[CPEO-BIF] Brownfields Initiative Wins Harvard Award

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

At the Wednesday, October 11 plenary session of the Brownfields 2000
conference in Atlantic City, EPA Administrator Carol Browner recognized
Dwayne Jones, Director of Young Community Developers, in San Francisco's
Bayview District. YCD runs an EPA-sponsored Job Training and Development
Demonstration Pilot, training low-income youth of color and finding them
positions in environmental remediation and related work. Jones and
Browner had just testified before a judging panel for Harvard
University's Innovations in Government Award, which was considering
EPA's entire Brownfields initiative for recognition.

On October 12, Harvard announced that EPA was among the winners. Here is
EPA's October 13, 2000 press release announcing the award.

Lenny Siegel




Top Public Service Award Given To EPA Brownfields Initiative

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Brownfields initiative
received on Oct. 12, the highest award given to honor those government
programs that have best served the public. 

"We are highly honored by the Harvard University's recognition of the
Clinton-Gore Administration's Brownfields initiative as one of the most
outstanding efforts by government to serve Americans," said EPA
Administrator Carol M. Browner. "This successful program has provided
communities across the nation with financial assistance to clean up
contaminated sites, revitalize neighborhoods and create thousands of new
jobs. The Brownfields initiative clearly demonstrates that economic
prosperity and the protection of public health and the environment go
hand-in-hand." 

The Brownfields initiative was named one of the ten recipients of the
Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government and Council for
Excellence in Government's Innovations in Government Award, 2000.
Designed to celebrate excellence in public service, this prestigious
award program solicits nominations from Federal, State, Tribal and local
governments which have developed innovative approaches to addressing
important public challenges. 

The Brownfields initiative was developed by the Clinton-Gore
Administration in 1993 to clean up abandoned, lightly contaminated sites
and restore them to productive community use. This highly successful
initiative was selected from a pool of 1,300 applicants as one of this
year's winning government programs. To receive this recognition,
finalists underwent an exhaustive review that included extensive
analysis and scrutiny of the benefits of the Brownfields initiative, as
well an actual on-site visit from an independent consultant. 

Since its creation, the Brownfields initiative has awarded over 500
grants to communities nationwide, totaling over $140 million. These
grants have resulted in the creation of nearly 7,000 new jobs and have
leveraged over $2.3 billion in private investment. For every dollar
invested by federal, state and local governments, almost $2.50 of
private investment has been leveraged. 

For further information about EPA's brownfields initiative, visit the
agency's web page at: http://www.epa.gov/brownfields. 

(This press release was downloaded from
http://www.epa.gov/epahome/headline_1013.htm.)

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org

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