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00:00:00 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Hello and welcome to value driven data science brought to you by Genevieve Hayes Consulting. I'm your host doctor, Genevieve Hayes, and today I'm joined by guests Robin Rotman and Amber Spriggs to discuss the role of data in environmental justice. Robin is an assistant professor of energy and environmental.
00:00:20 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Law and policy at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and is also a qualified lawyer focusing on energy, environmental and natural resource issues. In addition, she's a council at Van Ness Feldman, a law firm in Washington, DC.
00:00:39 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And Amber is a civil engineering masters student at the University of Missouri, Columbia, with a research focus on hydrology, hydraulic engineering, GIS based risk assessment and flood insurance policy. Robin and Amber, welcome to the show.
00:00:58 Robin Rotman
Thanks so much for.
00:00:59 Robin Rotman
Having us?
00:01:00 Amber Spriggs
Yes. Hi, Genevieve. Thank you.
00:01:02 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So this is the first time we've had two guests on the show at the same time. The reason why we're doing this is because Amber is one of Robbins research students, and much of the research we'll be talking about in this episode around environmental justice is work they've collaborated on. So how did you 2 come to be working together on this research?
00:01:24 Amber Spriggs
So after I finished my bachelors at the University of Missouri in Civil Engineering, I started working for the City of Columbia as a municipal engineering intern for the sewer and stormwater utility, and I became interested in pursuing my masters.
00:01:42 Amber Spriggs
In civil engineering, with water and environmental emphasis, so I started working with Doctor Kate Trout, who is an engineering professor and awesome person, and she works for the University of Missouri as well as I was sort of discussing potential research projects and ideas that I had. We both kind of realised that I have a lot of interest.
00:02:04 Amber Spriggs
And policy and regulatory compliance in engineering. And so Kate connected me with Robin and the three of us have been working together since.
00:02:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
OK, so it wasn't the one if you advertised to try and find the other, it was sort of a matchmaker type situation, I guess.
00:02:24 Amber Spriggs
So we actually met.
00:02:25 Amber Spriggs
For the first time at a farmers market in Columbia, so just kind of ran into each other that way.
00:02:31 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So it wasn't a deliberately set up meeting, it was just a lucky coins.
00:02:36 Robin Rotman
I was at the farmers market, not in my role.
00:02:38 Robin Rotman
As a professor.
00:02:40 Robin Rotman
But just doing a volunteer activity with the Community group that I'm involved in.
00:02:45 Robin Rotman
And so Amber came up and introduced herself. And then we made the connexion, realising that that Kate Trott had suggested that we connect. And not long after that.
00:02:56 Robin Rotman
So began her masters programme and the three of us.
00:02:58 Robin Rotman
Started working together.
00:03:00 Dr Genevieve Hayes
How long ago has it been?
00:03:02 Robin Rotman
Year and a.
00:03:02 Robin Rotman
Half, yeah.
00:03:04 Robin Rotman
So Amber's in the home stretch, so it's a it's basically a 24 month programme and so she'll be graduating this August.
00:03:13 Dr Genevieve Hayes
One thing I find very interesting about the two of you is that even though you're both environmental scientists, both of you also bring another skill skill set to the mix, so law, or in the case of Robin and civil engineering in the case of.
00:03:26 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Amber. So what I'd like to hear from both of you is why did you choose to combine environmental science?
00:03:34 Dr Genevieve Hayes
With the second skill set, rather than just focusing on one discipline or another.
00:03:38 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So I'll throw that question to Robin first.
00:03:41 Robin Rotman
Sure. Well, I'd say I'd had an interest in the environment ever since I was a small child. I always enjoyed playing outside.
00:03:50 Robin Rotman
I enjoyed environmental science or science classes when I.
00:03:53 Robin Rotman
Was in school.
00:03:54 Robin Rotman
And so I went to college and chose to major in geology with an emphasis in water quality.
00:04:01 Robin Rotman
My last year of college, I was selected as a Rhodes Scholar.
00:04:05 Robin Rotman
And so I had the opportunity to spend two years at the University of Oxford in England doing a Masters programme in water science policy and management, and throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies I developed that environmental science skill set that that you mentioned. But I also came to feel like there was another.
00:04:27 Robin Rotman
Component that was needed for advancing Environmental Protection and that was the legal and policy.
00:04:33 Robin Rotman
Side frankly, and I think I mean I made that choice 20 years ago, but I think it's still true today, which is in many cases the science is further ahead than the policy.
00:04:45 Robin Rotman
And further ahead than the laws and regulations. And so I felt that getting additional legal training and becoming a qualified attorney would better enable me to work protecting the environment throughout my career.
00:04:59 Dr Genevieve Hayes
It's always been this idea that, you know, you with lawyers, they're the people who are really good at English at school and not so great at maths.
00:05:09 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I would imagine that there wouldn't be that many lawyers who actually have science degrees as well.
00:05:15 Robin Rotman
Well, it's funny.
00:05:16 Robin Rotman
Well, it's funny you say that and just talking about the study of maths and thinking back to how we met over 20 years ago. So I did a a semester abroad at the ANU in Canberra.
00:05:29 Dr Genevieve Hayes
When we were both.
00:05:30 Robin Rotman
Ten. Yeah, exactly. Exactly as child prodigies. Yeah.
00:05:35 Robin Rotman
Yeah. And so Genevieve was my first friend in Australia and really the one who I've kept in touch with.
00:05:41 Robin Rotman
Over many years.
00:05:44 Robin Rotman
You know I.
00:05:45 Robin Rotman
Think that certain fields of the law do attract people with science or engineering or technical backgrounds.
00:05:52 Robin Rotman
And I think environmental law is one of them. Maybe another one is intellectual property, especially on the patent side. I think that you are right that.
00:06:03 Robin Rotman
Primarily law is is drying upon a verbal communication skill set or written communication skill set.
00:06:11 Robin Rotman
But it's also drawing on analytical abilities, abilities in in rational thought and and analysis and and synthesis. And so those are the same skills that many scientists, many analysts, many technical experts can bring to the field.
00:06:28 Dr Genevieve Hayes
What about you, Amber? Why did you choose to confine civil engineering with environmental science?
00:06:34 Amber Spriggs
So similar to Robin, I've always had an interest in environmental.
00:06:38 Amber Spriggs
Issues also to.
00:06:40 Amber Spriggs
Love outdoor recreation and being in touch with the environment.
00:06:44 Amber Spriggs
And I also really liked my math and science classes and problem solving growing up. And so with some encouragement from friends and family members who are engineers.
00:06:55 Amber Spriggs
We thought that a good path would be through civil engineering with like a water and environmental emphasis to kind of combine these skills and look at environmental issues through a lens of.
00:07:08 Amber Spriggs
Sustainable design and problem solving through civil engineering.
00:07:14 Amber Spriggs
Something that also excites.
00:07:15 Amber Spriggs
Me about civil engineering and like water and stormwater management specifically, is that the field is kind of moving towards more nature based natural solutions to.
00:07:28 Amber Spriggs
Water problems so.
00:07:31 Amber Spriggs
Kind of trying to design with nature and go back to those natural processes for like cleaning water and managing water is something that I'm passionate about and excited about.
00:07:42 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Sounds like you and Robin are both coming at the same problems, but from quite different perspectives.
00:07:48 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Have you seen that play out in the work that you do together?
00:07:51 Robin Rotman
When I'm hiring graduate students, I I like to work with students who come from somewhat of a different background, who can complement my skill sets. So I want to mentor them, but so I can bring the law and policy.
00:08:05 Robin Rotman
Knowledge Amber is a technical genius and in in a few moments she's going to talk in detail about some of the data analytics that she's been doing in the area of environmental justice.
00:08:18 Robin Rotman
And you know, like I I understand how these tools function at a conceptual level, but if you put me down at the computer and I had to actually run the analysis.
00:08:28 Robin Rotman
With the software you know I wouldn't know where to begin.
00:08:30 Robin Rotman
And so her skill set has been a huge addition to my research team and hopefully, hopefully I've also been able to bring a new element into her research.
00:08:40 Robin Rotman
With opportunities like this one doing more public communication of research and more, more of an advocacy component to the.
00:08:48 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Work and that's a good segue into the topic.
00:08:51 Dr Genevieve Hayes
This episode, the topic, the role of envy data and environmental justice that was suggested by Robin prior to the conversation that led to this episode. I'd heard of social justice.
00:09:03 Dr Genevieve Hayes
But I hadn't come across the term environmental justice before, so I think it's a term that's used in the US, but it hasn't really become established in Australia.
00:09:15 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I I did Google it after our conversation and I've seen it on some websites here, but they tend to be in the context of law, which is beyond my area of expertise.
00:09:24 Dr Genevieve Hayes
For those listeners like myself who are also unfamiliar with the term, could you explain what's meant by environmental justice?
00:09:32 Robin Rotman
Robin. Yeah, I'd love to. And so let me say from the outset, you know, my voice gives it away.
00:09:39 Robin Rotman
Then I am based in the US and so this is a term of art in the US. Certainly it's a problem or an issue that's relevant worldwide, but I'll be speaking to it primarily from a US.
00:09:53 Robin Rotman
Perspective because that is where my legal practise and where my academic research is focused. So with that caveat, I thought I'd, I'd actually read the official definition of what environmental justice is.
00:10:06 Robin Rotman
And then with that formality aside, then we can talk more casually about about what the movement means.
00:10:14 Robin Rotman
So today the.
00:10:15 Robin Rotman
United States Environmental Protection Agency, which is our Environmental Quality regulator at the federal level.
00:10:22 Robin Rotman
Defines environmental justice as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, colour, national origin or income.
00:10:36 Robin Rotman
With respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws.
00:10:43 Robin Rotman
Regulations and policies, and then the EPA has made a clarifying comment by saying that quote, this goal will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards.
00:11:02 Robin Rotman
And equal access to the decision making process.
00:11:06 Robin Rotman
To have a healthy environment in which to live, learn and work. So using that official definition, there's really 2 components. One is a more substantive component if you will, which is looking at Equitable.
00:11:24 Robin Rotman
Environmental Quality for all people, the equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens.
00:11:31 Robin Rotman
And ensuring a basic level of environmental health and Environmental Quality for all residents, so that that's more of a substantive component.
00:11:40 Robin Rotman
There's also more of a procedural justice component, which is the ability to participate in the decision making process for decisions relating to environmental law and regulations.
00:11:52 Robin Rotman
So that's the official definition from the US Environmental Protection Agency today.
00:11:58 Dr Genevieve Hayes
With that definition of environmental.
00:12:00 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Justice it sounded like a definition that was made up by.
00:12:04 Dr Genevieve Hayes
A lawyer. Hey, now.
00:12:08 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And lawyers are wonderful people. I've got one on my programme, but for those of us who haven't got a law degree from Yale, as certain guests do, what does that actually mean?
00:12:21 Robin Rotman
Well, so let me go into a little bit of history and and I think that that will illuminate what the goals of the movement were.
00:12:30 Robin Rotman
So the the, quote unquote environmental justice movement as we call it today, really was an outgrowth of the civil rights movement in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. And if we were to identify like one event that launched the environmental justice movement.
00:12:50 Robin Rotman
I mean, there were a number of key developments.
00:12:52 Robin Rotman
But it's commonly said to be a strike of sanitation workers, so labour strike of sanitation workers in the city of Memphis, TN, where two black or African American garbage collectors were crushed to death by a garbage truck while they were working.
00:13:12 Robin Rotman
And so citywide about uh, 1300, sanitation workers went on strike, demanding a safer working condition and a living wage.
00:13:22 Robin Rotman
And the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior participated in that movement. And in that strike, in order to secure better working conditions.
00:13:32 Robin Rotman
So that was really the event that perhaps for the first time in the public eye brought together civil rights and racial justice.
00:13:41 Robin Rotman
What the idea of environmental equity and environmental health?
00:13:46 Robin Rotman
No. Maybe you could technically say, well, that was more of like a workplace safety issue, but in the years that followed in the 1970s and early 19.
00:13:56 Robin Rotman
80s there were more and more events that captured the public attention that showed that, for example, hazardous waste facilities or facilities that were generating a lot of pollution were overwhelmingly located in poor communities, or black or brown community.
00:14:16 Robin Rotman
It's and so you you can't really separate the environmental justice movement from the civil rights movement if you Fast forward for a moment to today, I'd say right now, environmental justice is a much broader term that encompasses things like food availability or you hear the term like food.
00:14:37 Robin Rotman
Hazards. So it has to do with food access. It has to do with access to municipal services.
00:14:44 Robin Rotman
It has to do with transportation access, so things that are sort of broader than the original scope of the move, but it's it's really a question of fairness in terms of Environmental Quality, fairness and the distribution of pollution, fairness and the access to environmental and community benefits and the again, the ability to participate.
00:15:05 Robin Rotman
In the decision making process and I say that one, you know it can sort of feel like, OK, and the ability to participate like.
00:15:14 Robin Rotman
Well, what good is that? But if you had to pick one, that was the most important. I would say the the ability to have meaningful participation like the ability to have your voice heard in the decision making process is probably of the greatest benefit to underserved communities whose voices have not been heard for so long.
00:15:33 Dr Genevieve Hayes
What you've described these are all problems that we have here. I mean, that's a fact that the poorer socioeconomic areas have fewer amenities, fewer trees, poorer access to public transport, et cetera, et cetera.
00:15:52 Dr Genevieve Hayes
We might not call it environmental justice, but it's definitely something that has been commented on in the newspapers. But one of the things that this made me wonder about, so you've sort of got a chicken and egg problem. A lot of these areas are so poor socioeconomic areas because.
00:16:11 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The lack of amenities and the lack of public transport etc etc.
00:16:16 Dr Genevieve Hayes
They are things that put off people who could afford to live in an area that is has all those things, so that drives the prices up in the areas that have the amenities and drives the prices down in the areas that don't. And if you were to build a factory.
00:16:36 Dr Genevieve Hayes
In one of the better areas that would drive prices down and attract people from a poorer socioeconomic.
00:16:45 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Background. How do you spread these things? Because if you've got something that people don't want that's going to drive down prices and always result in that being a poorer socioeconomic area.
00:16:56 Robin Rotman
Yeah, I think you're raising an excellent point. I mean, there's a few things in there that you said. One is, you know, there's always going to be better neighbourhoods and rougher neighbourhood.
00:17:07 Robin Rotman
Another is if you ran a company or you were working for a government enterprise or so forth and you needed to find land to build a facility, you would probably look for land that was of lower cost, which tends to be in poorer areas. You might also look.
00:17:26 Robin Rotman
To cite the facility in an area where there wouldn't be strong public opposition.
00:17:31 Robin Rotman
And there tends to be less opposition in lower income communities.
00:17:36 Robin Rotman
And there's many.
00:17:37 Robin Rotman
Reasons for that, some of it is maybe it doesn't capture the national attention, maybe it's that everybody in the community is working three jobs and so they don't have the the time to devote to this participatory process.
00:17:50 Robin Rotman
Maybe the process itself isn't being conducted in a manner that is conducive to their participation.
00:17:56 Robin Rotman
So So what I would say is this, yes, and I think I think in the US today, like EJ is such a buzzword like it's thrown around in the political arena.
00:18:08 Robin Rotman
There's almost like we have this term called greenwashing, which is when, for example, a company advertises its product as being eco friendly, but then it's like, well, what does that even mean? And that term can just be sort of thrown around with.
00:18:24 Robin Rotman
That regard, and now we have like EJ, washing where people are like, oh, we are like our company is conscious of environmental justice.
00:18:33 Robin Rotman
And then if you're like, OK, So what do you do? Like, how does that manifest in sort of a day to day basis? There may not be?
00:18:42 Robin Rotman
A lot of details. It may just more be an expression of of support of the principle, but but OK, so to your point, like well, how do you square that circle? I have a couple of responses to that.
00:18:54 Robin Rotman
One is, it's not like a black or white like should we is? Should the government issue the permit or deny the permit for a facility to be cited or continue to operate?
00:19:06 Robin Rotman
There's a large range of discretion in terms of how will that facility be designed, what will the operational.
00:19:14 Robin Rotman
Parameters be how how clean is clean enough? That's a huge question. When we talk about cleanup of hazardous waste or other contaminated sites and so driving forward for higher standards of Environmental Protection is one response.
00:19:32 Robin Rotman
Another point that I wanted to raise and I was going to talk about it later, but let me let me bring it up now, which is in communities that are overburdened by pollution.
00:19:43 Robin Rotman
It's often not like there's one really bad facility that's just causing all the damage. It's often the cumulative impacts.
00:19:52 Robin Rotman
Like a death by 1000 cuts where you know, here's the trash incinerator. And then here's the oil refinery. And here's, you know, so on and so forth of different industry.
00:20:04 Robin Rotman
Which facilities each of which individually, are maybe fully in compliance with the terms of their permits, but in aggregate have a a real negative effect on Environmental Quality in the Community and then add to that like say, all the truck traffic that is needed to move materials in and out of these facilities.
00:20:24 Robin Rotman
So we know that the reality is that communities experience the cumulative impacts of all of these facilities and decisions.
00:20:34 Robin Rotman
But yet the the laws and the regulations and the permit writing process hasn't quite caught up with that reality. It still tends to treat individual applicants or individual facilities on an individual basis, and that.
00:20:49 Robin Rotman
Obscures the holistic impacts, just as we were coming on to the podcast, I saw a press release issued by the EPA. I haven't even read the document yet because I literally just saw the press.
00:21:02 Robin Rotman
But it's titled EPA releases updated legal guidance on identifying addressing cumulative impacts to advanced environmental justice and equity. And so I look forward to reading that and I I'm glad to see that there is increased attention now on these cumulative impacts analysis.
00:21:22 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I think this is a good segue into how data plays a part, because as a data scientist, as you're talking, I'm thinking ah, so this is where the data people come in, am I right?
00:21:32 Robin Rotman
Yeah, and I if I could, could I just talk very briefly about the role that data played in the early stages of the movement like way before Amber was born and then kind of turned the reins over to her to talk about data use in the modern day sounds good. OK, so I I mentioned that sanitation workers.
00:21:52 Robin Rotman
Brake in Memphis in 1968, often regarded as one of the key developments in the environmental justice.
00:22:01 Robin Rotman
Another one would be from 1982, so so Fast forward to 1982 when an African American low income community in the state of North Carolina was selected as the location of a hazardous waste landfill and what had happened. I I won't go into this detail, but.
00:22:20 Robin Rotman
At least in the US, maybe this is in Australia too, like.
00:22:23 Robin Rotman
With with dirt.
00:22:25 Robin Rotman
Roads, a practise in the past, was to spray those down with oil to control dust. And So what had happened is there was a contractor who had received PCB laden waste oil. So he had a waste oil hauling business and then had used this oil to spray down roads.
00:22:44 Robin Rotman
To control dust, but PCB is highly and so all of this.
00:22:49 Robin Rotman
PCB laden soil had to be dug up and needed to be disposed of properly and so this community in Warren County, North Carolina, was selected as the location.
00:23:01 Robin Rotman
This time, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured people, so N double ACP staged a large protest.
00:23:08 Robin Rotman
That went for over 6 weeks with like about 550 people arrested.
00:23:14 Robin Rotman
And this really gained public attention and the issue of of where these types of facilities are located, one of the participants in that rally was a congressional representative, Walter Fantroy, who was the congressman from Washington, DC the District of Columbia.
00:23:34 Robin Rotman
So when he got back to DC, he used his powers as a congressman.
00:23:39 Robin Rotman
To Commission a study by a body, then called the General Accounting Office, now we call it the Government Accountability Office, which is an independent watchdog agency, basically like the sort of the private investigator arm of Congress, which is, or you could say like, an internal auditor of Congress.
00:24:00 Robin Rotman
Or whatever, which exists to conduct research studies when requested by Congress. So he commissioned the study. The study was called citing hazardous waste landfills.
00:24:11 Robin Rotman
And their correlation with racial and economic status of surrounding communities. So this came out a year later in 1983, and it found that all hazardous waste sites in the southeastern US were located in low income communities.
00:24:27 Robin Rotman
And 75% of hazardous waste sites were located in predominantly African American communities. So that was the government report. Four years later, Faith based organisation, the United Church of Christ.
00:24:40 Robin Rotman
They conducted their own study or commissioned their own study, called Toxic Waste and Race, and this is still considered a seminal document. And this analysis concluded that race was the most significant factor in citing hazardous waste facilities nationally.
00:24:59 Robin Rotman
And further, that 60% of African Americans and Hispanics lived in a community with at least one hazardous waste site.
00:25:08 Robin Rotman
So it was this early analysis that.
00:25:11 Robin Rotman
Ultimately captured the attention of the public and then of the elected leadership.
00:25:17 Robin Rotman
And which in 1994 led to President Bill Clinton signing an executive order. An executive order is like an order from the president to his or her own executive branch agencies, and so his order was to direct all of the federal agencies and their employees.
00:25:37 Robin Rotman
To be cognizant of these issues of.
00:25:40 Robin Rotman
Environmental injustice and to attempt to remedy this in their decision making process, that is the order that is still operative today.
00:25:50 Robin Rotman
President Biden and other presidents have have made subsequent orders also regarding environmental justice, but that was the first legal development at a federal level to recognise this.
00:26:01 Robin Rotman
As a national priority.
00:26:03 Dr Genevieve Hayes
What I think is really interesting about that story is the fact that it was a faith based organisation that led to some of this research.
00:26:12 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Because a church back in the 1980s, it's not exactly Noel would wouldn't exactly have been a hub for data science, and yet they recognised the importance of data even back then.
00:26:27 Robin Rotman
It is interesting and I you know, this is taking me outside of my professional expertise.
00:26:32 Robin Rotman
But faith based organisations play a very interesting role in the American political life, certainly played and continue to play a prominent role in civil rights issues.
00:26:46 Robin Rotman
I I agree with you though, that it is unique to see that this type of analysis was produced by a faith based organisation.
00:26:54 Dr Genevieve Hayes
If we skip forward 50 years to 2023, where we all carry around computers in our pockets that are probably more powerful than whatever mainframes they had back in the 1970s.
00:27:06 Dr Genevieve Hayes
How is data being used now to achieve environmental justice?
00:27:11 Amber Spriggs
So I think the main lens at looking at environmental justice is geographic information systems, because generally you have you need demographic information as well as environmental risk. And it's all very location based to see where disadvantaged communities are and what kind of environmental risks.
00:27:31 Amber Spriggs
People in those communities are exposed to.
00:27:34 Amber Spriggs
And in 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency established an online GIS mapping tool called EJ Screen that compiles a lot of publicly available data from the census. So every 10 years.
00:27:56 Amber Spriggs
The US government gathers demographic information for everybody living in the US, so census data is there as well as environmental data from the EPA on drinking water quality as well as.
00:28:10 Amber Spriggs
Groundwater, underground injection wells, anything that is regulated by the EPA, they have point data systems and GIS as well as layers that sort of show the state and national percentile ranking for risk to various environmental.
00:28:30 Amber Spriggs
Hazard. So I'll pull up EJ screen right now.
00:28:34 Amber Spriggs
List a few examples, some pollution you can look at these layers for is particulate matter, ozone, lead paint, Superfund, proximity and hazardous waste, proximity.
00:28:47 Amber Spriggs
So if I'm looking at any community in the US, I can pull up these data layers and see.
00:28:55 Amber Spriggs
What percentile of risk these community members are compared to their individual state and compared to the national?
00:29:04 Amber Spriggs
I think a big challenge with these sort of national level screening tool data sources is that the more you zoom in on an individual community, the less accurate they get just because.
00:29:20 Amber Spriggs
It's difficult to get.
00:29:22 Amber Spriggs
A lot of precision in local.
00:29:27 Amber Spriggs
Local risk assessment without spending a lot of money on gathering data and testing water and testing air quality. But these tools are very useful for generally seeing trends within metropolitan areas as well as rural areas where environmental.
00:29:47 Amber Spriggs
Risk is overlapping with those.
00:29:49 Amber Spriggs
Demographic indicators such as low income or linguistically isolated communities, or less than a high school education is also one that we consider a lot in stakeholder engagement is on the engineering side. So I think geographic information systems mostly is how we're looking at.
00:30:09 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Environmental justice. I've had a look at that AJ screen on the Internet in preparation for this episode is that tool built using Esri arc GIS.
00:30:20 Amber Spriggs
Yes, yes, and Arcgis online web viewer and then you can also download. You can download statistics in just the form of a CSV file.
00:30:32 Amber Spriggs
You can also input that information into like a desktop Arcgis and do more advanced analysis with.
00:30:38 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That. So that's really good.
00:30:40 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Because even though this is a tool that's very specific to the US, if someone wanted to replicate this in a country outside of the US.
00:30:48 Dr Genevieve Hayes
This arc GIS is pretty much the market leader in geospatial analysis, so if you're doing that sort of analysis, you've probably got access to it and you could just look at something like that and try and replicate it in your own country.
00:31:03 Amber Spriggs
Right, right. And they are very, very much clear with EJ screen that all of its publicly available data so.
00:31:11 Amber Spriggs
Even though it's.
00:31:12 Amber Spriggs
Publicly available in the US, if you're familiar with government structure in other countries, I have friends doing research in other countries that are just trying to get similar data into.
00:31:23 Dr Genevieve Hayes
In Australia, we've pretty much copied the US approach of open data. So just like you have your open data websites, we also have our open data websites where government organisations provide data to the community.
00:31:38 Amber Spriggs
In addition to EJ's screen, it's interesting to see, especially in the past year or two, several other federal agencies have come up with their own sort of environmental justice screening tools.
00:31:51 Amber Spriggs
And the Council on Environmental Quality has one called c'est, which is climate and economic justice screening tool and then also our Department of Health and Human Services just released another tool that focuses more on public health and environmental risks. So there's a lot of different agencies kind of going at it from slightly different angles.
00:32:12 Amber Spriggs
But it's all public online GIS tools.
00:32:16 Dr Genevieve Hayes
That's fantastic. Who would be the target? Users of these tools?
00:32:20 Robin Rotman
Well, that that's a harder question than it seems in terms of the online viewers. These are meant to be accessible to the general.
00:32:28 Robin Rotman
Like so for communities themselves, like local government or county government, to help them perhaps understand where vulnerable populations are located within their jurisdictional territory or where resource gaps or particular pollution hotspots are located.
00:32:48 Robin Rotman
And then to be able to use that information when advocating for themselves.
00:32:53 Robin Rotman
For example, for state and federal funding, another hope is that this data would be used by decision makers at the state and federal level, like not just for the allocation of funds, but with regards to the issuance of permits with regard to infrastructure investment and long term planning.
00:33:13 Robin Rotman
What is provided on the web is a screening tool and a simple visualisation.
00:33:18 Robin Rotman
The web based viewer is a viewer that allows demographic factors to be layered atop Environmental Quality factors. More meaningful engagement with the data takes place in the form that Amber explained, which is in downloading the open source data and having professionals be able to analyse that data using their own desktop based.
00:33:39 Robin Rotman
Via software and not all local governments, not all nonprofit organisations. Certainly not all just the typical person on the street has access to that.
00:33:48 Robin Rotman
ETA. I can't speak for the EPA, but I think the goal was to put forward information in a way that could be used differently by different categories of users and to at least make something available to the general public. To help individuals visualise what was going on in their community.
00:34:06 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So that's a different level approach or a layered approach for people who aren't data scientists or engineers, they can just make use of this viewer to get basic statistics.
00:34:19 Dr Genevieve Hayes
But if you want to do any in-depth analysis, then you'd get a data scientist or someone like Amber who really understands the data to use the proper tools to analyse, analyse it.
00:34:33 Robin Rotman
Yeah, that's a great point and kind of considering who, who your listeners may be, some may be.
00:34:40 Robin Rotman
Just individuals who are interested in the topic, and so this would provide a level of data that they could understand and utilise.
00:34:49 Robin Rotman
Absolutely. You're right, though that some of this functionality would certainly be better placed in professional hands so that it can be analysed in a more fulsome manner.
00:35:00 Robin Rotman
Amber can talk a little bit about. There are some, I mean EJ screen is primarily a data visualisation tool. There are some reports that can be generated.
00:35:10 Robin Rotman
Those are fairly simplistic, but Amber, maybe you could talk about that.
00:35:15 Amber Spriggs
Yeah, if you you can do some buffering and then on EJ's screen. So say I have a site that I'm potentially using for an infrastructure project. I could put a take the radius of say 5 to 10 miles out from that project.
00:35:36 Amber Spriggs
Right. And then gather or output a they have.
00:35:39 Amber Spriggs
Like a report.
00:35:41 Amber Spriggs
So you can get statistics on where wastewater discharges are within that radius. What is the?
00:35:49 Amber Spriggs
Traffic proximity, various hazards that are more specifically tailored to your project. So say for example, let's say public transit projects I'm doing, I would want to look at current transportation needs and where more dense population is and what's going on already.
00:36:09 Amber Spriggs
And how my project would change that community I guess. But yeah, the output is some pretty basic statistics on all of the parameters that you're interested in.
00:36:18 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So it's sort of a data analyst versus data scientist type approach. So this is for the data analysts and then the next step on is for the data scientist.
00:36:27 Amber Spriggs
Yeah. And I would say a big caveat with EJ's screen is that there, there are a lot of and there are a lot of environmental risks that we know about.
00:36:37 Amber Spriggs
And there's also some that we.
00:36:38 Amber Spriggs
Kind of don't know about or.
00:36:40 Amber Spriggs
Are still understanding and still learning how to quantify and so it it can't provide a comprehensive.
00:36:47 Amber Spriggs
Picture of environmental risk, especially like I said, as you're getting down to a a very small geographic area. But for now, maybe the best we can do in conjunction with working with local officials and.
00:37:05 Amber Spriggs
Local scientists and data scientists and engineers who know more about what's happening, sort of on the ground.
00:37:13 Dr Genevieve Hayes
How have you used a J screen or the data that the EPA's providing through EP EJ screen in your own work, Amber.
00:37:22 Amber Spriggs
I'm very interested in natural hazards and risk for hazards, especially in relation to how precipitation patterns are changing with climate change.
00:37:33 Amber Spriggs
So I am looking at hydraulic analysis of flood risk as well as how flood risk changes in a wildfire.
00:37:43 Amber Spriggs
So in the western US, we have quite a few events where after a wildfire is fully contained, when a very high intensity precipitation event comes through, there's actually very high risk for debris flow and landslides through there. So I've.
00:37:59 Amber Spriggs
Been looking at.
00:38:00 Amber Spriggs
Where risk for these events is overlapping with.
00:38:04 Amber Spriggs
Less advantage communities specifically.
00:38:07 Amber Spriggs
Because I'm a civil engineer, I'm also looking for where these environmental risks are happening, where people are living and where they affect infrastructure.
00:38:16 Amber Spriggs
So looking at population and demographic information as well as EJ, screen has some climate risk maps on there. For instance, the 100 year flood.
00:38:27 Amber Spriggs
And projected sea level rise and things like that.
00:38:31 Amber Spriggs
So overlaying all this information to select a site for my hydraulic modelling research. Then in the works.
00:38:42 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I guess that's a good application of it. Researchers like yourself and others can use this as a tool for working out where to conduct their.
00:38:53 Robin Rotman
As researchers so so, my research is more on the qualitative side, looking at the human dimensions of natural resources and there's a push and pull.
00:39:03 Robin Rotman
In the sense that.
00:39:05 Robin Rotman
The most vulnerable communities perhaps could benefit the most from robust research that document.
00:39:13 Robin Rotman
Their vulnerabilities and propose a path for reducing those vulnerabilities that then can be used by those communities themselves when seeking additional resources or seeking to influence the policy process.
00:39:29 Robin Rotman
By the same time, vulnerable communities tend to be over, studied, and research itself is not not without its costs.
00:39:38 Robin Rotman
There's a risk of, for example, I'm going to be conducting some interviews of residents in a community here in Missouri that have been subject to chronic flooding, discussing that issue.
00:39:50 Robin Rotman
Can be traumatic and it can. It can bring up strong emotions and it can bring up bad memories, and it can make people anxious about what is yet to come.
00:40:00 Robin Rotman
And so, as researchers or as a researcher, it's very important to me to consider holistically what the impact of our research is and how to ensure that our research is being done not just in an ethical manner, but in a way that does not further take from the Community.
00:40:20 Robin Rotman
Further traumatise the community, but rather in a way that can help give a community a voice and some of that is is on the human side, just like where we're invited in and not barging in where we're not invited.
00:40:36 Robin Rotman
Amber's work is predominantly done on the on the computer side, looking at at the landscape, and so she won't be interviewing, say, individual residents in these locations.
00:40:48 Robin Rotman
But when we are on the ground doing that kind of social science research, we need to be sensitive as to whether the Community even wants us there.
00:40:57 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I think that's something that we as data scientists, need to be cognizant of.
00:41:02 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Behind each of these data points is an actual human being, and I think a lot of people get into data science because they want to stay away from those actual human beings.
00:41:13 Dr Genevieve Hayes
But sometimes to get the whole story, you have to go out and have that conversation. And that involves a certain level of.
00:41:22 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Emotional intelligence.
00:41:24 Amber Spriggs
I think engineers are similar.
00:41:29 Robin Rotman
Well, you can find people of.
00:41:31 Robin Rotman
All sorts and all disciplines, that's for sure.
00:41:34 Amber Spriggs
This is where, you know, I think it could be useful to make a point on the meaningful involvement aspect of environmental justice, because I think no matter how great your infrastructure will, I'm speaking from an infrastructure point of view. But no matter how good your design.
00:41:52 Amber Spriggs
Is it's never going to be functional unless people use it, and it's what people want in the community. So really making sure you're engaging with the people who you're designing for and the people who you're working for is really key to environmental justice. And I think there's a few we kind of mentioned earlier, a few data.
00:42:12 Amber Spriggs
Areas that are available through these screening tools, but some things such as like where linguistically isolated populations are or where people have limited access to Internet, can kind of help the stakeholder engagement side.
00:42:27 Amber Spriggs
OK, if someone has limited access to Internet, maybe we shouldn't have public meetings on zoom and we should be going to community centres and talking to people that way.
00:42:37 Amber Spriggs
And so all of these very small steps on the local scale can be really useful in engaging people and making sure we're really working towards meaningful involved.
00:42:48 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And even in communities where they do have adequate Internet access.
00:42:52 Dr Genevieve Hayes
One of the things that I've found this is something my mother's talked to me about is she's not comfortable using the Internet, so she would rather have a face to face meeting.
00:43:04 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So if you limit something to just zoom based meetings, you could be excluding people on the basis of age.
00:43:13 Robin Rotman
Age is another factor. It's another layer that can be seen. So population under 5 focusing on the unique environmental vulnerabilities of young children.
00:43:25 Robin Rotman
But yeah, also over age 65. Also looking at disabled population, so that might additionally be a factor in terms of where you're locating these public.
00:43:35 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I mean, with all of these things you've been talking about, as we alluded to earlier in this episode, these are techniques that I would imagine would achieve good in other social justice areas just beyond environmental justice.
00:43:50 Robin Rotman
Yeah, I think you're raising a great point. So we're coming at this from the.
00:43:55 Robin Rotman
Environmental science side, but some of these same indicate.
00:43:59 Robin Rotman
There's, for example, literacy levels or linguistic isolation that impacts public participation in the environmental decision process. But that's also great data for school districts to have. That's great data for public libraries to have when it comes to information about.
00:44:19 Robin Rotman
Access to broadband Internet.
00:44:21 Robin Rotman
That affects the ability to have small businesses in all all forms of economic development. And so these the same indicators are relevant to so many different social and policy issues beyond simply environmental health.
00:44:36 Dr Genevieve Hayes
One of the things that struck to my mind when I was listening to you two speaking was a story that I heard a number of years ago and was actually one of the stories that inspired me to go into data science.
00:44:49 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And it was about how the New York City Mayor's office data analytics team had combined geospatial data relating to the location of restaurants in the city.
00:44:59 Dr Genevieve Hayes
With data relating to the locations of sewer blockages, these were blockages that were resulting from the dumping of oil and grease, and by overlaying those two layers in.
00:45:11 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I don't know an arc GIS type tool. They were able to work out who the likely restaurants were that were dumping and.
00:45:20 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Send the investigators out there to see them doing it and find them. I thought that was the most awesome thing ever.
00:45:23 Robin Rotman
How cool.
00:45:26 Amber Spriggs
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
00:45:27 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And yeah, that's why I wanted to be a data scientist. I wanted to go and work for Mayor Bloomberg's office, for data analytics or something.
00:45:36 Robin Rotman
But you still can. It'll be easier to.
00:45:38 Robin Rotman
See each other.
00:45:41 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Clearly a lot of data scientists are going to love to get involved in this sort of area.
00:45:46 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I know the actuarial community is very passionate about applying their data skills in the climate change area, and I would imagine anyone who's passionate about that sort of thing would also be passionate about environmental justice. But on the flip side, you know, Robin, have you seen many lawyers?
00:46:07 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Making use of data, for example in legal proceedings.
00:46:13 Robin Rotman
Absolutely. And this is common, particularly in the environmental law context. So you, you don't actually often see that many cases.
00:46:23 Robin Rotman
That allege an environmental injustice that would be a claim that would be brought under the Civil Rights Act and to prevail under the Civil Rights Act, a plaintiff has to prove an intent to discriminate.
00:46:36 Robin Rotman
And that is.
00:46:37 Robin Rotman
A very onerous standard on the plaintiff. It's not enough to prove a discriminatory.
00:46:44 Robin Rotman
But rather that there was an intention where I find data is most often used and where there is the most potential is more on the tort side.
00:46:55 Robin Rotman
And So what a a tort is basically anything that's not a contract claim. So a slip and fall, medical malpractice, all sorts of claims.
00:47:04 Robin Rotman
And one type of tort is a toxic tort. So that relates to environmental contamination.
00:47:10 Robin Rotman
These are often class action cases, so many plaintiffs, like in a community that have been affected.
00:47:18 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So Erin Brockovich type thing.
00:47:19 Robin Rotman
Yes, exactly. Erin Brockovich in my one of the classes I.
00:47:24 Robin Rotman
Teach in environmental.
00:47:25 Robin Rotman
Law, we do a mock trial exercise based on the movie a civil action which is based on the real life case from Woburn, MA, where there's a a toxic tort and and what's hard for plaintiffs to prove and toxic.
00:47:41 Robin Rotman
Court cases. There's like 4 elements that they have to prove, but typically the hardest one for them to prove is that the defendants conduct caused their injury.
00:47:50 Robin Rotman
So maybe maybe you can show that the defendant was discharging certain pollutants but just showed that those pollutants made it from point A to point B, and then once they got to point B had a certain effect on health of people living there. That requires advanced science and.
00:48:09 Robin Rotman
If we look back to like in the 60s and 70s when we were awakening to the reality of of hazardous waste, there are just sometimes wasn't a way to.
00:48:20 Robin Rotman
Prove you know it's.
00:48:22 Robin Rotman
OK, well it seems like probably the groundwater's flowing this way and so probably it ended up below the school and probably it's really bad to have a lot of gasoline underneath the school. But you know, epidemiology hydrogeology these fields have advanced so significantly in the past 50 years.
00:48:42 Robin Rotman
And so more and more science is being used in the courtroom, both on the plaintiff side and on the defence side when it comes to toxic tort claim.
00:48:50 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So I could imagine an environmental lawyer like you would get a civil engineer or water engineer like Amber to come in as an expert witness in one.
00:48:58 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Of your.
00:48:59 Robin Rotman
Cases absolutely. And what we have I I it's my understanding that the US has a bit of a different approach to expert witnesses than Australia does, but here each side will.
00:49:11 Robin Rotman
To retain its own expert.
00:49:13 Robin Rotman
And so you'll get this phenomenon of duelling experts where you'll get two people who are PhD qualified scientists or engineers with their many years of experience, and one of them gets up there and says, you know, they've got the highest professional certifications and they.
00:49:31 Robin Rotman
Are absolutely convinced that the chemical caused the cancer, and here's all the really good reasons why. And then on the other side, you have somebody equally well qualified with an equally impressive analysis. Who determines that? You know, it wasn't a factor at all.
00:49:47 Robin Rotman
And that's puts the jury in a difficult position because, of course the jurors are not experts in science, and neither is the judge.
00:49:54 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I'm thinking of an episode of Ball here, so yeah, I understand what you're talking about.
00:49:59 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Do you think data science and analytics are going to become increasingly important for lawyers going forward?
00:50:05 Robin Rotman
Yeah, I think that probably the greatest strides are in the criminal justice space, which is outside of my specialisation. I know that Amber had some thoughts about the growing role of data in AI.
00:50:19 Dr Genevieve Hayes
This actually leads into my final couple of questions. Is there anything on your radar in the AI data and analytics space that you think is going to be important in the next, say three to five years? So I'd like to hear from both of you. So, Amber, what do you think?
00:50:35 Amber Spriggs
Not that it's not already prevalent, but remote hunting and satellite imagery in the sort of monitoring of these environmental risk factors is increasingly important, especially as climate change is changing risk for natural.
00:50:50 Amber Spriggs
Hazards having that real time data from some satellites has been very useful, at least for me in my research, and I think for helping communities that are at increased risk in the near future.
00:51:04 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And what are your thoughts, Robin?
00:51:06 Robin Rotman
Well, so so here I am, a professor in the School of Natural Resources, which is part of the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.
00:51:17 Robin Rotman
And I think there is an enormous potential for the use of AI and data science in the agricultural sector. There are great.
00:51:26 Robin Rotman
Benefits that this technology can bring in terms of optimising yield.
00:51:30 Robin Rotman
Builds in terms of adding resilience to the sector in the face of climate change, which here in Missouri we see in the form.
00:51:38 Robin Rotman
Of both prolonged droughts and then intense flooding.
00:51:42 Robin Rotman
There's certainly, though, a social barrier to that. I mean, there's a there's a logistical barrier which is a lack of rural broadband.
00:51:51 Robin Rotman
There's a social barrier which is a suspicion of the government, a suspicion of private industry that may be invading rights to privacy.
00:52:00 Robin Rotman
And and I.
00:52:01 Robin Rotman
And I think those are perfectly appropriate.
00:52:04 Robin Rotman
Concerns and so where I'm going is that there is a lot of space where this technology could be used in the rural environment, but again, only if people living in the rural environment want it and welcome it.
00:52:17 Robin Rotman
And it's hard to or welcome something that seems like a threat. It's hard to want or welcome something that you don't really understand.
00:52:25 Robin Rotman
How it?
00:52:26 Robin Rotman
Works and I think.
00:52:27 Robin Rotman
That this is an area where.
00:52:28 Robin Rotman
Or your listeners or other professionals in data science or in businesses that employ AI is explaining the functionality and explaining what protections are in place to protect data in order to help the public feel safer. Using this type of technology. I mean, like in anything you hear about things that go wrong.
00:52:51 Robin Rotman
So you know, you gotta notice when there's been some data breach of some vendor that has your password, you know, every day we all have many transactions.
00:53:01 Robin Rotman
But they probably use AI in some form that go unnoticed because everything goes smoothly and so it's it's when there's a problem, though it comes to top of mind.
00:53:12 Dr Genevieve Hayes
We had two major data breaches in Australia just before Christmas. So in Australia we're all very sensitive about data breaches right now.
00:53:22 Amber Spriggs
It is also very far out of my world of expertise, but everybody is talking about it and there's tonnes of work in that world.
00:53:30 Amber Spriggs
So I think that's also very big.
00:53:33 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I think the more we end up going down that rabbit hole of data, the Internet AI, the more people are gonna become sensitive about data privacy, cybersecurity, et cetera, et cetera. What final advice would you give to data scientists looking to create business value from data?
00:53:51 Robin Rotman
Well, well, this may seem simplistic, but the quality of the outputs of analysis.
00:53:57 Robin Rotman
This turn on the quality of data inputs and so we've seen this in our environmental justice and environmental science work, which is when you don't have quality data going in, you don't have quality analysis going out.
00:54:12 Robin Rotman
And and that's been true, you know, since the beginning of time or whatever, I think where it becomes.
00:54:17 Robin Rotman
Perhaps more of something to be mindful of is that now we have we can make a beautiful.
00:54:24 Robin Rotman
Visualisation we can make data look really good, it looks really clean and that can give the impression that it's accurate.
00:54:34 Robin Rotman
And so just because you can create like a beautiful map that layers all of these relevant factors on top of each other and then it generates this like really sharp looking report.
00:54:44 Robin Rotman
No matter how sharp it looks.
00:54:46 Robin Rotman
It's really only as accurate as the data that went into it.
00:54:50 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Also, even if it is accurate, it has to be conveyed in a way that communicates things in a non misleading manner.
00:55:01 Dr Genevieve Hayes
I saw this visualisation on LinkedIn and it was showing it was comparing the average height of adults in all these different countries and you basically had.
00:55:12 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The people who were the tallest were from the Netherlands and the people who were in, who were the smallest I think might have been from Indonesia and but the way it was done, they were basically half the size of the people from the Netherlands. So it looked like these giants from the Netherlands were coming to crush.
00:55:33 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Everyone else in the world, and it was because the scale of it started at 5 foot as opposed to starting at 0 and it was a completely misleading visualisation.
00:55:44 Robin Rotman
Even if accurate.
00:55:45 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah. Yeah, it was accurate. It was just misleading.
00:55:48 Robin Rotman
You know, I wanted to take a minute to say something that I feel like needs to be said. And so I had spoken somewhat about the history of the environmental justice movement in America and how it was an outgrowth of the civil rights movement. And one factor that I did not mention at that time, but which bears.
00:56:08 Robin Rotman
Mentioning and I think is also highly relevant in Australia, is also our history of the dispossession of the native inhabitants of our land.
00:56:18 Robin Rotman
The dispossession of their land. They're the forced removal, the genocide. So we have Native Americans, we have Alaska natives, and we have Native Hawaiians as the primary indigenous people in the lands that are now the United States. And I think we just need to take a moment to acknowledge that.
00:56:37 Robin Rotman
Although perhaps things are heading in a good direction, neither Australia nor the United States has a stellar record.
00:56:45 Robin Rotman
And relations with their indigenous peoples, and that is intimately intertwined with land rights and resource rights. And those are the basis for environmental health and Environmental Quality.
00:56:56 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Yeah, and that's something I would support and I think it's fantastic that we've got people who are now using data science in order to help these previously marginalised groups within the community.
00:57:12 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So on that.
00:57:13 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Note for listeners who want to learn more about you or get in contact, what can they do?
00:57:20 Robin Rotman
Yeah. Well, it's really been a pleasure to be here on the podcast today. And if any listeners want to follow.
00:57:26 Robin Rotman
Up they can find me on LinkedIn. Just Robin Rotman and send me a message and I will respond.
00:57:33 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And amber.
00:57:35 Amber Spriggs
Likewise, thank you so much for having me. This has been a great discussion and I'm also available on LinkedIn Amber sprigs, and I will get a picture of me up there soon for everyone to see.
00:57:50 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And I'll put links to your LinkedIn pages in the show notes, and I'll also put a link to.
00:57:55 Dr Genevieve Hayes
The J screen in case people want to have.
00:57:57 Dr Genevieve Hayes
A look at that.
00:57:59 Amber Spriggs
Well, that'd be great.
00:58:00 Dr Genevieve Hayes
So thank you for joining me.
00:58:02 Robin Rotman
Today, we really appreciate the opportunity.
00:58:05 Dr Genevieve Hayes
And for those in the audience, thank you for.
00:58:08 Dr Genevieve Hayes
Listening. I'm doctor Genevieve Hayes and this has been value driven data science brought to you by Genevieve Hayes Consulting.