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Environmental Justice 2025 Set is comprised of two layers: Environmental Justice Block Groups 2024 and Environmental Justice Distressed Municipality 2025. All Census and ACS data used in the creation of these data are the latest available from the Census at time of calculation.
Environmental Justice Block Groups 2024 was created from Connecticut block group boundary data located in the Census Bureau's 2024 Block Group TIGER/Line Shapefiles. The poverty data used to determine which block groups qualified as EJ communities (see CT State statute 22a-20a) was based on the Census Bureau's 2023 ACS 5-year estimate. This poverty data was joined with the block group boundaries in ArcPro. Block groups in which the percent of the population below 200% of the federal poverty level was greater than or equal to 30.0 were selected and the resulting selection was exported as a new shapefile. The block groups were then clipped so that only those block groups outside of distressed municipalities were displayed.
Maintenance – This layer will be updated annually and will coincide with the annual distressed municipalities update. The latest ACS 5-year estimate data should be used to update this layer.
Environmental Justice Distressed Municipalities 2025 was created from the Connecticut town boundary data located in the Census Bureau's 2025 TIGER/Line Shapefiles (County Subdivisions). From this shapefile, "select by attribute" was used to select the distressed municipalities by town name (note: the list of 2025 distressed municipalities was provided by the CT Department of Economic and Community Development). The selection was then exported a new shapefile. The “Union” tool was used to unite the new shapefile with tribal lands (American Indian Area Geography) boundary data from the 2025 TIGER/Line files. In the resulting layer, the tribal lands were deleted so only the distressed municipalities remained. Maintenance – This layer will be updated annually when the DECD produces its new list of distressed municipalities.
Note: A distressed municipality, as designated by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, includes municipalities that no longer meet the threshold requirements but are still in an eligibility grace period. (See definition at CGS Sec. 32-9p(b).) Fitting into that grace period, twelve towns continue to be eligible for distressed municipality benefits. Those are Ansonia, Bristol, Chaplin, Griswold, Groton, Montville, Naugatuck, New Haven, North Stonington, Preston, Stratford, Voluntown.