OPAL’s Vision: Environmental Justice is the right to a clean and safe place for all people where we live, work, play, study, and pray.

OPAL’s Mission: OPAL is a community based organization working to engage, educate, and empower low-income communities and communities of color through direct action and grassroots organizing.

OPAL was founded in 2005 by community members who had been active in environmental justice efforts in Portland, OR, with the Environmental Justice Action Group [closed down in 2004], Coalition Against Environmental Racism, Josiah Hill Clinic, and the PACE-EH Program.  Our base is drawn from African American communities in N/NE Portland and those who have been displaced primarily to East Multnomah County, Latino and Asian American enclaves in St Johns, Gresham and Outer NE/SE Portland, and low-income people of all background.  We have worked specifically in neighborhoods that experience high poverty and a disproportionate burden of the environmental problems such as bad air, asthma, contaminated brownfields, poor infrastructure and public transportation, food deserts, and environmental toxins such as lead poisoning.  We adhere to the People of Color Environmental Justice Principles of 1991.

OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon is a community organizing and advocacy organization working with low-income and communities of color to educate, engage and empower.  Our work is focused primarily in East Multnomah County, with social action at the city, county, metro, state and federal level as necessary to achieve our objectives.

The Need for Environmental Justice in a “Renewed” Portland by Kevin Odell, OPAL Co-Founder

*The beautiful symbol is from New Jersey Environmental Justice