residential community by distance and 

the presence of intervening vegetation that would block views of the construction. The 

reconfiguration of the approach tracks in Rensselaer would be the closest construction activity to 

the community, and it would occur over a short time period and, with only limited activity required, 

would not be intensely disruptive. Although environmental justice communities are located on both 

sides of the bridge, the Project would not result in construction impacts on these communities

which would be buffered from construction as stated above, and therefore, there would be no 

disproportionately high and adverse effects on environmental justice populations from the 

Project’s construction.

The potential adverse impacts associated with the Build Alternatives are not related to the built 

environment where the environmental justice communities are located and would not adversely 

affect the quality of life or public health conditions in the study area. Therefore, the Project would 

not result in disproportionately high and adverse effects on environmental justice populations. At 

the same time, the Build Alternatives would provide increased resilience for the Empire Corridor 

service and an ADA-compliant shared use path connecting the communities in Rensselaer and 

Albany via improved waterfront access, which is a permanent, long-term benefit to the local 

community.

5.6 Public Participation

A key component of environmental justice is engaging environmental justice populations as part 

of the transportation planning process. This allows project sponsors to understand the needs and 

priorities of environmental justice populations and to balance the benefits of a proposed project 

against its adverse effects. Public participation initiatives are being conducted for this Project in 
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accordance with the requirements of NEPA, as discussed in Chapter 7, “Agency Coordination 

and Public Involvement.”

To ensure that environmental justice populations in the study area are informed about the Project 

and the EA public outreach process, FRA and NYSDOT will distribute information about the 

Project by mail to all residential addresses in the environmental justice study area. The mailing 

will provide information on the Project and this EA, and will include details of the EA public 

outreach information session and opportunities to provide comments on the EA.