Emerging Environmental Challenges

May 8, 2000

The Emerging Environmental Challenges Program was established in the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) in fiscal year 1996/97, and charged with developing a capability to anticipate future environmental challenges which may confront programs in the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA).

The goal of the program is to identify environmental issues that may pose challenges to Cal/EPA boards and departments over the next five to ten years. By generating information on possible future issues, as well as by promoting future-oriented thinking in California’s environmental protection efforts, the program will enhance Cal/EPA’s ability to take proactive efforts to protect public health and environmental quality or to be better prepared to effectively address environmental challenges that may arise in the future. Tremendous benefits can be derived from early efforts to prevent the occurrence – or at least to minimize the adverse impacts – of future problems, as well as to take advantage of future opportunities.

As a first step in the program, a two-day workshop was convened in June 1998. Distinguished speakers presented their ideas about future environmental challenges, and workshop participants were encouraged to offer their own ideas. The proceedings of this workshop, published in February 1999.

Following the initial workshop, OEHHA convened additional workshops to provide further opportunities for a broader-based audience to contribute ideas about future environmental challenges for Cal/EPA, as follows: two one-day public workshops on November 1 and 2, 1999 in Oakland and Van Nuys, respectively; and a three-hour workshop for Cal/EPA staff on January 27, 2000 in Sacramento. This document presents a summary of the information collected at these workshops. Ideas collected from the various workshops are systematically compiled, organized and maintained. From this pool of ideas, selected challenges will be explored in detail as the subject of issue-specific reports which will cover, among other things: current information about the issue; the “drivers” affecting the issue; possible consequences of the issue; “indicators” or observable conditions or factors that may signal the emergence of an issue; and potential options for addressing the issue.