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Home > Blogs > Farm Life and Local Harvest > Archives > 2010 > January > 13 > Entry
Brownfields/Revitalization Conf Call 1/14/10
FYI, the Community Food Security Coalition, a national network of sustainable agriculture & food security practitioners, has a subcommittee focused on Urban Agriculture. Next week they’ll be hosting an Environmental Protection Agency exec to talk about Brownfields restoration and government funding opportunities in this area. The conference calls are open to join, see below for more information. See the link below for archived calls on other topics in urban agriculture:
The next conference-call meeting of the Community Food Security Coalition’s Urban Agriculture Committee will feature Ann Carroll from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Brownfields & Revitalization. Ann has a background in science and health education, and over 25 years experience in environmental health issues (16 plus with EPA) in the U.S. and internationally.
Ann will talk about how to avoid environmental contamination in urban growing and the opportunities available through the brownfield program. More details on her talk are below.
Time allowing, there will also be a presentation on progress on the Childhood Nutrition Reauthorization, given by Alan Hunt of Local Food Strategies.
Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010
2 p.m. Eastern (1 p.m. central, noon mountain, 11 a.m. Pacific)
Number: 800-704-9804, Access Code 935485#
Remember, If you can’t be on the call, you can listen to it by clicking on this link and selecting the month. Please give the CFSC office a little while after the call date to post it to the web site, though.
Hope to talk with you then!
Co-chairs: Cynthia Price
Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council, West Michigan
Betsy Johnson
American Community Gardening Association, South End/Lower Roxbury Open Space LandTrust, Boston
More details on Ann Carroll’s talk: Ann will provide a brief introduction the EPA Brownfields program and will highlight three immediate areas of interest:
Soil testing Fear and lack of understanding about the need to test for environmental contaminants - when should you test for lead and why Lead and metals, are common, but they aren’t the only thing out there….
Sources of clean fill and soil amendments Confusing and overlapping vocabulary - ‘clean fill’ vs clean fill - sourcing safe soil.
How we can help - EPA grants resources fund communities to assess/sample and clean brownfields sites with assessment, revolving loan fund and cleanup grants. Government (state, local, tribal, regional) are eligible to apply for all these. Nonprofits may apply for only cleanup grants for sites they own (and meet other conditions)
$70 million annually in a national competition - Look for grant guidelines posted on our website in the summer~ early -mid-August
$50 million annually non competitively to states and tribes for their brownfields and voluntary cleanup programs
$2 million in job training grants - community colleges and workforce training boards to train brownfield community residents in skills needed to start on an environmental career.
~$3-12 million periodically awarded competitively for research, training and technical assistance grant funds of 1-5 year duration.
TBA - targeted brownfields assessments - You can ask our EPA regions for a TBA particularly on behalf of a community organization that doesn’t have the capacity to apply for and get a grant.
TAB - technical assistances to brownfields - We fund 4 university and non profit organizations to provide support and assistance to brownfield communities. Kansas State University is a TAB grant recipient and was also funded to provide technical support of community gardens.
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