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President’s 2004 Budget Request Strengthens Base Environmental Programs and Fosters Stronger Environmental Partnerships Pledging a strengthened focus on cleaner air, purer water, and better protected land, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Christie Whitman has announced President Bush’s proposed Fiscal Year 2004 Budget request of $7.63 billion to support EPA’s mission of protecting human health and the environment. The budget strengthens EPA’s base programs for air, water, and land, and fosters strong partnerships to achieve environmental goals. The request also soundly supports these important efforts through the use of strong science. The budget request is a $10 million increase from last year’s request and includes a seven percent, or $280 million, increase over the previous budget request to strengthen the Agency’s core operating programs for air, water, land, and enforcement activities. “A budget is not just a spending plan; it is truly a policy document,” said Whitman. “This proposed budget reflects our priorities for the Agency, our commitment to building strong partnerships, our belief in strong science, and our determination to leave America’s air cleaner, its water purer, and its land better protected than we found it.” Included in the budget request are resources for the President’s Clear Skies Initiative and an increase in funding for the Agency’s core water state grant programs. It also bolsters the Agency’s Superfund cleanup program and the Brownfields program with increased funding to foster healthy and economically sustainable communities by reinvigorating them and attracting new investments. In addition, it provides newly authorized funding for EPA’s Great Lakes Program. “The budget fully reflects the obligation we all have – government, industry, indeed every American – to be good, faithful stewards of the natural environment entrusted to us,” said Whitman. “Last week, in his State of the Union Address, the President called on Congress to protect our environment in ways that generations before us could not have imagined.” He called for passage of several far-reaching proposals to make America’s air cleaner and healthier, including Clear Skies legislation which would result in improvement in the quality of the air we breathe.” The Next American City, A New Magazine On The Future of Cities, Makes Its Debut Walk through Chicago’s North Side, where rapid construction of luxury apartments has changed an industrial area into an exclusive neighborhood. Drive past boarded up, outmoded shopping malls in New Jersey’s Levittown. American metropolitan areas are being transformed, and The Next American City – a new magazine on the future of American cities and suburbs – is explaining how and why. “In drawing together the diverse voices of planners, developers, architects, bankers, activists, and policy makers,” says editor and co-founder Adam Gordon, “The Next American City is shaping a new national conversation about the future of our metropolitan areas.” Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for The New Yorker, says, “The Next American City emerges out of the knowledge that cities cannot be frozen in time and have to grow and change. That belief, and a love of cities are the things that tie together the disparate viewpoints and different stories that you will find within its pages." The magazine will include reports, reviews, and interviews on issues relative to the future of the city - transportation, urban economies, planning and development, architecture, housing, environmental issues, labor issues and workforce development, education, crime, and religion. The debut issues of the magazine will appear February 5. The cover feature, “The Future of Smart Growth,” includes four perspectives on the burgeoning movement with reporting from Los Angeles, Denver, Atlanta, and Dhaka, Bangladesh. Subscriptions are available at http://www.americancity.org. For more information contact: Abstracts Due for the 2003 RCRA National Meeting Abstracts are due February 17, 2003 for the 2003 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) National meeting. The meeting, Putting Resource Conservation into RCRA, will be held on August 12-15, 2003 in Washington, D.C. Abstracts should be 400 words or less and submitted by February
17. For more information about the conference and to submit an abstract,
visit http://www.awma.org/events/confs/rcra/default.asp. Redevelopment of Clarence Triangle Site Revitalizes Arlington, VA Since the early 1920s, the 1.4-acre Clarendon Triangle site in Arlington, VA hosted a mix of residential and commercial uses. The property, previously occupied by several gasoline distribution stations, a car wash facility, an automobile dealership, and an office building, became dilapidated and largely vacant by the late 1980s. In the late 1990s, the surrounding Arlington area experienced significant revitalization due to market forces and "smart growth" initiatives. The Virginia DEQ Northern Virginia Regional Office (NVRO) was notified of redevelopment plans for the Clarendon Triangle property. The proposed Jefferson at Clarendon Centre planned community included urban residential apartments combined with street level retail space. As with most urban redevelopment, environmental issues linked to past property uses were a major obstacle to the realization of the proposed community. To resolve these issues, the property owner (JPI Apartment Development, LP), their consultants, (Environmental Consultants and Contractors), and their lending institution (First Union) worked extensively with DEQ NVRO on a variety of environmental, regulatory, and financial issues prior to the start of redevelopment. Before construction was initiated, a Corrective Action Plan to address documented petroleum contamination and worker safety was formulated and approved, discharge permits were issued to handle treated excavation water, and reimbursement from the Virginia Petroleum Storage Tank Fund was approved for certain remedial activities. During redevelopment activities, additional site areas of petroleum contamination were discovered. By working closely with DEQ NVRO, the unexpected contamination was successfully incorporated into the existing work plan. As a result, the impacted materials were properly addressed - the environment benefited from the additional cleanup, and no additional construction time was lost due to environmental conditions. By late April 2002, the foundation and subsurface structure of the residential and commercial buildings were completed, and the environmental issues were successfully resolved. Construction continues on the above ground portion, with the opening of the community planned for April 2003. The redevelopment of the Clarendon Triangle site will positively reinvigorate a formerly blighted area into a functional community combining the best of urban residential and functional retail uses. This $47 million investment in the Arlington community will also provide full time employment for 50 individuals, 2600 temporary jobs, and provide a long-term, improved tax base for the community. For more information, visit http://www.deq.state.va.us/brownfieldweb/success.html
or e-mail Chris M. Evans at cmevans@deq.state.va.us. Environmental Practice Publishes Special Issue on Brownfields Environmental Practice and the Oxford University Press announce the upcoming Special Issue on Brownfields, available March 2003. Environmental Practice is the quarterly, peer-reviewed journal of the National Association of Environmental Professionals. This special issue captures the state of the art in the current practice of brownfields redevelopment. The issue aims to inform and improve the practice of working professionals, and is designed to be useful for the practitioner in the field, and the student/faculty in the classroom. The following are included in this special edition of Environmental Practice: Articles
Case studies by J.D.Silverstein; N.G. Leigh, R. Dagenhart, and J. Skach; M. Keenan; and R.J. Klancko are also included in this special edition. News and Information Articles
To order the Brownfields Special issue of Environmental Practice,
contact Oxford University Press via e-mail at jnlorders@oup-usa.org,
via telephone at 800-852-7323 or via fax at 919-677-1714. Additional
information about Environmental Practice may be found at
http://www.envpra.oupjournals.org. Go to Brownfields Spotlight Archives
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