Navigating the HEAL Act

Logan Bridge
2 hours ago
5 min read

Why Washington’s Equity Framework is a Project Asset

By Logan Bridge

Where you live shapes your life. Research consistently shows that the conditions of the environments where people are born, work, and age–the social determinants of health–account for up to 80% of health outcomes. Our zip codes predict life expectancy better than our genetic codes. People living in communities overburdened by pollution, inadequate transit, food insecurity, or substandard housing face compounding health risks that no clinic visit can fully address.

This means that, whether acknowledged or not, every land use decision impacts public health. Successfully navigating these intersections requires a deep understanding of community well-being, which is exactly the expertise Broadview Planning provides.

What the HEAL Act Requires for Washington Agencies

If you live in Washington, you've likely heard of our state's Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act. Signed into law in 2021, the HEAL Act is Washington’s first comprehensive statewide environmental justice law. It establishes a formal definition of environmental justice and requires key state agencies to integrate equity considerations into their planning, permitting, and funding decisions.

The law directs the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Ecology, Health, Natural Resources, Transportation, and the Puget Sound Partnership to identify and address environmental health disparities and grew out of years of advocacy by frontline communities who pushed for state government to formally acknowledge the unequal distribution of environmental burdens. To ensure accountability, the HEAL Act established the Environmental Justice Council, a community oversight body made up of representatives from overburdened communities who guide implementation and advise state agencies on how to meet the law’s goals.

For communities long burdened by pollution and underinvestment, the HEAL Act represents a significant policy shift that puts health equity at the center of how Washington grows and invests.

A Blueprint for Project Success

For the broader planning and development community, this framework serves as a strategic guide that centers on identifying overburdened communities and vulnerable populations. The Washington State Department of Health’s Environmental Health Disparities (EHD) map scores communities across Washington by combining environmental exposure data such as diesel particulate matter, toxic releases, and proximity to hazardous waste sites with socioeconomic and health vulnerability indicators like poverty rates, limited English proficiency, and rates of chronic disease. The EHD map’s composite scoring makes it a powerful starting point; rather than looking at environmental burdens and community vulnerability in isolation, it highlights the places where the two converge and health risks compound.

As with any new regulatory framework, it is natural to have questions about how these requirements might impact project budgets, staff capacity, or overall timelines. At Broadview Planning, we view the HEAL Act as a catalyst for project success. After years of navigating land use and public health policy, we’ve found that the most successful projects are the ones that are built on a foundation of local reality from day one. By integrating environmental justice early, you are ensuring your project is technically sound, community-supported, and built to last.

Project Spotlight: Southworth Ferry Terminal

Working in partnership with WSP on an environmental justice assessment and HEAL Act compliance review for the Southworth Ferry Terminal upgrades, we began by using the EHD map to identify overburdened communities near terminal facilities. After an initial data review, we quickly realized that the communities most impacted by the project were the riders themselves, not the adjacent neighbors. For a more complete picture of potential community impacts, we expanded our analysis beyond the geographic boundaries of neighboring communities and pulled ridership data, travel patterns, and socioeconomic indicators from multiple sources. That broader, more rigorous lens gave our client a far more accurate and defensible picture of project impacts and a stronger foundation for meaningful engagement.

Designing with Intention: The Strategic Advantage of Early Action

Rather than treating the HEAL Act as an extra step, we advocate for using it to craft a better project from the beginning. Early integration of environmental justice isn’t just good policy; it’s good project management. Projects that engage communities authentically and identify impacts early are less likely to face delays, opposition, or costly redesigns later. They build the kind of social trust that keeps projects moving. We believe the HEAL Act framework creates concrete advantages by:

Defining Your Engagement Roadmap: The framework helps us determine exactly who needs to be at the table and what methods will be most effective for reaching them. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, we use the data to design targeted outreach, whether that means multilingual workshops, mobile-friendly surveys, or partnering with trusted local organizations. This ensures that the feedback you receive is representative and actionable.
Designing to Mitigate Early and Efficiently: The sooner you start thinking about how to mitigate environmental injustice, the better. When potential health or environmental stressors are identified during early phases, they can be solved through design. This proactive approach is significantly more cost-effective than trying to retrofit fixes into a finished plan or responding to community opposition late in the process.

The HEAL Act in Action: The Highway 2 Trestle

We recently applied this approach to the US Highway 2 Trestle project in Everett. A project of this scale requires more than just high-level traffic data. It requires a deep understanding of the people it serves. Using the HEAL Act’s framework, we went beyond surface-level demographics to identify the specific vulnerable populations in the Everett area most impacted by stressors like air quality and noise.

Our analysis revealed that 76 percent of census tracts in the study area met at least one threshold for overburdened community status, with nearly a quarter showing compounded disadvantage across multiple indicators. Three distinct clusters emerged, each with a different risk profile. Downtown and South Everett face overlapping environmental and socioeconomic burdens; Marysville/Tulalip carries significant transportation disadvantage and includes tribal lands; communities east of the trestle depend heavily on the corridor itself for access to jobs and services, making any disruption acutely felt. That granularity is what turns compliance into strategy.

A Strategic Partner in HEAL Act Compliance

The HEAL Act provides the framework; our public health expertise uses that framework to execute a successful project.

At Broadview Planning, we layer quantitative data with qualitative insight, combining mapping tools, demographic analysis, and socioeconomic indicators with listening sessions, focus groups, and targeted outreach. This approach ensures that mitigation strategies are not based on assumptions, but on documented community needs and measurable environmental health disparities.

Environmental justice is not an abstract policy concept. It is a planning variable that directly influences feasibility, funding eligibility, stakeholder support, and long-term project resilience. We help clients treat the HEAL Act not as a compliance hurdle, but as a precision tool for smarter, more durable project design. By grounding projects in rigorous data analysis and structured community needs assessments, we support infrastructure and development that is both technically sound and community-informed. When you understand the community you’re building in, you create something that lasts.