Sustainable Environment, Transportation and Housing

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced three steps to support communities' efforts to provide economic opportunity while reducing impacts on the environment. The actions will encourage state and local government to make their communities more sustainable by strategically aligning their environmental, transportation and housing investments.

The steps EPA announced for 2010 are:

• The creation of a new EPA Office of Sustainable Communities to encourage communities to take an integrated approach in making environmental, housing and transportation decisions.
• A new pilot grant program designed to help three states - New York, Maryland and California - use their clean water funding programs to support efforts to make communities more sustainable.
• A pilot program to clean up and redevelop contaminated sites, known as brownfield sites, in coordination with communities' efforts to develop public transportation and affordable housing.

Today's announcements build on the work EPA is doing with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Transportation through the Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The partnership is focused on ensuring that housing and transportation goals are met while simultaneously protecting the environment, promoting equitable development, and helping to address the challenges of climate change.

Brownfields Pilot Program

The brownfields pilot program announced today represents a key step in that partnership. Together, EPA, HUD, and DOT have selected five pilot sites across the country where there is a convergence of public transit and the need for affordable housing.

Cleaning and reusing this land and providing new housing choices will create jobs and new economic opportunities. The five sites selected for the Sustainable Communities Partnership Pilots are the

• Fairmount Line in Boston
• Smart Growth Redevelopment District in Indianapolis
• La Alma/South Lincoln Park neighborhood in Denver
• Riverfront Crossings District in Iowa City, Iowa
• Westside Affordable Housing Transit-Oriented Development in National City, Calif.

The Office of Sustainable Communities that EPA announced today will help create neighborhoods that offer good jobs, educational opportunities, safe and affordable homes and transportation options while minimizing their impact on the environment. The Pilot Technical Assistance Program for Sustainable Communities will further that goal by encouraging states to use their Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan program to better support communities that adopt sustainable strategies, like transit-oriented, mixed-use development.

More information on the Partnership for Sustainable Communities: www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/partnership.

More information on EPA's Smart Growth program

Wading through the sources of lake contamination

Contamination of urban lakes and streams by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is widespread and has been increasing over the last 40 years in the United States.

PAHs are Toxic

These PAHs can be toxic to bottom-dwelling organisms, can cause tumors in fish, and several are believed to cause cancer in humans. 

In this study, researchers examined five sources of PAHs in 40 urban lakes from across the United States, including coal-tar-based pavement sealcoat, coal combustion, oil combustion, vehicle emissions and wood combustion.

Sealcoat Contributes to PAH Contamination

Of the five sources studied, sealcoat was the strongest contributor to PAH contamination in lake sediment. This research can help those trying to reduce pollution levels in the urban environment by providing them with a better understanding of PAH sources. 

This study, "Sources of PAHs to urban lakes in the United States," was conducted by USGS at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemist  

African dust is making it across the ocean.

Increasing quantities of African dust have blown across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean and Americas over the past few decades. During that time, the dust's composition has changed.

In this study, African dust air masses in Africa and the Caribbean were analyzed for persistent organic contaminants and metals.  These potentially toxic contaminants can originate from the burning of plastics, biomass and waste; widespread use of pesticides, plastics, and pharmaceuticals; and increased industrialization.

Multiple pesticides and other contaminants, including carcinogens, suppressors of immune systems, disruptors of endocrine systems, and nervous system or liver toxins were identified from all sample sites.  All are known to persist in the environment, accumulate in organisms, and are toxic at very low concentrations.

This study, "Chasing clouds of dust: transoceanic transport of synthetic organic pollutants and trace metals with African dust," is from USGS at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 

The Eco-Logical Business Program in Oregon provides an extensive number of resources to small businesses to help them prevent pollution and get certified as a green business.  Here is their list of what's involved in their program:

Certified businesses go beyond compliance with local environmental requirements and implement pollution prevention efforts in their work sites. Businesses are certified through an intensive application and evaluation process. During the certification process, businesses are evaluated in the areas of:

• Hazardous waste management
  
• Air quality and pollution
  
• Spill prevention and response
  
• Product and waste storage
  
• Cleaning procedures
  
• Purchasing/inventory management
  
• Recycling procedures
  
• Employee involvement and training
• Drainage Systems
• Energy And Water Use

THE PROGRAM

The Eco-Logical Business Program recognizes businesses and shops that reach the highest standards in minimizing their environmental impact. The goal of the program is to prevent and minimize pollution generated by small businesses in the Tri-County area. Currently, there are two multi-media (air, water, and solid waste) certification programs

Learn more at http://www.ecobiz.org/becomebiz.htm

The Portland Pollution Prevention Outreach Team provides coordinated educational messages and technical assistance in pollution prevention to citizens and businesses.

They are a cooperative working group of local areas from the Cities of Portland and Gresham, Clackamas County, Metro, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Clean Water Services, and Washington County. The Eco-Logical Business Program team includes planners and management experts in air pollution, hazardous materials, solid waste, surface water, and wastewater disciplines.

They joined together to promote, enhance and implement comprehensive pollution prevention programs and materials.

LOCATE AN AUTOMOTIVE OR LANDSCAPE ECO-BUSINESS In OREGON
	PORTLAND AREA AUTOMOTIVE ECO-BUSINESSES
	STATEWIDE AUTOMOTIVE ECO-BUSINESSES
	CERTIFIED LANDSCAPE FIRMS

Their on line resources include a wide variety of PDF downloads in the following areas:

Eco-Logical Business Checklist - pdf

Recycling Resources/Services - pdf

Their website holds a treasuretrove of waste management information to help businesses find practical solutions:

Compendia For Construction and Auto Recycling

Hazardous Waste Management

Antifreeze Recycling

Freon Recycling

Used Oil/Filters

Re-Refined Oil

Auto Body Refinishing

Alternative Gun Washing Solvents

Wash Water Management

Storm Water Management

Oil Water Separators

Secondary Containment

Spill Prevention and Response

Operations

Employee Training

Utilities

Catalogs

and... a wide variety of Alternatives

Sometimes the ancient tug of the arts is the best way to get in touch with our deepest insights. Ecopsychology is a new approach to understanding nature as our habitat and part of our very being. It's an intriguing journey of discovery for modern professionals who are immersed in concrete, speed and business stresses.

Ecopsychology is on the cutting edge of a shift in how we see the world and ourselves. It views many of the problems we face today as being caused by our separation from our roots in the natural world. It finds many useful solutions through reestablishing connections to those roots. As a discipline, eco-psychology studies the interaction of human beings and their environments. As a therapy it seeks to return people to a balanced relationship with their environment.

-- Allison Ewoldt

Professional and In-depth Sources

Ecopsychology, or eco-psychology as it is sometimes called, is situated at the intersection of a number of fields of enquiry, including environmental philosophy, psychology, and ecology, but is not limited by any disciplinary boundaries. At its core, ecopsychology suggests that there is a synergistic relation between planetary and personal well being; that the needs of the one are relevant to the other.

International Community for Ecopsychology

A Novel about Ecopsychology

Sitting with the Enemy by Sarah Edwards

After years of pulse pounding stress and ambition, Rose and Mark Whitman's universe is rich, glamorous, high speed - and empty - a run-a-way train about to crash. They've lost meaning, magic, and soon each other ... until an unexpected turn on the tracks takes them to a remote mountain village and a community struggling to preserve an idyllic, but endangered way of life. Mark and Rose are drawn into a circle of friends who are confronted with painful decisions about what they're willing to do to save their community. When the village breaks into factions, violence erupts fed by fear, greed and prejudice and the group learns the true meaning of community - what destroys it and what preserves it and its role in the quality of their lives and the future of their children.

Enjoy a journey of gentle exploration...you'll smile a lot ... I guarantee it!

Carolyn

CEO training for tomorrow can come from a new pool of Green MBA students. Values, environment and system thinking are part of Aspen Institute's approach to recruiting business students into the green business sector. Social change and financial change can be partners in making a green economy grow and flourish.

Environmental and social impact can shape a greener bottom line.

www.aspeninst.org

The use of natural resources in an unsustainable way is, in essence, "plundering" and the result is the rapid destruction of the very earth that sustains millions of species of interwoven species...life.

Ray Anderson, citizen and corporate leader, has come face to face with his role in today's industrial role in unsustainable business shares his thought process and his solutions in this excerpt from "The Corporation".

This is an inspiring look at business's role, and the paradigm shift that is needed to be responsible for the world we leave for our children and the millions of species who are part of this delicate biosphere of life.

The book Ray Anderson credits with opening his eyes to the free-fall to earth that is better known as "business as usual" is "The Ecology of Commerce" by Paul Hawkins.

He calls for a paradigm shift of how we view business. That we look at how we are plundering our natural resources and natural processes and leaving a mess for our grandchildren. And we need to create a new revolution -- moving beyond the industrial revolution to a new revolution. One that could be called a "productivity revolution" or a "sustainability revolution."

The GrassRoots Recycling Network has a vision of the world where waste is not waste - it is a resource. 

GRRN is the leading voice calling for Zero Waste (ZW) in the United States by promoting the message that we must go "beyond recycling" and go upstream to the headwaters of the waste stream which is the industrial designer's desk. 

Zero Waste means not only 100% recovery of society's discards, but also a redesign of the products and packaging of our lives such that everything produced for our consumer economy is non-toxic and designed to be recovered for re-use, recycling or composting.

GrassRoots Recycling Network is a national network of waste reduction activists and recycling professionals. GRRN sets ambitious standards for Zero Waste goals and policies. They provide opportunities for on-going  participation in campaigns and build coalitions to achieve zero waste policies, businesses and communities. They have a valuable website and an active email listserve (called GreenYes) of many hundreds of knowledgeable experts in both downstream recovery and upstream clean production issues.

What is Zero Waste?

GRRN developed the core message of Zero Waste in the mid-1990's as the new vision of the grassroots recycling movement, and has been successful in using that theme to connect recyclers, innovative corporate leaders, activists, and others both nationally and globally.

GRRN's Zero Waste message combines visionary thinking with real-world practice to go beyond recycling, and in the process have described some simple, important solutions to many pressing issues, such as

• corporate accountability
• local economic development
• air and water pollution
• resource depletion

CONTACT INFO:

GrassRoots Recycling Network
PO Box 282
Cotati, CA 94931

http://www.grrn.org

Sustainable South Bronx is fighting for "THE PROMISE OF AMERICA" by using the green economy to help people grow out of poverty and the dirty community that results from environmentally degrading industry traditions. Restoring the environment can also restore the people who live there because we are PART of the ecosystem. Unemployment, asthma, crises...they have personal and financial stake in the environment.  Their BEST program  trains youth for ecological restoration: urban forestry management, green roof installation, brown field restoration, etc.

Environmental Justice

through innovative, economically sustainable projects

that are informed by community needs.

VIDEO with Majora Carter, founder

 

Founded in 2001 by life-long South Bronx resident, Dr. Majora Carter, SSBx also addresses land-use, energy, transportation, water & waste policy, and education to advance the environmental and economic rebirth of the South Bronx, and inspire solutions in areas like it across the nation and around the world.

Watch video clips from the 2008 Aspen Environment Forum

http://www.aspenenvironment.org/live-from-the-forum