How to build a multi-party collaborative to address community environmental health issues

Citizens for Clean Air in Pueblo signed a cooperative agreement with the EPA's Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) Program in 2006 to work toward lowering risks to health from exposure to toxic substances in Pueblo, Colorado. It formed partnership of fifteen community groups to identify sources of exposure and find ways to address them through both public education and direct action. Neighborhood associations, environmental organizations, businesses, communities of faith, and the local public health department collaborated to sponsor a series of educational public meetings on air and water pollutants, create an inventory of sources of toxic exposure in the Pueblo area, rank them according to level of risk, and prioritize them for future action. New partners were identified and included throughout the process.

When CCAP was awarded the EPA's CARE Level II grant for $280,000 to address problems at the top of its prioritized list of toxic exposures, it refined the partnership, expanding it to include government entities that could be instrumental in solving problems under its newly created Pueblo Clean Indoor Air Initiative (PCIAI). Since a primary target of the PCIAI is radon, a radon educator was added, as well as representatives of the real estate industry and of groups with access to a wide network of people who can help find solutions to radon problems and increase community participation in education aimed at reduction of exposure to radon and the other toxic substances heading the priority list.