How far away is your home or neighborhood park from a hazardous waste site? It could be near one of 26 state and federal Superfund sites in Harris County. And the air quality in the neighborhood? Is it more or less polluted than it was yesterday? These are the kinds of questions a Houston mom, Ava Elizarraz, would often ask herself before walking out of the house with her three-month-old baby.
Elizarraz used the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmental Justice Screen and Mapping tool (EJScreen) to find the answers. However, after President Trump signed the “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” order on January 20th, the federal government began to shut down diversity, equity, and inclusion programs nationwide.
One of those programs was the EJScreen.
The EJScreen was an online mapping and screening tool created by the EPA in 2010 and released to the public in 2015. It was a digital map of the United States with data showing color-coded areas with high environmental burdens, like pollution, and vulnerable populations.
Elizarraz unintentionally discovered the EJScreen when she moved to Houston in 2023. She told me she received a news notification about a hazardous waste site called Tar Creek. That web article took her to the EPA website, where she learned what a superfund site is.
“I was just shocked because Harris County has more than 20,” said Elizarraz.
According to the EPA, “thousands of contaminated sites exist nationally due to hazardous waste being dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed.”
Ever since that day, Elizarraz relied on the EJScreen to make important decisions for her health, like identifying neighborhoods with cleaner air and fewer environmental hazards to ensure a safer place for her family to live. She also used it to pick the cleanest parks for her daughter to play in.
Elizarraz tells me her lease is about to be up, which means she needs a new place to live. She went online to use the EJScreen in search of a new home, and to her surprise, she was met with an unfamiliar message.
“Open it up and it doesn’t exist anymore. At first it was like a 404 and now it’s got a disclaimer on it. It’s really disappointing,” said Ava.
Turns out, the EPA discontinued public access to the latest version of the EJScreen on February 5th, 2025.
When you try to access the EJScreen now, it takes you to a snapshot of what the web page looked like with a message at the top alerting visitors that “this is not a current EPA website,” and that the website reflects “historical material reflecting the EPA website as it existed on January 19th, 2021.”
I reached out to the EPA’s press office and the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights to ask why the EJScreen disappeared.
The EPA’s press office responded with the following statement:
“EPA is working to diligently implement President Trump’s executive orders, including the ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,’ as well as subsequent associated implementation memos. President Trump was elected with a mandate from the American people to do just this. President Trump advanced conservation and environmental stewardship in his first term and the EPA will continue to uphold its mission to protect human health and the environment in his second term.”
Curious about the connection between DEI programs and the EJScreen, I asked the EPA for clarification. I followed up two times after responding to the statement, and at the time we published this story the EPA had not gotten back to me.
After I read the EPA’s statement to Elizarraz, she expressed her disappointment about losing access to what she saw as a vital tool. “I gained more knowledge from having the map than not having the map,” said Elizarraz.
I asked Elizarraz how she plans to find a new home for her family. She says she’s left to depend on her memory and unverified online forums.
“It’s not the same level of information as I got from EPA’s website, especially because they give so much information,” said Elizarraz.
Elizarraz isn’t the only one concerned over the removal of the EJScreen.
Dozens of researchers, archivists, and organizations teamed up to create the Public Environmental Data Partners. According to their About page, they are a “volunteer coalition of several environmental, justice, and policy organizations” who are “committed to preserving and providing public access to federal environmental data.” Forbes Magazines recently referred to them as “Data Heroes.”
The Public Environmental Data Partners put together an extensive list of federal databases and tools, which they plan to recreate and archive.
The following data and tools are available on their website:
- Climate + Economic Justice Screening Tool
- Center for Disease Control Resources
- EPA EJScreen
- EPA EJAM
- EPA EJ Grants
- FEMA’s Future Risk Index
- DOE Local Investments Map
These resources are meant to replace the void left by the removal of the EJScreen, offering people like Elizarraz the information they need to make the best decisions for their health and safety.
The EJScreen was a national effort towards environmental justice, which the EPA defines as, “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws,” on an EPA EJScreen fact sheet.
According to the same fact sheet, the agency’s goal is to “provide an environment where all people enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards.”
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