Environmental Justice  is supposed to be the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Agencies are directed to avoid, minimize or mitigate: (1) disproportionate health, environmental, social and economic effects on low-income populations; and (2) barriers to participation in the decision-making process and self-determination by low income populations.

According to the new 2007 California County Data Book, Siskiyou County is now dead last in all California Counties in family economic well-being, having the lowest median income at $30,356, compared to $112,155 for San Mateo County and $56,332 for California as a whole.  65% of households with children ages 0-17 are low income, compared with a California average of 43%. The report notes that 27% of Siskiyou County’s children live in official poverty, compared to 19% for the state. Since the Northwest Forest Plan, average unemployment in the county has been 12.3%. In 2003, only 39.5% of the population was in the labor force. This is projected to decline another 8.7% by 2015. Between 1990 and 2002, official poverty rose 32.9% to 18.6% of the total population. Several farming communities have higher poverty rates: 34.6% in Tulelake (Klamath Basin); 26% in Fort Jones (Scott Valley); and 24.2% in Montague (Shasta Valley.)

The deterioration of the economy has caused dramatic demographic changes, such as an overall decrease in the population aged 30-39, (as well as school aged children,) and an increase in the population aged 50-59, with those aged 60 making up a higher percentage of the population than the state average. School enrollment since 1990 has declined from 25-30%. This aging trend is projected to steadily increase over the next 20 years.    

Other than two plywood veneer mills, Siskiyou County has almost no manufacturing industry. There is very little economic diversity, with almost the entire economy based upon access to natural resources. Agriculture, particularly in the Tulelake/Klamath Basin, Butte Valley, Shasta Valley and Scott Valley areas produce $170 million in revenue that is distributed equally among these areas and circulated in the local economy about 5 times. Tourism (mostly in the south county – Sacramento River Region) is valued at $60 million. What is left of our timber industry brings in about $48 million in revenues to be circulated.

According to Cal. D.O.T. Siskiyou County Economic Forecast, since 1995, Siskiyou County's agriculture industries have experienced substantial job loss at about 586 jobs, declining almost 45%. For instance, since 1996, county vegetable crops (Tulelake) have declined in their contribution to the economy from $18.9 million to $11.8 million - or 38 percent. With the closure of several saw mills, logging jobs have decreased steadily from 951 jobs in 1989, to 331 in 1995, to 186 in 2004. In recent years, the Klamath National Forest has annually been allowed to harvest only 15 million board feet of timber, when it grows 654 million board feet in a year.  

The deterioration of our economy can be directly related to ever increasing Endangered Species Act (salmon, sucker fish and spotted owl,) water quality (TMDL) and pesticide regulations. Such regulations limit access to resources, increasing costs of operation and allocating needed resources to environmental uses of little economic benefit to the area. It seems that Siskiyou County is under extreme regulatory pressure to provide a disproportionate share of environmental mitigations in comparison to: (1) its environmental impacts; (2) ability to sustain the costs; (3) lack of economic alternatives to mitigate the economic impacts to its population; and (4) urban areas.