CASE STUDY
Cleaning Up California Together
Sector
Services
Location
Client
Craig Communications manages the environmental portfolio for California’s largest public utility company.
“If there was a medal, I’d give it to you for best consultant ever! You are amazing and always on top of —and anticipating—every situation.”
PG&E Project Manager
Challenge
As part of its commitment to environmental responsibility, our client has been cleaning up contamination from historic operations at more than 40 locations throughout California. These clean-up—or remediation—projects often take place in centrally located, downtown areas or environmental justice communities and cleanup construction has the potential to impact the surrounding community from construction noise, vibration, dust, odors, etc.
Solution
Before site work begins, our team meet with nearby residents, businesses and community leaders to discuss work plans and address any concerns they may have proactively. Often this allows new concerns to come to light and lets us design a project that better meets the community’s needs. We incorporate grassroots and culturally sensitive outreach tactics, including translation and interpretation needs, into our engagement programs to ensure equitable community input. We continue this dialogue throughout the life of the project by establishing an on-site point of contact the community can go to during public facing work, and use work notices, weekly construction update emails, meetings, door-to-door outreach and digital tool to keep residents informed of progress at the site. We also work to actively improve these communities during work by establishing local hire programs and partnering with nearby schools to create relevant science curriculums.
Impact
Our Team has supported more than 25 sites during active remediation and construction. Through our efforts we have established trust in the community, proactively addressed concerns and questions and allowed for remediation at these sites to continue on-schedule and on-budget with minimal concerns from the public. In one such case, we learned about a neighboring clinic that conducted sensitive eye surgeries and were able to redesign our program to ensure that construction vibrations did not affect that work. We also worked with our client to implement one of the first uses of temporary tent structures to control dust and odor impacts in urban areas.
Our engagement strategies have been highly commented by government stakeholders, with one City Manager in Marin County stating, “Craig Communications’ ability to understand and collaborate with communities is unmatched,” and a local City Council member in an environmental justice community noting, “The public participation activities…were well thought out, culturally appropriate and allowed the community to participate in a meaningful way. In my 27 years of service, I have never witnessed this level of collaboration or care shown towards the community.”
