By Judy Sheahan, Derrick L. Coley and Brett Rosenberg
February 9, 2004

Environment Committee Chairman Augusta (GA) Mayor Bob Young presided over the January 21 Environment Committee meeting which addressed issues on air, water, and brownfields redevelopment. Speakers included the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chairman James Connaughton, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Assistant Administrators Jeffrey Holmstead (Office of Air and Radiation) and Marianne Horinko (Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response), Kenosha (WI) Mayor John Antaramian, the Economic Development Administration's (EDA) Brownfields Coordinator Dennis Alvord, and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Deputy Assistant Secretary Don Mains.

CEQ Chairman Connaughton said, "Urban centers are the most environmentally-efficient areas in the nation." He discussed the Administration's continued commitment to working with and investing in cities to improve America's environmental health. Connaughton said, "Cities are often overlooked in regards to environmental efficiency but the redevelopment of urban areas is critical."

Air Quality

Jeffrey Holmstead, Assistant Administrator of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, provided current and future projections of regional air quality standards and the role that the utility sector plays. Holmstead said, "In the east, the vast majority of pollution comes from coal-fired power plants." Holmstead also said that airborne fine particulate matter is a proven and significant factor in aggravating respiratory and other health conditions. He noted, however, that quantifying the health benefits of new Clean Air guidelines can be an extremely difficult task.

In responding to Young's question about Best Practices that cities could implement to alleviate air pollution problems, Holmstead mentioned several ideas. These included retrofitting city fleet vehicles with cleaner diesel engines. He suggested that technology is available that can easily be adapted to older vehicles at reasonable cost, with immediate improvements in air quality and public health. The Federal Highway Administration's Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program (CMAQ) can provide some funding resources for such voluntary diesel retrofit programs.

Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer discussed New Jersey Transit's efforts at retrofitting its vehicles. Palmer also noted that school bus operations are of concern because they tend to idle for prolonged times, indicating that a program addressing school bus fleets and passing anti-idling laws would be beneficial.

Water Update

Palmer and Sugar Land (TX) Mayor David Wallace, co-chairs, of the Conference's Urban Water Council (UWC), gave an update on the UWC's activities and showed a video clip of the type of flooding that can occur if decaying infrastructure is not replaced. Palmer and Wallace urged all members of the Environment Committee to join the UWC for future meetings and to assist them in their efforts to pass Private Activity Bond legislation to provide additional private sector resources to infrastructure investment.

Brownfields Redevelopment

EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, Marianne Horinko, highlighted the continued success of the brownfields program. She said, "Brownfields is a bipartisan issue that transcends potential boundaries." In noting that "Brownfields improve not only the land but also the water," Horinko also brought attention to the interconnections that brownfields redevelopment share with other EPA programs that strive to improve the health of our Nation's air, water and wetlands.

Ms. Horinko stated, "There have been 800 grants awarded, totaling over $370 million, which in turn leveraged another $70 billion in redevelopment, creating over 25,000 jobs." She said, "Last year $170 million was appropriated, there have been 170 grants dispersed totaling $140 million." Horinko continued, "The Revolving Loan Fund has gotten off to a slow start, with 43 loans approved totaling $18 million. The new law tries to improve the process of dispersing funds from the Revolving Loan Fund."

Horinko asked the mayors to continue their work in redeveloping brownfields. She said, "It is absolutely necessary to have five components in a brownfields programs, which include staff with technical and financial expertise; a plan for marketing to promote sites; strong leadership from the mayor; coalitions bringing all of the stakeholders involved to the table; and the ability to leverage or couple monies together from different sources such as EPA, EDA and HUD."

Kenosha (WI) Mayor John Antaramian highlighted his city's efforts to pull together federal, state, local, nonprofit, and private sector resources to implement his five successful brownfields redevelopment projects which range in size from 3.5 acres to 100 acres. Antaramian highlighted the Brass Site where the city of Kenosha negotiated with BP Amoco to transfer 30 acres along with financial resources to a third party called TRC who was responsible for cleanup. The city created a TIF district, secured $2 million from the State of Wisconsin and $1 million from the EPA Revolving Loan Fund program and became both lender and lendee to assist in the cleanup of the property. Kenosha also held an insurance policy to alleviate the risk associated with the cleanup. Antaramian said, "Each of our five brownfield deals were similar but yet different, you just need to be creative in your approach."

Dennis Alvord of EDA described how the Department of Commerce involves itself in brownfields redevelopment. "The EPA is concerned with the front end of brownfields redevelopment and environmental issues...EDA is on the back end, encouraging and fostering economic reuse. The key is tapping into much larger private investment partners [and] leveraging private funding," Alvord said. Alvord emphasized the EDA's commitment to assisting communities in planning and marketing brownfields areas. He stated that to date, "EDA has committed over $400 million to about 350 brownfields redevelopment projects around the country."

Don Mains, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Development at HUD, discussed how communities can conduct brownfield redevelopment activities by using both Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding or the Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI). The BEDI program uses Section 108 loans to allow a community to borrow up to five times their CDBG allocation. Mains said that a Notice of Funding Availability will be appearing soon in the Federal Register.

Mains illustrated the linkages between federal agencies with regard to brownfields redevelopment stating, "Almost 80 percent of all BEDI projects received EPA assistance funding as well." Mains said that HUD's long-term goals were "looking for near term success with HUD's focus on reuse and providing near term economic relief to local communities."