Tupelo, Mississippi - Brownfield Redevelopment Workshop, Aug. 24th

"The Charrette" - August 11th Webinar

An Introduction to Reuse Planning Workshops for Contaminated Sites

CPRC (EPA’s Conflict Resolution Specialist) is hosting a charrette webinar on August 11, 2010 at 1 p.m. CDT.  Charrettes are collaborative planning and design workshops that bring together diverse stakeholders to plan for the future land use in neighborhoods and communities. For contaminated lands, the charrette is a powerful land use planning and conflict resolution process that uses visualization and mapping tools to develop innovative, sustainable plans for revitalization. The process helps move people past negative approaches towards positive plans for reuse.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Thought to originate from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 19th century, the word charrette is from the French for "cart" or "chariot.""][/caption]

The webinar will explore how charrettes can inform and strengthen cleanup decision-making, address and resolve conflicts, enhance stakeholder relationships, and identify feasible future land use opportunities for contaminated lands.

The webinar also serves as an introduction to CPRC’s one-day charrette training. The training is built around a series of interactive exercises designed to immerse participants in situations based on real Superfund sites. The training is designed for remedial project managers, community involvement coordinators, urban planners, and anyone involved in decision-making regarding the reuse of contaminated lands.  CPRC will sponsor this training upon request in your area. Additional information is available on www.trainex.org.

To register for the August 11 webinar, please visit: http://www.clu-in.org/conf/tio/charrette/ . For more information, please contact:

Anna Abbey

(202) 564-1897

abbey.anna@epa.gov

or

Deborah Dalton

(202) 564-2913

dalton.deborah@epa.gov

Brownfields Conference 2011: Call for Session Proposals, New Deadline July 30

The 14th National Brownfields Conference is coming to Philadelphia on April 3-5, 2011.  Cosponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the National Brownfields Conference attracts more than five thousand registrants and hundreds of exhibitors.  The conference is the largest, most comprehensive event focused on cleaning up and redeveloping abandoned, underutilized, and potentially contaminated properties in the nation.

Conference organizers are now accepting proposals for the more than 100 educational sessions.  The planning committee wants to encourage more interactive educational sessions in hopes to have at least 60 percent using the always popular marketplace/roundtable format and the newly established public dialogue/debate format.  To submit your session proposal by the deadline of July 30, 2010 go to www.brownfields2011.org. For more information please contact Julie Butler at jbutler@icma.org or see the conference website.

New Toolkit to Help Local Governments with Green Building Practices

Release date: 07/21/2010

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 4 announced the release of the Sustainable Design and Green Building Toolkit for Local Governments (Toolkit). The Toolkit was developed collaboratively by the Agency’s Regional Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Division and Water Protection Division and Pollution Prevention Office, with support from the EPA Green Building and Smart Growth Programs, the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response’s Innovations Workgroup, and many external partners. The Toolkit is designed to assist local governments in identifying and removing permitting barriers to sustainable design and green building practices. It provides a resource for communities interested in conducting their own internal evaluation of how local codes/ordinances either facilitate or impede a sustainable built environment, including the design, construction, renovation, and operation and maintenance of a building and its immediate site.

The Toolkit contains an Assessment Tool, a Resource Guide, and an Action Plan for implementing changes to the permitting process. The Assessment Tool is designed for local governments to review their permitting process and identify barriers or resistance to sustainable design practices. The Assessment offers a green/yellow/red progress indicator for the user. Green indicates that the community is doing well in encouraging sustainable design through its codes and ordinances. Yellow indicates that there is room for improvement within the existing permitting process. Red indicates that the community may want to identify the cause of the barrier(s) and remove it from the process.

The Resource Guide contains links to existing organizations and documents that will help communities learn more about each category in the Assessment Tool. Additionally, the Resource Guide provides users with information that can aid in making codes and ordinances more compatible or supportive of sustainable design and green building. If green tools or techniques are not permitted or encouraged, this information can help local governments implement changes to allow these techniques.

The Action Plan section will help communities develop their own tailored approach for implementing the necessary regulatory and permitting changes to allow for more sustainable design and green building practices.

The Toolkit can be downloaded at: www.epa.gov/region4/recycle/green-building-toolkit.pdf

MDEQ Holds ADVANCED Brownfield Workshop at MML Conference

Only one (1) of the twenty-two EPA Brownfield grant proposals submitted over the past two years from Mississippi communities has been successful.  The rest have fallen short in this highly competitive process.  In an effort to work on the quality of those submittals, MDEQ held an ADVANCED Brownfield Workshop on June 28, 2010 at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center in Biloxi, Mississippi.  Individuals with experience working on successful brownfield grant submittals from communities in other States were invited to be a part of the expert team for the workshop.  Here's how it worked:

Twenty two (22) people, representing nine (9)  eligible entities took part in small group discussions centered around the four Brownfield grant ranking criteria for Assessment grants.  There were Four Tables with 1-2 "experts" who were given an opportunity to share insight into the particular criterion followed by interaction between the participants.  Each table had about five (5) to six (6) individuals which allowed for a collaborative problem-solving atmosphere to develop.  With each table focusing on a particular criterion, the discussions were much more insightful than the typical plenary or panel discussion.  The four EPA Brownfield Assessment Ranking Criteria are:

1. Community Need;


2. Project Description and Feasibility of Success;


3. Community Engagement and Partnerships; and


4. Project Benefits

Each table was given around 30 minutes to talk about the subject and then the participants were allowed to move to the next table, much like the concept of "speed dating".  So far, the feedback has been very positive.  Stay tuned over the next several months as Southern Brownfield Report breaks down each of the Assessment Criteria into some detail.

CEEJ to Host EPA Air Chief on Monday

Public meeting to discuss air quality on Monday

BILOXI — The Center for Environmental and Economic Justice will host a meeting with Gina McCarthy, EPA’s director of air, on Monday at Faith Tabernacle of Praise, 336 Rodenberg Ave., Biloxi.

The meeting will be from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., and is for Mississippi environmental justice groups, community leaders, organizations and residents to engage in dialogue, voice concerns and share recommendations to the EPA on issues related to air quality in Region 4.

Details: 228-374-3010.