Smart-growth policies can help achieve environmental justice goals

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a first-of-its kind report showing how low-income, minority and tribal communities can apply smart-growth land-use and development strategies to create healthy communities, spur economic growth and protect the environment.

EPA has released a fact-sheet series on the benefits of low-impact development (LID) and addressing obstacles to wider adoption of LID. Low-impact development is an approach to land development (or re-development) that works with nature to manage stormwater as close to its source as possible. It employs principles such as preserving and recreating natural landscape features, minimizing effective imperviousness to create functional and appealing site drainage that treat stormwater as a resource rather than a waste product.