EPA is planning to provide nearly $2 million to revitalize U.S. urban waters. Information about urban waters small grants and registration for the webinars can be found here.
EPA ia also awarding more than $1 million in environmental justice grants to protect people’s health. The Environment Justice Small Grants 2012 Request for Proposals and schedule of pre-application teleconference calls can be found here.
In recognition of Groundwork Anacostia DC’s work connecting communities to the Anacostia River, Dennis Chestnut, ED of GWARDC, was awarded a photograph of the Anacostia River signed by DOI Secretary Ken Salazar, DOT Secretary Ray LaHood, EPA Deputy Adminisrator, Senator Ben Carden (MD),Congresswoman Donna Edwards (MD), Congresswoman Norton (DC), Governor Martin O’Mally (MD), and Mayor Vincent Gray (DC), at the America’s Great Outdoors Urban Waters event held on the banks of the Anacostia River on Friday, November 4, 2011. Check out the WAMU Broadcast 11/4/2011 Bladensburg Waterfront Park AGO Urban Waters Event.
Check out Roger’s interview with Le’alani Schaumburg of National Parks Service. Roger Osorio is a 4-year GWHV Green Team member who just began his college career! The photo here is of Roger at GWUSA’s 2010 conference in Washington, DC. Please click here to read the interview.
From Peter Payton, GW Dallas E.D.’s motorbike tour of Groundwork Trusts across the country — he found this Tip of the Month in Los Angeles. Check it out: Want Clearner Air? Park in the Shade!
The Groundwork network and its federal partners gathered in Denver and up in Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, for GWUSA’s Annual Assembly and Youth Summit from September 14-18, 2011. Everyone agreed it was an inspiring, informative, and fun coming-together of old friends and new. We have some fabulous photos to share, we hope you will take a minute to check them out.
and GW Hudson Valley’s photos.
For GW San Diego Youth Leader Genevieve Parker’s take on her experience at the Youth Summit, check out her blog post here.
Read about our Green Teams’ wide-ranging and fun National Park partnership plans. Click here to check out the Summer’s first Greenbeat newsletter!
At National River Rally 2011, water protection advocates from across the nation came together June 3-6 in Charleston, South Carolina, a city with a long history, sitting at the confluence of five rivers, and boasting the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere. Groundwork Trusts from Buffalo & Hudson Valley (both from New York), Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Wyoming County, West Virginia, and Denver, Colorado, were present.
At River Rally GW Trusts advocates -
Click here for more information.
GWUSA is thrilled to report that our network of Trusts has been very busy in 2010, cleaning up vacant properties for reuse; converting brownfields to greenfields; planting trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetables in schoolyards and community gardens; and engaging young people and community members everywhere through programs aimed at job training, environmental education, and community improvement. Please click here to download!
Highlights of our achievements in 2010 include:
- the launch of FIVE new Trusts in Washington, D.C., Buffalo, NY, Dona Ana County, NM, Richmond, CA, and Wyoming County, WV.
- GW Dallas removed and recycled 6,000 tires from 7 illegal dump sites in the Great Trinity Forest.
- GW Denver expanded its Green Team Youth Program to year-round and doubled the number of youth employed by the service learning program.
- GW Hudson Valley provided training and employment for 10 unemployed men (18-24 years old) in partnership with NPS Roosevelt Vanderbilt NHS.
- GW Lawrence and the City were awarded a $2.6 million state grant to build the Spicket River Greenway, linking 3 brownfield to park projects.
- GW Portland earned a ‘clean bill of health’ for the Emerson Street Community Garden, a brownfield to greenfield project.
Between April 3-5, representatives from GWUSA and 8 Groundwork trusts — Anacostia (DC), Bridgeport (CT), Buffalo (NY), HudsonValley (NY), Lawrence (MA), Providence (RI), Somerville (MA), and Wyoming County (WV) — attended the Brownfields 2011 conference at the Philadelphia Convention Center. Highlights for the GWUSA network included:
* Groundwork Somerville’s interactive, standing-room-only session titled “Community Corridor Planning: Engaging the Community in Participatory Land-Use Planning” eloquently delivered by staff and youth Green Team members
* a ceremony to honor Groundwork Lawrence, recipient of the 2010 Brownfield Renewal Award for Social Impact on behalf of Manchester Street Park, a 7-year, $1.3 million brownfield-to-park transformation project the trust led from 2002 to 2009
* participation by several trusts in the Brownfields 2011 Equitable Development Institute, as well as the Economic Redevelopment Forum.
In addition to these highlights, Groundwork USA hosted a booth in the Exhibit Hall, at which staff and board members from the national office and representing trusts took questions and shared information with conference-goers from dozens of distressed American communities about the Groundwork model, as well as the process by which communities apply to become a Groundwork trust.
For more information on Groundwork’s brownfield transformation projects, please click here. For more information on how to become a Groundwork trust, please click here.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has named the five cities that will be the first to participate in the Greening America’s Capitals program and receive free expert assistance to turn their towns into models of sustainable design.
The state capitals that were chosen as the inaugural beneficiaries of the program are Boston, Jefferson City, Mo., Hartford, Conn., Charleston, W.Va., and Little Rock, Ark.
Launched this summer, Greening America’s Capitals is a project of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, which is a collaborative effort involving the EPA, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
As part of the project, the EPA provides and funds the design teams that are to work with state capitals.
Green development projects can include cleaning up and finding new uses for vacant lands, providing greener housing and transportation options, and devising ways to reduce costs for infrastructure and energy. The goal is to create neighborhoods provide social, economic, environmental and public health benefits.
Greening America’s Capitals is one of many efforts focused on creating more sustainable neighborhoods.
In April after a three-year pilot, the U.S. Green Building Council launched its LEED standard for neighborhood development, LEED-ND, which serves as a national benchmark for sustainable community design.
In July, the Bank of America Charitable Foundation announced its funding of the Affordable Green Neighborhoods Grant Program, which is intended to break down barriers to pursuit of LEED-ND projects in which affordable
green housing is a key component. The deadline for application for the first program grants is September 9. Application information is available from the USGBC.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors also has several initiatives to make cities and the buildings in them greener.
Greening America’s Capitals is a project of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities between EPA, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to help state capitals develop an
implementable vision of distinctive, environmentally friendly neighborhoods that incorporate innovative green building and
green infrastructure strategies. This program will assist three to four communities per year, with the first projects
beginning in the fall of 2010.
EPA will offer technical assistance by funding a team of designers to visit each city to produce schematic designs and exciting illustrations intended to catalyze or complement a larger planning process for the pilot neighborhood. Additionally, these pilots could be the testing ground for citywide actions, such as changes to local codes and ordinances to better support sustainable growth and green building. The design team and EPA, HUD, and DOT staff will also assist the city staff in developing specific implementation strategies.
The assistance may include, but is not limited to, the following issues:
- Brownfield or infill redevelopment
- Aligning transportation and housing choice
- Climate change response planning
- Engaging disadvantaged communities
- Public art and civic design strategies
- Green and energy efficient building strategies
- Green infrastructure for multiple community benefits
EPA is providing this design assistance to help support sustainable communities that protect the environment, economy, and
public health and to inspire state leaders to expand this work elsewhere. Greening America’s Capitals will help communities consider ways to incorporate smart growth strategies into their planning and development to create and enhance interesting, distinctive neighborhoods that have multiple social, economic, and environmental benefits.
This design assistance is being made available to all 50 state capital cities, plus the District of Columbia. EPA is soliciting letters of interest from mayors of state capitals. Any city department, office, or agency may submit the letter of interest, but only one proposal should be submitted on a city’s behalf.
