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Historic Gateway District Revitalized Rail lines and rail yards have been a fixture of Salt Lake
City’s Historic Gateway District since the late 1800s.
Located three blocks west of Main Street, the 650-acre Gateway
District was once home to a bustling immigrant community
and thriving businesses. Although the presence of the railroad
initially helped to develop the area, ultimately it became
a hindrance as the district grew and rail lines in the street
limited accessibility. In the 1960s, Interstate 15 was built
on the western edge of the Gateway District with on/off ramps
constructed to bypass the area. Cut off from major highway
traffic, the area fell into neglect and disrepair.
In 2002, Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympic Games,
and preparations for this major international event created
a new wave of construction, development, and renovation projects,
including an overhaul of Interstate 15, thus driving the
cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields in the Gateway area.
In 1996, the city received a $200,000 EPA Brownfields Assessment
Grant to conduct environmental assessments on the District’s
650 acres. A $200,000 EPA Brownfields Supplemental Assistance
Grant awarded in March 2000, and another $500,000 grant resulting
from the city’s designation as an EPA Brownfields Showcase
Community aided the progress of the project.
In November 2001, Gateway Associates, a private development
group, purchased the largest rail yard in the District and
began a $375 million mixed-use, mixed-income development
that incorporates the historic Union Pacific Rail Depot.
The first 30 acres have been redeveloped to create 2 million
square feet of shops, restaurants, office space, and housing.
During the Winter Olympic Games, 330 of those residential
units were used for media housing, and long-term tenants
now occupy most of the units. Salt Lake City also purchased
land needed to reconstruct the main street and build a 100-foot
wide linear park immediately west of the Union Pacific Rail
Depot and former rail yard
Visitors coming in on Interstate 15 are no longer treated
to sights of abandoned rail yards and facilities. Through
the combined efforts of the city and its redevelopment agency,
the railroad, EPA, other federal agencies, and private investors,
there is new hope of jobs for area residents, opportunity
for private investment, a cleaner environment, and a revitalized
Gateway community.
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Disadvantaged Liberty Street Residents Trained for Environmental
Jobs
The disadvantaged residents of the Liberty Street Corridor
in Winston-Salem, NC, are developing technical skills to
prepare them for increased employment opportunities. EPA's
Winston-Salem Brownfields Job Training Pilot recently finished
its second training course, bringing the total number of
graduates to 32. Sixty percent of the class received employment
in the environmental sector within two months of graduation,
earning between $8.50 and $16.00 an hour.
Winston-Salem's three mile Liberty Street Corridor was once
home to a booming manufacturing center, anchored by R.J.
Reynolds, one of the world's largest manufacturers of tobacco
products. The post-World War II era, however, brought expansion
to other areas of the city and economic decline along the
Corridor. The unemployment rate skyrocketed to 83 percent,
with 91 percent of residents living in poverty.
Job support services like those provided by the Northwest
Piedmont Council of Governments Workforce Development Program
(WDP) are critical to reducing these unemployment rates.
Job Training Pilot participants are residents of the Liberty
Street Corridor and surrounding areas referred to the WDP
by neighborhood associations. The WDP is an essential component
of the Job Training Program's success, as it identifies prospective
students, provides life skills training, places students
in appropriate training programs, and assists with job placement.
Local environmental practitioners and the academic community
designed the curriculum for the Job Training Program, including
advisors from Forsyth Technical Community College, Wake Forest
University, and Winston-Salem University. The 194-hour course
provides technical and safety training that prepares students
for employment in the waste management, private or public
infrastructure, construction, demolition, and environmental
and engineering consulting and contracting industries.
Winston-Salem's Brownfields Job Training Program has proven
its success by graduating 32 students and finding employment
for 20 students by the end of its second session. The program
continues to improve due to the commitment of the City of
Winston-Salem, the pilot coordinator, instructors, the Northwest
Piedmont Council of Governments Workforce Development Program,
and Forsyth Technical Community College.
Source: http://www.epa.gov/swerosps/bf/success/winston_salem.pdf
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EPA Regional Administrator Honors Environmental Performance
Track Member Continuing its work to honor environmental achievers, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator,
Jane M. Kenney, congratulated the Colonial Acres Golf Course
for being the first golf course in the country accepted into
the National Environmental Performance Track program. The
program uses a public/private partnership to encourage top
environmental performers to voluntarily commit to specific
environmental improvements for more than three years.
Kenney commended the efforts of the course general manager,
Fred Budzyna, and its superintendent, Patrick A. Blum, for
their commitment to go beyond compliance into environmental
stewardship. “The Colonial Acres course proves that
you can have high quality grass on your golf course at the
same time you lower the use of synthetic pesticides and water,” said
Jane M. Kenny, EPA Regional Administrator. “Performance
Track is about protecting the environment, and honoring members
who are committed to environmentally-sound practices that
will protect people’s health and the health of our
nation’s land, air, and water.”
Colonial Acres is a nine-hole, semi-private golf course
operating on 33.5 acres in upstate New York, near Albany.
The average number of rounds played per year on the course
totals 25,000. Colonial Acres maintains above average course
conditions, from April through October, using mostly natural
organic pesticides. Only about 30% of the pesticides used
on the course are synthetic. Sprinklers and rain can cause
pesticides to run off into local waters, thus harming plants
and animals. In addition, Colonial Acres collects and uses
rainwater to irrigate the course and reduce watering cycles
from 30 minutes to 25 minutes. By naturalizing their turf
and mowing less frequently, the course lowered emissions
of volatile organic compounds from lawnmowers by 98.5 pounds
from 1997-2002.
In 2000, Colonial Acres received the New York City Governor’s
Pollution Prevention Award and the National Overall Environmental
Leader Award given by the Golf Course Superintendents’ Association
of America. It continues to create an environmentally sound
approach to golf course maintenance today.
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Former Recycling Company Property
Redeveloped
The former Camden Recycling Company property, located on
Mount Ephraim Avenue in Camden, NJ, has been transformed
to accommodate the expansion of the neighboring DiNaso & Sons,
Inc., a building supply company. This expansion, used for
building material storage, created 30 new jobs in the community
and sparked urban revitalization. Grants that allowed DiNaso
to expand also allowed for the rest of the Mount Ephraim
Avenue business corridor to revitalize.
This approximately 80-acre parcel was originally developed
as a drive-in theater, and later operated as a scrap metal
recycling facility from 1940 to 1995. In 1995, industrial
operations at the facility ceased, triggering the Industrial
Site Recovery Act (ISRA) and an environmental assessment.
The site investigation, overseen by the New Jersey Department
of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), revealed contaminated
soils associated with the removal of three former fuel underground
storage tanks and the presence of historic fill throughout
the property.
In response to the soil contamination, an asphalt cap served
as an engineered control for the contamination. In addition
to the engineered cap, a deed notice was issued for the entire
property. A No Further Action and Covenant Not to Sue letter
were issued once the case manager inspected and certified
the engineering control.
The $500,000 used to remediate the site was generated by
taxes from the City's Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) designation.
Camden's UEZ program, like others throughout New Jersey,
has been an extremely successful tool in creating jobs and
fostering urban revitalization. According to John DiNaso, "Three
years ago this was a contaminated site. Today, thanks the
to UEZ, the City of Camden and the State of New Jersey, this
project has become a viable part of the revitalization of
Mount Ephraim Avenue, where 45 people, many of them local
residents, now have jobs."
For more information about this project and New Jersey's
Brownfields Program, visit http://www.nj.gov/dep/srp/brownfields/success/dinaso.htm
Source: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
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