Northam To Lead Chesapeake Executive Council As It Outlines New Diversity, Equity Goals

From the Virginia Mercury:

By Sarah Vogelsong

August 18, 2020

Gov. Ralph Northam assumed the chairmanship of the Chesapeake Executive Council Tuesday, taking the reins from Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan for a one-year term.

The annual meeting of the council — which includes the governors of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and West Virginia, the mayor of Washington, D.C., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator and the Chesapeake Bay Commission chair — was held virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Northam’s assumption of the chairmanship coincides with a new emphasis he is spearheading on diversity and equity in the Chesapeake Bay Program’s efforts to clean up the nation’s largest estuary.

“Just as natural ecosystems depend on biodiversity to thrive, the long-term success of the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort depends on the equitable, just and inclusive engagement of all communities living throughout the watershed,” declared a statement of support of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice adopted Tuesday by the council.

It continued:

“The impacts of discrimination and continuing environmental, economic and health disparities disproportionately burden underserved communities, including those of color, low-income status and indigenous populations. This limits access to clean water and air, fish, wildlife and outdoor recreation and results in inequitable impacts on the human health and the surrounding environment for these communities. Disparities are only exacerbated by such environmental factors as climate change and pollution, and public health emergencies like the COVID -19 pandemic.”

Among the pledges made by the signatories were commitments to increasing the diversity of leadership in the Chesapeake Bay conservation community, determining how to extend the partnership to federally recognized tribes and ensuring that program benefits “are distributed in a fair and equitable manner” that does disproportionately burden historically marginalized groups.

In a keynote speech, Virginia Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer Janice Underwood, who was hired in the wake of the governor’s blackface scandal last year, praised the statement for having “teeth” but told the council that “now we must see these teeth bite into the inequities that have long existed in the conservation space.

“Today explicit evidence of discrimination and Jim Crow segregation in the environment has dimmed. … There has been movement by the haves to hijack the power of the conservation movement from those who have less, or worse, we use our power as well-intended allies to ultimately advance racist policies and practices, all the while claiming an anti-racist ideology,” she said.

This April, the Chesapeake Bay Program released a diversity, equity, inclusion and justice strategy developed with Skeo Solutions, a consultancy that has also been retained by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to assess how the agency can incorporate environmental justice into its practices and policies.

This story was originally published by the Virginia Mercury. For more stories from the Virginia Mercury, visit VirginiaMercury.com.