John McCarroll: I think that means--I think that-- that kicks it over to me so, so hello, everybody. I'm John McCarroll and I manage EPA's Pacific Islands Office which serves US Affiliated Pacific Islands including the territories and the freely associated states and I am honored to welcome you all to this EJ webinar for Pacific Islanders. I want to thank everybody for participating today, thank you for coming and also special thanks to Danny Gogal from EPA's Office of Environmental Justice, Alan Bacock from the Region's EJ Office and Herb Lee President and CEO of the Pacific American Foundation. Thank you all. The main thing I want to convey today is that we are so excited to host this webinar and we really look forward to both advancing the discussion of environmental justice in the Pacific and also learning more about EJ from people in the Pacific. And with that I'm going to turn it over to Shereen D'Souza. Shereen is a member of our Pacific Islands Office as well as the Region 9 EJ team and before EPA, she worked at State Department on Climate where Pacific Islands were part of her portfolio. Shereen, take it away.
Shereen D'Souza: Great. Thanks so much John for that intro and as John mentioned, I'm Shereen D'Souza and I'm part of the Pacific Islands Office in Region 9 working closely with the CMI environment agency and also on the EJ Portfolio. So excited to be here with you today because environmental justice is a really big issue in the Pacific Islands and for example, you all know the islands are hit first and worst by the impacts of climate change from sea level rise and coral bleaching, to stronger more frequent typhoons and cyclones and to droughts. The islands have done very little to solve the problem yet they're already experiencing the devastating impacts. This is an environmental injustice. In addition, so many Large [UNINTELLIGIBLE] military business and limited ability to engage in decision-making around the potential environmental impacts associated with military uses of the land and water. And this ability to engage around environmental issues is one of the main types of environmental justice. And finally, as we all know, even within small islands there are certain communities that are poorer and as a result lack access to some of the basic environmental benefits that we all deserve. These communities might lack access to clean drinking water [INAUDIBLE]. They might be located next to beaches that are used for dumping trash or they might live close to polluting factories. These are all examples of environmental injustice and as John said, we're really looking forward to hearing from you about specific examples in your communities too. Before I introduce today's speakers, just as a quick reminder, please be sure to keep yourself on mute until we get to the Q&A portion of the session at the end just so that there isn't any feedback or echo when the speakers are presenting. And if you'd like to have closed captioning for the webinar, you can turn on this feature through Microsoft Teams by clicking on the three dots that are kind of in the top right hand corner of your screen. If you click on those dots there will be an option called CC turn on live captions, and so if you want to be able to follow along that way please go ahead and turn on live captions. And just as an FYI, the webinar is being recorded and we will distribute it after the fact in case anyone wants to review the materials or what was discussed or if you want to share it with anyone else. Okay, so the focus of today's discussion is as you see here on the screen EPA's Policy on Environmental Justice for Tribes and Indigenous Peoples, and it's important to note here that within that definition of indigenous peoples, native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are explicitly included. So this policy-- this EPA policy is very much focused on native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. In addition to that policy, we'll be talking about EPA's Environmental Justice Financial Assistance Programs. There's a suite of grant opportunities and the requests for applications will be coming out very soon, so I want to make sure that you're all aware about that. Herb Lee will be talking to us about his organization's experience with federal grants and Herb is based out of Hawaii. So first up will be Danny Gogal talking about EPA's policies on EJ for tribes and indigenous peoples including Pacific Islanders. Danny is from the Office of Environmental Justice and Headquarters, so he's based in D.C., it's a little bit late in the day for him. And after Danny, we'll turn it all over to Alan Bacock who's the Environmental Justice Coordinator here in Region 9 the president and CEO of the Pacific American Foundation. Any questions during these presentations please feel free to go ahead and drop them into the chat and I'll be monitoring it, we'll answer all questions during the Q&A session. Okay, I think that's it Danny, over to you.
Danny Gogal: Great, thanks Shereen. I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to present with you-- to you today information on our environmental justice policy for working with federally recognized tribes  
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Danny Gogal: and indigenous peoples. And just want to point out as Shereen did very well at the very beginning, that for EPA indigenous peoples, the definition includes native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and you'll see that in the policy itself when you have a chance to read it if you haven't already. So I'm going to ask-- okay I gotta-- sorry I forgot the request control so I can move my own slot. Okay so as far as let's see-- here interesting-- there we go. We want to start off with the definition for environmental justice and there are more than one, this is EPA's definition. Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color or national origin with respect to the development implementation, enforcement, environmental laws, regulations and policies and this goal is achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards as well as equal access to decision-making processes, to have a healthy environment in which folks can live learn, work, play and pray as is also noted in other presentations. Something that's missing from this definition that you will likely see incorporated in your near future is, equal benefits from the work that we do in providing environmental public health protection. So you'll notice also in this definition that there are two primary components, fair treatment and meaningful involvement and that's kind of what I called and seen as the core principles for environmental justice. So as we go through the rest of these slides and have this discussion, just to have some context for what we mean when we use that term. I'm not sure if not being able to move my own slides but they're not moving-- okay here we go. So, a little more about the policy itself. It was created in 2014, at least it was finalized I should say at that time. The importance of it is there was a lot of uncertainty about how we work and how we are supposed to work with both federally recognized tribes and all other indigenous peoples relative to environmental justice within the agency. So this was a challenge that existed for over 20 years and it took us 3 years to put this policy together. And as we've already noted, the scope of it is not only federally recognized tribes but those are certainly a key and the important component of the policy is focusing on that constituency if you will, but also all of the other indigenous peoples which includes state recognized tribes, tribal members of federally recognized tribes, indigenous community organizations and you see highlighted here because of the audience we're speaking to native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders as well as others who identify themselves as native Americans and others living in Indian country. So there's four focus areas of the policy, it's focused on how we work to implement environmental justice when we're directly implementing federal environmental programs in the Indian country. You may or may not be aware of the fact that most federal-- most environmental federal environmental programs that are applied in Indian country are performed by the EPA because many of the tribes do not yet have authorization to run those federal environmental programs, so it's a big important effort on our part to integrate EJ in the way we do that work. The other section of the policy is how we work with federally recognized tribal governments in their efforts to establish means of addressing environmental justice. So a lot of that's around capacity building. And the third section is how we work with other indigenous peoples. And that's where it's most applicable to our engagement with native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. So you want to particularly look at that section of the policy as well as the first section if you will. And then the last focus area of the policy is how we are intending and go about working with our fellow sister agencies as well as in the federal government as well as our state governments and tribal and local governments including US territories for addressing environmental public health concerns of tribes and indigenous peoples. So a little bit more of an overview of what is included in the policy. There are 17 principles that make up the whole policy and this just shows you which principles pertain to which sections and so you're able to read those without me having to read that information out but I do want to point out two important policy components that are in the policy itself. One is-- there's a mention that there's an importance of the articles in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, specifically as they pertain to the agency's mission and that's an overarching principle, so you'll see that at the very beginning of the policy. And there's also a couple principles that pertain to our efforts in understanding the need to integrate traditional ecological knowledge in our agency's science policy and decision-making processes. But this is done not as an action that the agency does on its own, we do this in consultation, in collaboration with tribes and indigenous peoples to the degree that they have an interest in seeing us do that work So the next few slides or just give you some examples of what some of these principles state. And the number that you see at the beginning of each of these bulleted items is the actual principal number. So Principle 2 pertains to our commitment to be responsive to the EJ concerns of federally recognized tribes and indigenous peoples which includes once again native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders not only in the mainland but throughout the United States and others living in Indian country and that would include the territories. And then another example of one of the principles is-- Principle 4 and this talks to us planning and using legal authorities to advance environmental justice, once again for trying to address the needs and concerns- EJ concerns of tribes and indigenous peoples, that's using EJ and incorporating in our permitting processes and our regulatory developments and the way we go about developing national environmental policy act statements and our reviews under those authorities and another tool that we have called EJSCREEN which you may or may not have heard about and it's something we can discuss in a future time. So another example of one of the principles that pertain to our engagement with federally recognized tribes is Principle 9, that we state that we're seeking to support the integration of EJ principles in tribal governments programs policies and activities and one of the ways we do that is capacity building. And this webinar, although it's for Pacific Islanders and native Hawaiians, is part of a broader webinar series that we're creating for tribes and indigenous peoples. And so this webinar series in itself is one of the means by which we're trying to help tribes build capacity to address environmental justice. So an example of our work with indigenous peoples more broadly defined, once again including native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders is Principles 11 and 12, that it's our intention to develop and maintain relationships with indigenous organizations and individuals that have an interest in having us work with them addressing their environmental justice concerns. And Principle 13 specifically indicates that we're hoping to have specific points of contact that we can regularly engage with and interact with. So if any of you that are on this webinar today have an interest in engaging with us on a more regular basis, we'd be very interested in you letting us know that. I do have your email addresses obviously, I was able to reach out to you about the link for today's webinar. So we will be sending some information to you but if you want to have a more extensive and expansive engagement with us, we would certainly be interested in having you let us know that. And the last couple of principles I want to share with you, some examples-- is our intergovernmental coordination. Principle 15 indicates that we're intending to facilitate discussions among governmental entities on environmental justice to once again try to address the concerns of tribes and indigenous peoples. And this last one is about encouraging federal agencies state and local governments to incorporate environmental justice principles and once again this is-- would include our average to work with US territories. And so just an example of how we've gone about to try to implement some of the principles, as I mentioned, we have this EPA EJ Webinar Series and the webinar series pertains to the Principles 3, 5, 9, 10 and 12 and we also have some efforts under addressing Principle 6 which I talked about just a minute ago, specifically talking about our efforts to incorporate traditional knowledge in some of our practices, policies and regulations, if you will, in science. And here are some examples of where we've done that, particularly with our Office of Land and Emergency Management where they came out with a memorandum specifically indicating how traditional knowledge should be incorporated in our decision-making processes regarding cleanup efforts. And there's an example of that through the Grasse River Superfund site in New York, that's in one of our EPA annual EJ reports, one done in 2019 and here's a reference to that. So just last couple things on the policy. So it's great that we have this policy so you might be a little bit interested in knowing what does it do practically within the agency, how are we altering the way we do business. Well, one of the most significant ways is it more closely aligns the Office of Environmental Justice with the American Indian Environmental Office and our coordination and trying to address the needs of tribes and indigenous peoples. As I mentioned to you in the discussion about some of the principles, it's our intention to also have a contact list of the tribal and territory government officials as well as other indigenous peoples that have an interest in working with EPA within each region that are interested in continuing to engage with us on environmental justice issues. And the last thing is we have specific staff that we call EJ Tribal and Indigenous Peoples Advisors that are responsible for helping to facilitate implementation of the policy within their respective regions in programs. And Alan Bacock coordinates some of that and with his colleague Ruben who's with EPA Region 9 and Ruben is actually the EJ TIPA and you heard that Alan works on environmental justice within the region so they coordinate that work together. So you can find the policy at this website and some information on how we went about creating the policy itself. And this whole PowerPoint presentation we're going to actually send out to you at the end of the session today, probably not tonight because it's pretty late here but probably tomorrow, I'll be able to email you the whole PowerPoint presentation. So you'll have all of these links as well as all the information that we share. So thank you Shereen, I'll turn it back over to you.
Shereen D'Souza: Great, thanks so much for the review of the policies which focuses on native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in addition to the tribes and indigenous peoples. Alan, you're up, are you ready to talk about funding opportunities?
Alan Bacock: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks Shereen and thanks Danny, thank you for all those on the call today. My name is Alan Bacock, I am as was shared earlier one of the Environmental Justice Coordinators at Region 9 that I hold along with Ruben Mojica Hernandez and I'm going to see if I can move this forward, it's not quite working yet, let me see. 
Danny Gogal: What I found Alan is using your-- not your arrow keys but the actual--
Alan Bacock: I got it, [LAUGHS] all right. So right now we're going to talk about some of the financial assistance programs that are available through the Office of Environmental Justice and we're going to go over three that the Office of Environmental Justice manages, though it should just recognize that there are additional programs that EPA does provide out that can be of support to your community and to your organization to be able to overcome some of the issues that you might be having or some opportunities that you might see-- so certainly not limited to just these three but we're going to highlight them as they're the ones managed by the Office of Environmental Justice. And in the overall goal for these-- actually for the first two programs let me show what they are, first two programs is the EJ Small Grants in the EJ Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreements. The overall goal for those two is to be able to help build the capacity of communities with environmental justice concerns and to create self-sustaining community-based partnerships that will continue to improve local environments into the future. So they're there really for the basis of supporting community work, and I will go into each of those-- the third one-- I'll also go into more connected to governments though, so won't go as in detail with those other ones. So the first one, I wanted to go through is the Small Grants Program and it provides funding directly to community based organizations and it's for projects that help residents of underserved communities to understand and then also address local environmental and public health issues. In general, the program awards grants that support community driven projects designed to engage, educate and empower communities to better understand and address the local environmental and public health issues Community driven projects are projects that include activities where community or residents and their representatives are really involved in what goes on in both, the planning as well as the implementation of those activities. And so organizations that really have a direct connection to communities are ones that we like to be able to see-- apply for these funds and some of the typical activities that we see within this program include research and public education, demonstration projects, training, monitoring, development-- so it's a pretty broad list of activities that are available. These are one-year projects. Traditionally, we have provided 30,000 dollars per grant, though as you can see here it's likely to increase for this year and it's eligible to the community based organizations, to indigenous organizations, to federally recognized tribal governments. And this is a brand new for those in the Pacific Islands that are part of those territorial governments. And so very excited to be able to open that opportunity out to those folks as well. We don't have a request for applications open right now but very, very soon we're hoping by March 1st that you will see a an announcement of things and at the very end of the PowerPoint, there will be a place where you can see how to sign up for the EJ listserv. That listserv provides updates and information including when there are opportunities like these that will be popping out from the agency, so if you're not on that listserv I definitely encourage you to go and to be a part of it so that you'll know when this Small Grant opportunity becomes available. The second program is looking at the Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement, and really this is kind of the next step up from that Small Grants Program. As you can see, the award is higher at 120,000 and it's not for one years but it's for two years to be able to work on so definitely a lot more involved project, a lot more involvement as well from EPA in the midst of that. And as with the Small Grants we're also looking at increasing or seeing an increase and that will all be shared within the announcement whenever it does come out and it's eligible for the same people that were eligible for the Small Grants Program. The projects really must demonstrate the use of the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Model to support their collaborative efforts during that project period that they identify. And again the applying organization should really have a direct connection to the underserved community impacted by the environmental harms and risks. And it's-- we'll go into the model in a second but just wanted to share really quickly that the announcements for both the Small Grants Program and in this Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement Program will both happen at the same time but in order to increase accessibility and diversity, we're really looking at one EPA EJ grant, so if you are going to be applying for either one you want to focus on the one that makes the most sense for your needs because you will-- if you are awarded you'll be awarded either a Small Grant or a Collaborative Problem-Solving Grant. So there are two distinct programs but if you receive one, you won't receive the other and so knowing where you are in the process and in which one makes the most sense for your community is important to know early on. And so looking at some of the information in the announcement will be important. But this next slide we'll be able to see a little bit of where you might find yourself. So this is just some of the elements of that Collaborative Problem-Solving Model and for the Collaborative Problem-Solving Grant, it's anticipated that those that are applying for that have already begun or are within steps 1 to 3 within this model. So if you've been working on some things over time and you have an idea of where you're at and you have a vision and you have people that you've been working with and developing, you've figured out how to be able to make decisions together that puts you at within the time frame of looking at that collaborative problem-- problem-solving model. If you're still looking for people to partner with, you're still working on what is it that we actually want as a community, you're-- you're really looking at that Small Grants Program. So being able to recognize where you are in the midst of that. And see that this model is created to be able to help really build partnerships and strengthen things over time for communities. And it really does move across the entire life of projects but also entire lives of communities and being able to learn and learn and learn and replicate some of these best practices throughout. And then the final funding program is the State EJ Cooperative Agreement. And this provides funding out to US states, to territories, to tribal governments and to local governments. The applicants are expected to work with underserved communities and the organizations that serve those communities as well really to achieve meaningful and measurable results during the funding period. And the driving factor is really seeing that the perspectives and the needs of the community residents are served by the work that's being done. The main objective is really to advance integration of environmental justice goals with our government partners. And we don't have an opportunity coming up we just closed an opportunity in Fiscal Year 2020. With that, one great thing for this audience to recognize is one of the tribal recipients was from Region 9 and in fact they were the tribal recipient for these funds and so we'll be excited to see the work that they're able to do, it's Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians in California, as they look at disaster resiliency and being able to plan and train for disasters in meaningful ways. And some of the elements then with this program is that states create, implement strategies and programs and activities that really do help to deal with the local environmental issues that communities are facing. Let's see. With that, I'm going to move a little bit quicker through the next slides just to be able to ensure that we spend a lot of time for Herb and what he has to share. I just wanted to quickly share some of the project themes. So you can see that there are many different types of media via air, water solid waste, education that ends up being projects that we've worked with. The nice thing with-- well, I mean it's the critical thing, right? environmental justice impacts different communities of different ways and so the broadness of what can be addressed via air quality concerns or water quality concerns or food issues or a need for environmental stewardship and education, so it's always connecting into a statute that EPA is the primary one to look at and yet be able to look at how that fits with so many different areas around which is needed for communities dealing with so many different impacts. And before these or actually-- yeah before the deadline for these requests out, so the upcoming Small Grants and the Collaborative Problem-Solving Grants, there will be a pre-application assistance call, that call is open to everyone that wants to be able to get a better understanding of what's within those packets, provide some guidance and provide that-- you can ask some questions around it and they'll be very helpful if you're looking at moving forward with developing an application. And some common strengths are listed on this slide which I'm not going to go into all of them right now but what I would share is one common strength that is found is that within the announcements there are typically questions asked and being able to clearly articulate answers back, really help to strengthen the proposals that are received and so just I would really encourage that you look at it, look at the questions asked, how they're asked, the format that they're asking because it does help to strengthen when those questions are asked and then you're able to create in-- the opportunities to share what it is that how you're addressing those. And then looking at the weaknesses, again there's a list of weaknesses being able to look at how the community truly is a part of the work that's to be done is really important and so I want to be able to make that not a weakness but a strength of the proposal you have. But there again, are listed a couple different areas where weaknesses may be found-- this PowerPoint will be provided again, probably tomorrow with what Danny had shared. And with that you can look through these strengths and weaknesses and see how you can strengthen the proposals that you put forward for these funding opportunities. And then finally, just a couple of links to be able to learn a little bit more about each of the opportunities that we had in front of us. So thanks again for the opportunity and I will wish this along and have Herb share or actually Shereen, if you want to jump in for that transition. Thank you.
Shereen D'Souza: Okay. Thank you so much Alan. The one thing I'll just quickly note about one of Alan's last slides about strengths in proposals. Yeah, here we go. Use of the EJSCREEN which you see in the top bullet, I'll just note that the Pacific Islands currently are not included in EJSCREEN and that would not be-- that would-- not using EJSCREEN would not detract from your proposal because obviously the data doesn't exist, so I just wanted to make sure that is clear that, it would not-- A proposal would not be penalized for not using EJSCREEN. Alan is that anything to add there?
Alan Bacock: Yeah just to note that The use of EJSCREEN is something that is applicable to most within the United States but really it's to showcase what kind of impacts or vulnerability of the community and so being able to share even without the EJSCREEN tool available how the community is more vulnerable or has burdens to it, the more you can share, the clearer the message is about the needs of the community.
Shereen D'Souza: That's great, thank you. And also to note that we are making efforts to incorporate the Pacific Islands and get the data that would allow the Pacific Islands to be included in EJSCREEN. So hopefully that's something that's coming down the road as well. but Alan, thank you so much for explaining these funding opportunities and we'll turn it over to Herb to talk about his experience, the experience of his organization in actually using EPA funding for environmental justice work.
Herb Lee: Aloha, can you guys hear me? I hope. Sorry where-- am I coming through?
Shereen D'Souza: You're great, I can hear you just fine, thanks.
Herb Lee: Okay, Aloha my name is Herb Lee, I'm with the Pacific American Foundation which is a non-profit in Hawaii and I've been asked to-- First of all, I want to just thank John and Danny, Shereen and Alan for reconnecting over the last couple weeks to kind of prepare for this and being able to share a little bit about my experience and my story in Hawaii as a nonprofit organization. And getting an EPA grant back in 2011, I'm going to talk a little bit about that but they also wanted me to share a little bit about my nonprofit and how I've been able to integrate what we do with education, environmental stewardship protection, preservation and all things to help students and our communities be the best that they can be. So I want to start off with generally, a frame of reference. You know, we in the Pacific obviously have a very unique history, a new unique experience from an environmental standpoint and I like to start off with this one because like many of our other brothers and sisters in the Pacific region in Hawaii specifically, for many years we've been the most isolated land mass on the planet, 2,500 miles away from any major land mass and so we were totally self-sufficient and I like to say that from an indigenous standpoint able to figure out how to work harmoniously with our environment because it really was a matter of survival and it helped to sustain us. So a lot of my story is trying to recapture some of the indigenous wisdom and incorporate it with contemporary knowledge and experiences so that we can problem solve some of these environmental justice issues that are confronting us today in our specific communities. We all know that it's not the same, it's all different but I think there's some common threads that hopefully you can extract as I share a little bit about my personal story. I started my own non-profit in 1995 to restore an ancient Hawaiian fishpond and I'm going to talk a little bit more about that. Can we go to the next slide? And next one. [CLEARING THROAT] So we were--  since western contact in the late 1700s we went from being totally self-sufficient to now in the 21st century being pretty much between 80 and 90 percent dependent on container ships coming to Hawaii to give us-- to bring us food and other-- fuel and all those other kinds of things, so we've basically flipped the paradigm so to speak from being totally self-sufficient and independent to now being almost totally dependent on outside island sources to-- for us to be able to sustain ourselves.  [CLEARING THROAT] So, a little bit about what I'm going to share is how we're trying to flip that back, especially in this pandemic time and some of the things that we've learned to be able to be less dependent and more self-sufficient and that relates directly to a thriving and healthy environment that in turn makes us healthy as human beings. So we started-- I partnered with the Pacific American Foundation 19 in about 2000 and now serve as its CEO in that partnership and I dissolved my non-profit about five years ago. So this is basically what we are as an organization, our mission is to improve lives of Pacific Americans, this is our focus, you can kind of see that, I won't read it. And I just want to share some indigenous wisdom that's resonated for me over the years that I've been doing this kind of work.  [HAWAIIAN] Knowledge is learned in one school that has resonated for us from the first moments that we started our non-profit. And this really is a situation where we thrive on partnerships, we thrive on relationships with many other people because we don't have all the knowledge and we've learned a lot from many other people including-- over the years my relationship with EPA and some of the great people there that work in this area.  [HAWAIIAN] The knowledge comes from the doing. This is an age-old-- all of these what we call [HAWAIIAN] Hawaii scenes are-- go back generations and that we really learn by actually doing things. And the third one is [HAWAIIAN] No task is too great when all put together. And again, this resonates for us in terms of the building of our relationships and partnerships. And the last one is really founded on the on aloha as a mindset, as a belief, as a practice that we live every day. Aloha comes from [HAWAIIAN] From inside ourselves among each other and then all-- and if we can understand that then we can learn how to take care of our-- take care of our environment in which we live. Next slide, please. So [CLEARING THROAT] I'm just expanding a little bit more on the idea of an importance for nonprofits especially-- [CLEARING THROAT] Many of us-- I think there are like 7,000 nonprofits registered in the state of Hawaii alone and they all have different missions, they're all trying to do community work, so I thought I would share just some words of wisdom in my experience. How does your mission and focus intersect with others? It's always opportunities and building relationships and partnerships for there to be some Templar, some fabric, some cord between your organization and another organization or with-- throughout different communities. Look for those things that-- maybe another good way to say it is that there's a lot of commonalities than there are differences when we begin to look at what's passionate and what serves us and how we are trying to serve our community. There's always these tethers to the mission, so that's a great way to kind of start off relationships among organizations and with people. So it reflects the scene and the unseen, the spiritual part is very important to everything that we do. The OIA principle is also something that is indigenous base, it's wisdom for our ancestors and it basically [CLEARING THROAT] it's an acronym that describes the powers of observation in Hawaii, we call it being keelo or being very keenly observant at a very high level. And then how do we interpret what we observe and then how do we take what we observe and interpret based on our own life experiences and how do we now apply that to problem solve or to magnify new knowledge based on these relationships. Relationships relevance and rigor is really a concept that is more education-based and when I started this work and working with the education community in Hawaii they always put rigor first and over the years I learned that it's relationships relevance in that order, and if you can really understand the relationships and the relevance of what you're learning and doing you can set the rigor bar at any level and the kids and the community will reach it. Servant leadership is very important. So I won't go through all of these but you can kind of see that as a non-profit when we look at funding we're looking at local, national, international, philanthropic and there's a tremendous change that's occurring in the philanthropic field too in terms of non-profits. I've seen a transition 20 years where there were just check writers and now they really want to be involved in the passion that-- why they're providing support and want to have a relationship with you as well. And the last one, I think looking to the path to chart your way forward, I think is very [HAWAIIAN]-- resonates with me in terms of building upon the indigenous wisdom of the past and incorporating it and bringing it forward as we take on the challenges in a pandemic time or a non-pandemic time. So I just want to share a few slides about my particular history with the local-- this is an ancient Hawaiian fishbond it's 400 years old, it's in the-- adjacent to K?ne?ohe bay which you kind of see that's sliver of water behind the wall there. Next slide please. This is another photograph taken in 2019, Waikalua Loko I'a looking back from the-- in the bay looking up to the mountains, we're located on the island of Oahu which is on the windward side or the north side of the island. This is an area called Kaneohe Ahupua'a or this is a land division from the mountain to the sea, so our pond is situated at the bottom or actually in the midst of the Ahupua'a so from an environmental understanding, all the rain that flows from these mountains come down into the streams, these streams feed our bay, it fed my ancient Hawaiian fishpond. So I've always said that the local or the fishponds are sort of a Litmus test for determining the health of a Ahupua'a or a land division from the mountain to the sea because if your pond is polluted then something's going on within your land division or Ahupua'a that is not healthy and you need to correct that. And the fresh water that flows from the mountain to the sea into the bay and the kai or the salt water, there needs to be a really good balance and these local I'a that were built by our ancestors for 800 to 400 years ago struck a balance so these ponds were desired to be brackish water and a confluence of both freshwater input from the mountains as well as the salt water coming from the kai. Next slide, please. So when we started on this journey and we started doing the restoration and then doing education programs I just wanted to highlight that this pond was particularly classified by our local media as one of the most endangered historic sites, there are many of them still in Hawaii, we're not the only one and we've been on a mission to try to restore these sites and to be able to learn and integrate the wisdom of these sites and how it affects the broader community from education standpoint, again, from an environmental stewardship standpoint, from a business standpoint all sectors of society that contributes to an economy that is thriving and in a pandemic time even more so. Next slide, please. So this is just a short slide to show you. These are the principal herbivores that were grown in these ponds, one is called the awa or the milkfish, the other one is the mullet or the ama ama. And the slide on the right side just kind of shows you how our ancient Hawaiians forefathers were able to actually develop a food chain that was way more productive, ten times more productive than the food chain in nature but still looking for a harmonious balance in nature and just doing it a little bit better. And so you can see that graphic over there about at the top of the chain in a natural environment it produces one pound of fish for a man in our local Hawaiian fishponds, it was a hundred pounds plus per man. Next slide. So this is the part that I'm really proud of. As we were restoring upon in the beginning years I had a science teacher come down and ask us "Hey, can I bring my kids to help restore the pond with you? I'm trying to teach them science and understanding what good environmental stewardship is like and I'm not reaching them." They were predominantly native Hawaiian kids, they were in these at-risk programs and we said "Yeah", we welcome them to come down and we shared what we were doing with them and oh my goodness, nine months later, we saw a tremendous transformation in these kids, they were juniors and seniors at a local high school and we asked ourselves three questions, can we duplicate this? Can we start these kids when they were younger? imagine what they would look like-- And can we reach more kids by providing this kind of makahana kaike experience? knowledge comes from the actual doing of restoration and stewardship, and getting into these ponds and trying to figure out what was going on and recapturing the indigenous ancestral wisdom. It totally changed our trajectory in terms of the restoration and we've been able to get many grants to develop rigorous-- in those days we call it culture base today it's called aina based education strategies that have been able to permeate now throughout the entire-- what we call the P20 system of education from pre-kindergarten all the way up to post-secondary college opportunities. Next slide, please. So this depicts how these ponds were built in ancient times and how many people that it took. Again, to me it underscores relationship building even in modern times and just the collective wisdom of everybody working together for a common goal and a common purpose. And our forefathers they did this as a matter of survival and I believe that we are still in a survival mode, it's a different kind of survival mode but it is imperative that again we partner and we build relationships to help our communities thrive. Next slide, and this is sort of a modern day what we've been doing, we're about 50 percent-- in 2016 we experienced our first impact of-- everybody talks about climate change and we directly experienced what we call king tides in Hawaii for the very first time in 2016 where that wall that those students are standing off was completely under water, we've never seen tides like that, the streams all rose, and so, since that time we've been on a mission to restore the wall, make it 3 feet higher so that it can be preserved hopefully for the next 50 to 100 years. The interesting thing about king tides is that it's not just about the water, the elevation of the water that we've never experienced before but it's also about all of the microorganisms that these king tides bring with them that totally change the ecology of the bay and of our pond. And we've been on a journey to really try to apply both indigenous holistic methodologies of learning and modern science practices and tools and technology to figure out how we can propagate fish again and grow seaweed which these herbivores are eating. Next slide, please. So Piko means sort of the center-- our fishpond and everything that we've done over the last 25 years, 26 years now has become sort of the center or the piko of our organization, everything that we do related to stewardship, education, career planning and development partnerships all emanate from what we've learned from this wonderful natural resource and what our forefathers, our ancestors left for us. Next slide, please. 25 years ago, people did not have any-- if I went on the street and I asked anybody what do you know about ancient Hawaiian fishponds? I would probably get a blank foot-- blank face. Today 26 years later, I think everybody knows about ancient Hawaiian fishponds and what they've meant to not only the restoration of the environment but how we have built in pipelines for knowledge and education. And I just wanted to point this out that after that experience with those kids back in 1997-1998, this article came out in 1999 and I thought it was pretty cool "Restored fishpond now a learning center" and really that has been why we-- why it has become a piko for us or a center for us in terms of everything that we do. Next slide, please. So fast forward, we've been able to get a number of federal grants over the years that have helped us to develop our curriculum, our teacher training programs, our environmental stewardship programs, we've been able now to train many teachers. The 110,000 students are just at our local I'a our fishpond only, we've been able to develop an organization that connects 40 fishponds in the eight major islands of Hawaii and been able to share all of the knowledge and information that we have been able to produce as well as what other ponds and other communities have been able to produce and share, and we were actually able to acquire this pond because we were restoring it, we're taking care of it, we never owned it we're always under a threat of a private owner to kick us out but we were able to successfully acquire it using federal dollars from HUD back in 2009. Next slide, please. And I just wanted to throw this in here. This is something that's been the consequence, I think, for me-- and what we've been able to do collectively with many other people in really pushing this idea of aina based education or culture-based education to become a foundation for good. Environmental stewardship has now become policy of the Hawaii Board of Education adopted in 2015 which incorporates it's indigenous wisdom in a framework that is not meant to be prescriptive but is meant to be reflective and practiced on a day-to-day basis. That has really-- kind of I think helping to enliven our communities to really understand the importance of how we bridge between indigenous ways of knowing and with modern and contemporary science and practices to problem solve the things that we need to solve in the 21st century. Next slide, please. I think I just have a couple more. Yeah so, this last one is about-- what we've learned over the years is that although we have not been successful in actually propagating fish in many of these ponds because we're still trying to figure out the ecology and the dynamics of that and the changing dynamics of that, the educational consequence of these becoming very passionate and great places-- I've adopted this idea that the community is the classroom, it doesn't only occur knowledge exchange, does not only occur within four walls of the traditional school but that our pond like many other ponds and other farming areas and other natural resource areas have become embraced now as part of the community school mindset, and to be able to utilize the resources of all of these organizations with our Hawaii Department of Education to really expand the learning opportunities. So I believe that in the next generation, these local I'a that have now become community schools, part of the community school network and mindset is going to be even more important in terms of the vitality of the environments that we live in to try to hopefully produce food again and be more independent. Next slide. So this next slide is just really briefly-- This is the grant that we got from EPA way back in 2010, it was part of what was known at that time as a CARE Act, not to be confused with the current pandemic CARES Act, in those days it was an acronym for Community Action for a Renewed Environment which you have up there that was these-- That CARE, that specific EPA CARE Act funding is not available anymore, they have a different nomenclature for it now, but we did focus on the west side of the island of Oahu which we call the Nanakuli-Waianae side. The project was called Waianae or the living waters of Waianae and it focused on these three points that I'm not going to read, you can read that and we formed partnerships with the community, I think some people are on this call that were actually part of that partnership way back in 2010, 2011 and it was wonderful, it was wonderful to be able to bring everybody together to work collectively to try to educate and form and hopefully improve and change people's behaviors about preventing future pollution. Next slide. So these are just some tips that I come up with that Danny asked me to put together. As you're contemplating-- applying for an EPA grant or any federal grant, I know that the EJ grants are-- I think it's  a EJ grants right that are coming up March that are going to be available for people to submit applications on, so these are just words of wisdom from my experience. Number one, make sure that you understand the intent and purpose of the federal agency that will be administering the grant, so this webinar is perfect to give you that background about what environmental justice initiatives are about. Thoroughly read the request for applications and make sure that you answer all of the specific items and questions in a format that is easily readable and is aligned to what the questions that are being asked. You're going to have people that are reviewing this that may not necessarily have all of the experiences that you have, and so you want to try and make it easier for the-- easy for the reviewers to be able to find the answers to the questions that they're looking for in terms of grading your application. Take advantage of every opportunity to ask questions in advance of you submitting your RFA there, normally is a time period where there is going to be a webinar or exchange of information and take maximum advantage of that. And to me that is the beginning of the relationship building with that agency and hopefully you win that grant. Write the proposal so that it tells your story and answers the specific question very, very important. So we don't want to-- we want to make sure that your story is told because it's unique but it also needs to answer the specific questions of the RFAs. If you get approved, which I pray that you will, get to know your project officer with our CARE's Act grant, we had a fabulous relationship with our Region 9 officer, we tried to encourage her to come out to the islands as much as she could as what's possible so that she could be part of the relationship building in our community and she did, she made a number of visits throughout the year and it really helped in the relationship building process. So really I cannot underscore that enough, she is going to help-- pave that pathway for you within the agency. If not, if you don't get approved then most federal agencies will share review or notes with you, specific notes on your application that you can use to learn from and ask more questions about and then hopefully inform you about the next opportunity that you have to write a grant, whether it be EPA or any federal agency. And that's basically it. I think my last slide is just to say mahalo. Can we go to the last side? I think my time is up. and I think we're going to go to questions and answers but thank you again for listening. Go visit our website if you want to learn more, we've-- Our website has been on steroids over the last 12 months in this pandemic time and we've developed all kinds of cool innovative things that speak to a lot of the things that I just shared with you, so go check it out and or send me an email too, I'd be happy to answer whatever questions. So Shereen, back to you. 
Shereen D'Souza: Great, thanks so much Herb. Super interesting to hear about the fishpond projects and the kind of changes you're making in your communities, really impressive work, thank you for that. Okay so, we have some time for Q&A and I see that there are a few questions already in the chat box. If you'd like to submit a question, please go ahead and add it to the chat box. The first one I see is from Juana Rosas asking about native people in Puerto Rico and whether Puerto Ricans are considered part of the EPA indigenous people's policy. Danny, could you answer that?
Danny Gogal: Sure. So, indigenous peoples anywhere in the United States and US territories are included in that policy. And even for some reason if someone feels that perhaps they aren't able to be considered indigenous, our environmental justice program is for everybody, so there's a way and a means to engage and work with us and efforts to partner with you and help you address prior to environmental public health concerns in your community, really no matter what, but the answer to your question is regardless of where you reside in the US territory or in the mainland or Hawaii and Alaska, you see yourself as indigenous, that's all that's necessary needed for you to be part of the policy. Thanks.
Shereen D'Souza: Great, thank you for that. Another question from Ginger Wireman. Ginger writes "I'm curious whether traditional environmental knowledge can be used to bolster a fight over Clean Water Act enforcement." Anyone on the line who could speak to that or has anecdotal experience with the use of TEK? 
Danny Gogal: So I'll try to respond to that one as well. So the agency is encouraged to consider traditional knowledge in understanding our actions on how they may impact the environment in public health in this particular case of indigenous or tribal members or organizations or communities and or tribal governments. So within the enforcement context I'm not aware of it specifically being used yet but if you were to look at the policy that I went over, you'll see very clearly that we stayed-- it's our intentions to consider TEK in our programs policies and activities and science and our actions, so I would certainly say that you are in a good position to raise it and to point to the policy the principles that specifically speak to our openness and willingness and interest in considering TEK and particularly if you're asking us to do so in an action including enforcement actions. There are some nuances with enforcement, particularly when it comes to the-- some of the sensitivity about what we're able to disclose publicly about enforcement actions but certainly I would say there's opportunity for you to engage in in raising TEK and I'd be happy to talk to you offline about your specific situation and even connect you with our EJ TIPA, the tribal indigenous people's advisors for our office enforcement and compliance assurance who can help with this discussion as well.
Shereen D'Souza: Thank you Danny. Larry Morin asks "Can you give a quick overview of EJ grant eligibility requirements and thresholds for community organizations?"
Danny Gogal: So we just went over that. Alan did a pretty good job of giving that overview but as far as being an eligible community-based organization or non-profit, you do have to have a 501 C3 designation or a equivalent from the state in which you reside. And I imagine also that would go with the US territories and that-- Shereen you might be able to answer that particular question, but as long as you have a 501 C3 or a similar acknowledged pro-- or designation from the state or perhaps US territory, you're eligible. The one thing you might want to be really mindful of and Alan did a really good job of explaining the differences between our EJ Small Grant Program and the EJ Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement in that there's different organizations in terms of their capacity where they are in the process that would be appropriate or for them to apply for one or either of those. And if you've never applied for a grant whatsoever and you're a once again a non-profit or community-based organization that has status, once again, a 501 C3 or similar status, we'd strongly encourage you to apply because that's how you get experience. And secondly, Alan mentioned there are going to be some from national calls for people to learn about the grants. There's going to be some opportunity to hear from the grants manager about what these each of these grants entail and some of the special characteristics of them for this particular round of requests for applications. So we strongly encourage you to participate in one or more of those national calls and they will be held on hours like this, they're not going to be held just during [UNINTELLIGIBLE] "regular work hours" and for the east coast. So everyone should have an opportunity to sit in on one or more of those conference calls. I hope I answered that question.
Shereen D'Souza: And just to add Larry, I will look into whether the 501 C3 designation for organizations in the territory still holds and I'll loop back with that info, but I also wanted to ask either Danny or Alan if you know, an organization needs to get a Duns number for example, even just to apply, right? Could you talk a little bit-- if we're talking about perhaps small organizations that have never submitted federal grants, what's that process look like? how early do they need to start to get like these-- to get registered in the system in order to even submit an application?
Alan Bacock: Yeah sharing that, that's a great segue, in fact, I was-- Danny had shared so much good information there and then there is the aspect of all our grants go through grants.gov and to be able to be within that mechanism it is getting a Duns number. And really, the Duns number is a process to go through. If your organization has not gone through that process before, start it right now prior to any announcement of grants because it will be needed for any federal grant that's available out there and it takes time, you have to send off information and I'm forgetting the exact location to send it. We can-- in following up Danny maybe with the PowerPoint we can provide some information about a checklist for getting a Duns number because that is really important just to get everything in line so you're ready to go.
Danny Gogal: That's a great point and it's a great question and thanks for bringing it up Shereen. I kind of forgot about that piece and yes you want to get started as soon as possible, so we'll send some information to you about how to go about doing that.
Shereen D'Souza: Great, thank you. Another question from Christiana Quintana-- kinata, "Are the grants mentioned in this webinar awarded annually? On average, how many are available in a given year?
Danny Gogal: Great question and I actually meant to share that information but I forgot. [LAUGHS] And you heard Alan mention that we're expecting the grants awards amounts and even the number of awards to increase this current calendar year because we got additional funding, we don't-- We're not in a position to disclose that right now, that's why we kind of say generally the way that we're articulating them but within a couple weeks it should be announced and you'll be able to see what those funding amounts are going to be. So historically-- I share that with you because now I'm going to tell you historically what it was but as we just mentioned it's going to be a little different this year. So for the Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreements there was funding for one per region, so that was only ten so that was a very competitive financial assistance program. And for the EJ Small Grants there were at least four per region. Now we are expecting that go up a little bit this calendar year coming up for both of those to some degree, it will be likely an increase in the amount and also likely an increase in the number of grants in the cooperative agreements. And so right now, we can't just fully disclose that because it hasn't become public knowledge yet. So at least you got a general sense and it's another reason why Alan spent a little time explaining that. If you're just organizing yourself, you would not be necessarily very competitive for a Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement and you would definitely be more competitive in the EJ Small Grant because that's what it's intended for, to help organizations kind of get themselves started. 
Shereen D'Souza: Great, thanks for that Danny. Here's a question from Manuel Cruz. How can EPA's recognition of Pacific Islanders as indigenous peoples and recognition of UNDRIP assist the Chamorro people in relation to military buildup projects in Guam? That's a tricky one, anyone have a response for that?
Danny Gogal: Yeah I'll give a response. [LAUGHS] Shereen and I'm going to see if you want to chime in or Alan. So it's always a challenge obviously when you have broad policy to identify ways that they can be most effectively applied in communities, in specific situations and it doesn't always go so smoothly, maybe that's probably the best I can say on that. So in the situation that you just raised for one thing, what I would strongly encourage communities to do is to bring to the attention of government decision-making bodies whether that's US territorial governments or federal agencies in the case of the islands, what the policies are because many-- you can't always assume that they understand them or that they even know that they exist. There's a couple very interesting things that have happened just in the last couple weeks in that-- the new administration-- Under President Biden it has come out with some executive orders on environmental justice and on climate and they're very substantive in terms of what they say and of course there's questions about how they're going to ultimately be applied, but it's well worth looking at those executive orders. Now, Shereen Alan and I are committing to give information to the participants. I'm hoping someone's writing some of this down because now we're getting beyond just one or two things and I want to make sure we don't forget. So we can send you links to those executive orders and you would hopefully be able to see some things in there that would perhaps enable federal agencies, in this particular case, the Department of Defense, the military to perhaps take another look at some of the ways that they've been working with you in the past. And I'll tell you just one quick thing about that. So, there is a Federal Interagency Working Group on environmental justice, it's been coordinated by the US EPA for over 20 years, now 26-- whatever number of years. The executive order-- and I can't remember the exact number because they just connected it with this  particular executive order but anyway, the new executive order on environmental justice and climate moved the Interagency Work Group from EPA to the White House Council of Environmental Quality and that's going to obviously bring more attention to the intentions of this administration to see every  federal agency including the Department of Defense make conservative efforts to be-- to address and provide for environmental justice. So that's a specific example of what I'm sharing with you that is worth bringing to the attention of the governmental entities that you're now working with who are likely not as familiar with the existence of the executive order, if they are they may not have looked at it from the vantage point of their own agencies at this point in time. Then the EPA stating that we recognize the importance of the UN Declaration the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as it applies to our responsibilities, our mission-- you can point that out too if you're working with your-- our EPA colleagues maybe Shereen, maybe John who was on the phone and say "Hey, you guys have this as an overarching principle in your policy and practically how can we work with you to look at those articles in the UNDRIP that pertain to some of the concerns we have?" And it's a process of working on these things. We have these policies-- until they start to be worked on, you don't always understand how that can be applied effectively. So by you asking the question, you engaging us and you heard me say very clearly in my overview of-- maybe I was rambling or went too fast and hopefully I didn't, it has some pretty significant statements in there about what we say we're going to do and how we're going to do our business. Unless and until people ask us to operationalize that, we typically don't do a lot with it because we're wrapped up in all these other things that people call us or ask us to do. So I would suggest to look at the policy, the EPA policy environmental justice for working with fully recognized tribes and indigenous peoples, you have Shereen here, you've got Alan, you've got John that they're well versed in the fact that this policy exists and they're the kind of people that would want to try to figure out ways to help operationalize it and then I'm available at headquarters to do the same. I know that's a little bit of a long-winded response, I don't mean it to be nebulous and just verbose but just to say it's it's a work in progress and we're still in the early stages of doing this work in a meaningful and effective way. 
Shereen D'Souza: Yeah, thank you for that, Danny. And Manuel, I would just say feel free to reach out and we can have an offline conversation to talk in more detail about what you have in mind and how we might be able to assist. Alan did you have something you wanted to add?  
Alan Bacock: Yeah I just wanted to share as well that in the chat that I saw-- we had a couple similar questions about relations with Department of Defense and just want to show that the Office of Environmental Justice is the lead for the Interagency Working Group on environmental justice and that really brings in the whole federal family including department of defense to be able to work on these things. They're-- looking on the website and there it is on the EPA website there isn't a contact right now for the Department of Defense but it's another avenue to be able to look at.
Danny Gogal: Yeah and that-- the fact that they don't have a representative-- that will change very soon because all of them are called to once again re-engage in a very substantive way. And once again you can reach out to us to help communicate that interest and desire you have to look at these issues more closely. 
Shereen D'Souza: Thanks. I'm going to skip over the related question from Ati Jeffers Fabro about DOD and I'm going to move on to Bessie Lee's question about whether the Pacific territories are competing for EJ funding with the tribes and EJ communities on the mainland and whether US EPA would consider a set-aside for EJ funding for the Pacific territories.
Danny Gogal: Yeah I think it's great you're asking the question. And I would never be shy about asking all those kind of things. That question has actually come up within the tribal context. Will it be considered of having to set aside for federally recognized tribes we've not done that and so it's not something we've considered. I think you're heard today and it was a big deal for us and I don't want us to take a victory lap on this but because of Shereen and Alan's inquiry just last week, matter of fact maybe in earlier this week I can't remember when, real recent saying "Hey are US territories eligible for the EJ Small Grants and the Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreements?" and the answer was no. And so by them asking the question we went back to our colleagues and said in many regards US territories are very similar in their challenges with regards to finances and resources and perhaps we should enable them to apply for those grants and so that happened with literally within a week and it was a lot quicker than that. And that's so unheard of-- So it's good you're asking the question, it's not very likely that's going to happen in the near term but I think that really depends on how things play out with your ability to compete with these current grants that were just opened up. I know that some of the US territories applied for the State Environmental Justice Cooperative Agreements this past year, those had not been offered for a number of years and it was actually the first time that I think the US territories were eligible and I know that some competed because I actually was one of the reviewers. So they-- as Alan mentioned, and even Herb mentioned that we evaluated, we had some notes about what we saw and we were able to give that to the applicants so they know what we saw as the strengths and the areas that needed more attention, so they could do-- they could be more competitive the next time. 
Shereen D'Souza: Great, thank you for that, Danny. And it looks like we're basically at time and it looks like all the questions in the chat have been answered at this point. I do encourage everyone to take a look at the chat because there's there are quite a few helpful comments that aren't necessarily questions but that I think might be informative for people. For example, Sandy posted the link for resilient Oahu's equity indicators which could overlap with EJSCREEN indicators, so I encourage everyone to take a look at that. And then another colleague from the Forest Service in Alaska included a comment Mike Goldstein from Alaska Region Forest Service included information about addressing social environmental justice issues in southeast Alaska working with tribes up there, that could be informative as well, please take a look at the chat if you haven't already. And I also will note that several people have included their emails in the chat because they're interested in receiving more information and being added to the distribution list, we will definitely add you to the list. So, I think with that we can go ahead and close out this webinar. It's been really lovely to be here with all of you and thank you so much for taking the time-- Danny, Alan, Herb anything to add before we wrap up?
Herb Lee: Just I hope everybody has an opportunity to apply for a grant and much success. 
Alan Bacock: Yeah and thanks everyone for being here. I'm in Region 9 and would love to be able to hear  from you offline as well, if you want to send me an email, give me a call just to go over any additional  questions or ways that we can help to support you. 
Danny Gogal: The one thing we forgot to do as I'm sitting here looking at the screen, we didn't include any kind of evaluation [LAUGHS] to get your feedback because we do intend and this is a statement and somewhat of a question for Shereen and Alan to do more of these webinars, specifically focused on native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. If you do have some suggestions for how we can improve these webinars, we'd certainly be happy to hear that feedback. And this is once again a part of the EPA EJ Environmental Justice Webinar Series for Tribes and Indigenous Peoples. We're just elated that this was the first of what we hoped to be many and that you all were part of this historic event. I'm having a webinar series just specifically for the Pacific Islands nationwide. Thanks again for joining and for giving us your time and your interest in environmental justice and the work of not only the agency but of many of the faith-based-- excuse me of the indigenous organizations as well as Pacific Islanders and the Hawaiians and specifically I want to thank Herb for sharing his insights.  What we have found in all the webinars that we've done in the past, that it's really the presentations by whether it's federally recognized tribes or indigenous groups or native Hawaiians and others that really make it a richer webinar with them sharing their own perspectives and experiences and ground truthing if you will, the work that what we promote and encourage to be done within the agency. So thanks again to Herb and our Region 9 colleagues for their efforts to help put this together and it was their idea to do this. So kudos to Alan and Shereen and John. 
Shereen D'Souza: Thanks everyone, have a great rest of your day, take care.
Danny Gogal: Bye-
John Carroll: All right thanks everyone.
Male Voice: Bye team.