An employee-led volunteer work group \u2013 the main catalyst for advancing environmental justice across the department over the past five years \u2013 also disbanded in protest. <\/p>\n
\u201c\u200b\u200bThe sudden termination\u2026 was the final significant blow to the structure and spirit of this group,\u201d its leaders wrote<\/a>. <\/p>\n Trejo Rosas had been on the job only five months and had another month left in her probationary period<\/a> when her boss ended her employment.<\/p>\n A letter to Trejo Rosas obtained by The Oregonian\/OregonLive cited her failure to respond to multiple attempts by her supervisor and a human resources manager to reach her at the end of the day when they said they expected her to be working. <\/p>\n Trejo Rosas declined comment. Her supervisor, Brian Boling, cited confidentiality in personnel issues in also declining comment. Boling is DEQ\u2019s deputy director, one of the agency\u2019s top leaders overseeing a number of programs, including human resources, finance and payroll.<\/p>\n Backers of Trejo Rosas reserved particular ire for DEQ Director Leah Feldon, who two years ago \u2013 shortly after her promotion to the head job<\/a> \u2013 sent a letter to staff acknowledging racial bias in the agency\u2019s probation practices and said she planned to fix it. Employees during probation have fewer job protections.<\/p>\n Employees of color also sent Feldon and the rest of the leadership team a letter in March reiterating previous complaints that managers have pushed out people of color during their probation, handled racist incidents poorly and fostered a culture of retaliation if people complained. <\/p>\n The criticism came to a head at a meeting of the Environmental Quality Commission, the department\u2019s governing board, earlier this month<\/a> when employees, union representatives and community members condemned Trejo Rosas\u2019 termination and said leaders don\u2019t support employees of color.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not the first time something like this has happened to a person at DEQ who happens to identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color). It\u2019s also not the second time,\u201d Lauren Dimock, an employee of seven years and a union steward, told the commission. \u201cThis is a pattern of behavior that is extremely damaging to the people that it\u2019s happening to and to every single other person that works at this agency.\u201d <\/p>\n The fracas comes as the Trump administration has been dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the country \u2013 though Trejo Rosas\u2019 dismissal is not related to federal actions and is internal to the DEQ. <\/p>\n Feldon in a statement to The Oregonian\/OregonLive said the agency must do better. <\/p>\n She announced last week that the Office of Equity would now report to her and said she planned to fill its four vacant positions, including the environmental justice coordinator job.<\/p>\n \u201cI recognize the issues staff are raising are serious, as are the impacts that decisions regarding our environmental justice work have had on our employees,\u201d she said. \u201cI am fully engaged in and have shared the next steps I plan to take with the agency. We are going to do more and do better to ensure DEQ is a welcoming place for everyone to work.\u201d<\/p>\n INAUGURAL COORDINATOR<\/b><\/p>\n Trejo Rosas moved from Washington, D.C., to take the job after a six-month hiring process. The position, which paid $88,236 annually, was housed in the department\u2019s Office of Equity \u2013 a new hub launched by DEQ last year to support diversity and environmental justice throughout the agency.<\/p>\n Trejo Rosas was the office\u2019s only active employee \u2013 a second staff person was on extended medical leave and three other positions were unfilled.<\/p>\n The agency defines environmental justice<\/a> as \u201cfair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, culture, education or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.\u201d <\/p>\n No community, according to the policy, should bear a disproportionate share of the pollution and other hazards caused by factories, cities and businesses and the people who are potentially affected should be able to participate in and influence decision-making. <\/p>\n DEQ first adopted environmental justice principles<\/a> in 1997, though it had no dedicated staff or structure to carry them out. Trejo Rosas was the department\u2019s inaugural environmental justice coordinator hired \u201cto infuse environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion principles into the daily work of the agency,\u201d according to the job description<\/a>.<\/p>\n A child of Mexican farmworkers from Hood River, Trejo Rosas has a master\u2019s degree in public health, is working on a doctorate in environmental health and has contributed to research about pesticide exposure<\/a> and racism\u2019s societal impacts on health<\/a>. She was an environmental justice fellow at Columbia University and serves on the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology\u2019s diversity, equity and inclusion committee. <\/p>\n The employee petition supporting Trejo Rosas contends the DEQ\u2019s leaders have made it difficult for employees to carry out justice and equity work. <\/p>\n \u201cWhile the agency publicly states that it values environmental justice, when staff are doing the work of building it into the fabric of DEQ\u2019s programs and culture, they are made to feel uncomfortable, unsupported, and pushed out,\u201d the petition said. <\/p>\n With Trejo Rosas\u2019 departure, it\u2019s unclear who will coordinate environmental justice programs at the agency. <\/p>\n The employee-led volunteer work group, whose 120 members focused on outreach to low-income and other communities and tried to filter DEQ policies and technical analysis through an environmental justice lens, is no longer picking up the slack. <\/p>\n UNANSWERED LETTER <\/b><\/p>\n Gus Glaser, president of the AFSCME Local 3336<\/a> that represents 700 of the agency\u2019s workers, said Feldon and other top administrators haven\u2019t followed through on promises to improve diversity and address discrimination. <\/p>\n \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been coordinated trainings and outreach to staff,\u201d said Glaser, an environmental engineer in the agency\u2019s water quality division. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of missed opportunities by management and a lot of bad calls on their part.\u201d<\/p>\n A half-dozen other employees who talked to The Oregonian\/OregonLive cited ongoing frustration over lack of a measurable response from Feldon and her leadership team. Most asked their names not be published due to fear of losing their jobs. <\/p>\n The employees said the dismissal of Trejo Rosas contradicts Feldon\u2019s statements in a 2023 letter<\/a> to employees that DEQ\u2019s probation practices had \u201csystemic\u201d flaws and that staff had pointed out the problems to managers \u201cmore than once.\u201d<\/p>\n Feldon was responding to an internal uproar over the agency\u2019s attempt to dismiss another employee of color during probation. The terminated employee was later reinstated into another position. <\/p>\n Feldon, who has worked for DEQ for 20 years, promised improvements to the probation policy and asked the agency\u2019s recruitment and retention team to work on it. <\/p>\n Feldon also only this past December, records show, formally replied to a 2021 letter<\/a> to DEQ leaders from the agency\u2019s Black, Indigenous and People of Color affinity group outlining the high turnover of BIPOC employees and a concentration of people of color in lower-paid positions, numerous instances of workplace discrimination or harassment and a fear of speaking out about them. <\/p>\n According to DEQ,181 of its current employees or 21% are people of color \u2013 lower than the percentage in Oregon\u2019s general population, which is 26.5%.<\/p>\n Feldon apologized for the lack of action and promised future updates with steps to address the problems, according to the letter. <\/p>\n That same month, Feldon reorganized the Office of Equity, removing a woman of South Asian descent who helped launch it and putting Boling \u2013 a white man \u2013 in charge. <\/p>\n Agency officials declined to comment on that reorganization. <\/p>\n This spring, the BIPOC group sent a second letter<\/a> to Feldon, reiterating the grievances outlined in the original letter.<\/p>\n NEW COMMITMENTS <\/b><\/p>\n Feldon said she will hold conversations with employees of color to get feedback on how to better support them and promised to form a leadership team to champion equity work and to hire an external consultant to lead a restorative justice discussion with staff to rebuild trust. <\/p>\n DEQ spokesperson Lauren Wirtis said environmental justice work continues at the agency, including in eastern Oregon where mostly Latino residents face elevated nitrate levels and in Portland where residents are concerned with the instability of fuel tanks at a storage hub on the Willamette River. <\/p>\n The recruitment and retention steering committee that was convened in 2022 has finally developed a work plan on how to update the troubled probationary period process for employees of color, Wirtis said. <\/p>\n The committee will soon share draft ideas with employees, she said. <\/p>\n \u2014 Gosia Wozniacka covers environmental justice, climate change, the clean energy transition and other environmental issues. Reach her at gwozniacka@oregonian.com or 971-421-3154.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The dismissal of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality\u2019s first environmental justice coordinator has triggered a backlash against…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-91611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114914391663241565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Leah](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/A6YP4P7G2NGYRNJRMJLXMYJBNY.jpg\")
Leah Feldon was appointed to be Oregon DEQ’s new director in February 2023. She has worked at the agency for 20 years and employees say she was well aware of the longstanding worker complaints of discrimination. curtesy of Oregon Department of Environmental Quality<\/p>\n