&EPA
             United States
             Environmental Protection
            - Agency
             Office of
             The Administrator
EPA-1OO-R-97-003
July 1997
People, Places, and Partnerships

A Progress Report on Gommunity-
Based Environmental Protection

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 Front cover (clockwise from top left}:

 (1) Redwood forest preserve in Northern California—one
 of our natural resources of national significance (Richard
 Frear photo, U.S. Department of the Interior, National
 Park Service);

 (2) Clean water depends on controlling polluted runoff
 from urban and agricultural sites such as this dairy farm
 near Red Wing, Minnesota (Don Breneman photo,
 Minnesota Extension Service);

 (3) Cleveland's restored Cuyahoga riverfront presents a
 marked contrast to the severely polluted river that
 caught fire 25 years ago (Joan Tiefel photo. Convention
 & Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland);

 (4) in Baltimore, Maryland, a residential neighborhood
abuts an industrial site (Steve Delaney photo, EPA);

 (5) As part of the Summer Orientation About Rivers
 (SOAR) project, students collect samples from the Platte
River and learn to do laboratory analysis work (photo
courtesy of Prairie Plains Resource Institute, Aurora,
Nebraska).
   Acknowledgments: This report mis prepared by the
   Administrator's Community-Based Environmental Protection
   (CBEP) Coordination Team, a transitional group convened in
   December 1995 to coordinate EPA headquarters and regional
   CBEP activities.  Responsibility for CBEP coordination
   activities has recently been transferred to the Office of
   Sustainable Ecosystems and Communities (OSEC), created
   within EPA's Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation. The
   CBEP Coordination Team was directed by Wendy Cleland-
   Hamnett (Director, OSEC) and Louise Wise {Director, Policy,
   Communications, and Resource Management, Office of
   Wetknds, Oceans, and Watersheds). Contributing CBEP
   Coordination Team members: Andy Spielman (Team Leader),
   Karen Flagstad (Executive Editor), Sandra Eberle, jane
   Metcalfe, Donna Sefton (EPA Region 7), and Denise Zvanovcc
   (EPA Region 9). Layout design by Robert Flanagan. Special
   thanks to Ruth Barker, Office of Communications, Education,
   and Public Affairs, for pMo search assistance and to Jeff
   Morin, EPA Reinvention Team, for Internet research.
   For additional copies of this report, call 513 489-8190.
   Written requests may be sent by fax to 513 489-8695
   or by mail to: NCEPI, 11029 Kenwood Road,
   Building 5, Cincinnati, OH 45242,

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   People, Places, and  Partnerships:
   A Progress Report on Community-Based  Environmental  Protection
CONTENTS

SECTION i
Toward Sustainable Ecosystems and Communities—
Community-Based Environmental Protection	1
WhyCBEP?	  1
Remaining Problems	2
Elements of CBEP	  6
Benefits of CBEP	10
An Approach Whose Time Has Come	10
   Regional Priority Setting—Urban Sprawl in Cleveland	5
   New York City: Case Study in Watershed Management	8

SECTION 2
Working in Places: EPA as Leader or Partner
in Community-Based Efforts	11
Natural Resources of National Significance	12
Areas that Cross State Boundaries	12
Areas of Exceptional Risk	14
CBEP and Environmental Justice	16
Integrating EPA Program Efforts Through CBEP	16
   Middle Platte River Watershed	12
   South Florida and the Everglades	14
   A Vision for Southern Appalachia	16
   Long Island Sound: Testing Watershed Innovations	18
   The Biologically Integrated Orchard Systems (BIOS)
      Project in Central California	19
   A Future for the Coeur d'Alene River Watershed, Idaho .. 20
   CBEP in the South Bronx: An Open Forum for
      Environmental Justice Concerns	21
   East St. Louis, Illinois: The Gateway Initiative	 22
   Pulling Together in Henryetta, Oklahoma	24
   Partnership for Urban Restoration
      in Providence, Rhode Island	26
SECTION 3
Helping Others Protect Local Environments	27
Communication Networks—Sharing Data, Tools, and
   Lessons Learned	29
Providing Training and Technical Assistance	35
 Grants and Other Financial Resources	36
 Further Resources	39
   Science Support for CBEP—Strategic R&D Goals	27
   South Platte River Watershed—Inventory
      of Critical Biological Resources	28
   The Great Plains International Data Network	32
   Top 10 Watershed Lessons Learned	33
   EPA's Green Communities Assistance Kit	34
   Gateway: East St. Louis, Illinois	35
   The New England Environmental Assistance Team	35
   EPA Region 2 Community Grants Program	36
   Jobs Through Recycling Grant: The Hualapai Tribe	37
   Sustainable Development Challenge Grants	37
   Targeted Grant Helps Remove Barrier to Salmon Habitat. 38
   Joint Center for Sustainable Communities-
      Support Services Offered	39
SECTION 4
CBEP and Reinvention	40
Watershed Protection	40
Performance Partnerships	42
Project XL: A Laboratory for the Future	44
Brownfields Economic Redevelopment	46
Flexible Attainment Regions	48
Supplemental Environmental Projects	50
   Watershed Support from EPA	41
   Utah Performance Partnership	43
   Project XLC in Clermont County, Ohio	45
   Brownfields Pilot: Baltimore, Maryland	47
   Brownfields Pilot: Dallas, Texas	47
   Tulsa, Oklahoma: Flexible Attainment Region	49
   Supplemental Environmental Projects
      in South Side Chicago	 50

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 SECTION 1
 Toward  Sustainable Ecosystems and Communities—
 Community-Based Environmental Protection	

 Healthy and well functioning ecosystems are vital to the protection of our nation's
 biodiversity, to the achievement of quality of life objectives, and to the support of econo-
 mies and communities.  The ecosystem approach recognizes the interrelationship be-
 tween healthy ecosystems and sustainable* economies.  It is a common sense way for
federal agencies to carry out their mandates with greater efficiency and effectiveness....
                          —White House Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force, December 1995
            Why CBEP?
            In the quarter-century since EPA was chartered
            as a federal agency, the United States has
            achieved remarkable progress through the
            imposition of uniform national standards to
            protect the environment. However, there are
            still many disturbing environmental trends that
            are not addressed effectively through these
            national standards—and would not be reversed
            even with perfect compliance with all environ-
            mental laws and regulations.

              One difficulty is that our most persistent
            environmental problems result from a multi-
            tude of dispersed sources of environmental
            stress (examples include polluted runoff from
            rain and snowmelt in cities, suburbs, and
            farmland, and losses of open space and habitat
            due to urban sprawl). Because these problems
            are more diffuse in origin, they are more
            difficult to control from a federal vantage  point
            than are large, industrial sources of pollution.
            A second consideration, increasingly recognized
            in recent years, is the need to treat all the
            resources in a particular place—air, water, land,
            and living resources—as interconnected parts of
            an ecosystem. A third consideration, related to
            the second, is the practical recognition that not
all parts of the country have the same problems
or need the same kind of solutions. For these
and other reasons, in order to continue to make
environmental progress, we must lay the
foundation for a new generation of environmen-
tal protection.

   CBEP, to use the acronym, has an important
role to play in the next generation of environ-
mental protection. It is an approach that EPA is
taking to improve our efforts to protect the
environment. Through the CBEP approach,
EPA is looking to achieve the following objec-
tives:

•  To promote progress toward sustainability at
the community level by helping communities
solve environmental problems in ways that
integrate environmental, economic, and social
objectives

•  To assess and manage the quality of air, water,
land, and living resources in a place as a whole

•  To better reflect regional and local conditions

•  To work more effectively with our many
partners, both public and private, to achieve
environmental results.
*Note: The concept and terminology of sustainability, or sustainable development, were first put forward by the 1987 report of
the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission), Our Common Future (Oxford Univ.
Press, 1987). The Brundtland report defined sustainability as the ability "...to meet the needs of the present without compro-
mising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (p. 43).

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   The CBEP objective of helping communities
 move toward sustainability is consistent with the
 recent findings and recommendations of the
 President's Council on Sustainable Development
 (PCSD). The Council—made up of officials with
 diverse affiliations in industry, environmental
 and other nonprofit groups, and federal and state
 government—was convened by the president in
 1993 to  advise him on ways to meet the challenge
 of building a sustainable future for America. In
 February 1996, the PCSD published its report,
 Sustainable America: A New Consensus for Prosper-
 ity, Opportunity, and a Healthy Environment for the
 Future. The title of the report reflects the three-
 pronged consensus of the PCSD concerning the
 basic elements, all interrelated, of sustainability
 in the United States—a cleaner, more resilient
 environment; a more equitable society; and a
 more productive and efficient economy—one
 that is competitive internationally. This three-
 pronged philosophy underlies all of the PCSD's
 recommendations concerning national goals and
 policy choices, including the goal of achieving
 sustainable communities. Many of the PCSD
 recommendations support, and are supported by,
 the CBEP approach.

   In an important sense, environmental protec-
 tion began as a community-based movement.
 The first Earth Day (April 22,1970) became a
 historic  event when 20 million people in commu-
 nities across the country turned out in an unprec-
 edented show of support for environmental
 causes.  From the momentum of Earth Day came
 the passage of our current national environmen-
 tal statutes and the December 1970 creation of
 EPA as a federal agency with responsibility for
 implementing many of those statutes.

  Since Earth Day 1970, dramatic environmental
 gains have been made. Through regulatory
 programs authorized by the Clean Air Act, the
 Clean Water Act, and other key environmental
 laws, we have set and implemented national
 baseline standards of environmental protection.
The United States no longer has rivers catching
on fire, as it once did. Our skies are cleaner.
Wetlands losses still diminish our ecosystems,
but the rates of loss have dropped dramatically.
   Since that first Earth Day, EPA has banned
lead in gasoline, lowering lead levels in our air
by more than 90 percent and protecting millions
of children from harm. We banned dangerous
and widely used pesticides like DDT. We
provided American towns with substantial
funding for wastewater treatment—the second
biggest public works effort in U.S. history—
resulting in cleaner waters all over the country.
New cars and trucks had to meet rigorous
standards for air pollutants. And EPA has played
an important role in ensuring that companies
and others comply with our environmental laws
or face stiff penalties.


Remaining  Problems

The large, industrial pollution problems that sent
the nation a wake-up call nearly 30 years ago are
no longer commonplace.  Yet much work re-
mains to be done, and EPA and the nation must
retool for the 21st century. Despite our successes
in controlling obvious sources of water pollu-
tion—such as factory outfalls and discharges of
untreated sewage into waterways—nearly 40
percent of our rivers and lakes are not suitable
for fishing or swimming. Despite great strides
made under the Clean Air Act, two in five
Americans live in areas where the air fails to
meet the standards EPA has set to protect public
health.

  Why these disturbing trends when in many
ways our national environmental laws and
regulations have been successful in curbing
pollution? There is a sense in which the "easy"
work has been done. The top-down approach
embodied in most of our regulations has been
very effective in controlling major industrial
sources of pollution and raw sewage discharges.
These so-called "end-of-pipe" sources of pollu-
tion are relatively easy to track down and, once
identified, they can be controlled by across-the-
board regulatory standards backed up by strong
enforcement. However, this kind of regulatory
approach reaches a point of diminishing returns
in the face of today's more complex and far-flung
pollution problems, which tend to be embedded

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 in the ways in which people live, work, produce,
 commute, and consume in their daily lives. To
 address highly complex problems, we need a
 more flexible way of doing business; we need to
 match complex problems with appropriately
 tailored solutions.

   What are some of the problems challenging
 EPA to reinvent the ways in which it does busi-
 ness? Nowadays our biggest remaining water
 quality problem—the largest remaining source of
 water pollution—is polluted runoff (so-called
 nonpoint-source pollution) that carries pollutants
 from many diverse sources into our streams,
 lakes, and rivers. The pollutants carried by runoff
 may be anything that compromises water qual-
 ity—for example, pesticides, fertilizer nutrients,
 household chemicals, gasoline, and used motor
 oil. The sources of polluted runoff can be just
 about anywhere  within a watershed that lacks
 forestation or ground cover to absorb heavy rain
or snowmelt—farm fields, urban streets and
parking lots, suburban lawns, golf courses,
construction sites. To make matters more compli-
Discharges from obvious
sources of pollution such as
this outfall are no longer
commonplace.
Documerica photo. National Archives.
                                                                                  Runoff from parking lots
                                                                                  and other impermeable
                                                                                  surfaces carries pollutants
                                                                                  into our waterways.
                                                                                  Polluted runoff is our
                                                                                  largest remaining water
                                                                                  quality problem.
                                                                                  Steve Delaney photo, EPA.

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      With increased
 urban sprawl, viable
 habitat for wildlife is
        diminished.
     Bill Painter photo, EPA.
Increased commuter
  traffic is one of the
   consequences of
      urban sprawl.
  Stwt Dtlaneyphoto, EPA.
cated, we also know that waterborne pollutants
sometimes vaporize to become airborne pollut-
ants carried by prevailing winds from one water-
shed to another.

   As previously mentioned, many Americans
live in metropolitan areas that still fail to meet
national air quality standards for smog  and other
pollutants. One reason for this is that progress in
curbing automobile emissions—consider today's
vastly cleaner-burning cars as compared to those
on the roads 30 years ago—is being outpaced by
increases in population and in vehicle miles
traveled per person.

   One increasingly recognized common denomi-
nator of persistent environmental problems
including polluted runoff, substandard  air
quality, and habitat fragmentation, is urban
sprawl. Urban sprawl contributes to polluted
runoff in various ways, such as by replacing
green open spaces and farmland with paved
surfaces and by requiring the building of addi-
tional roads and commuter highways. It contrib-
utes to air pollution by boosting commuter
distances and vehicle miles traveled  per person.
And it results in losses of viable habitat  for
animals and plants.

   The implications of urban sprawl  in the
Cleveland metropolitan area, for example, were
brought to light as a result of a recent exercise in
environmental priority-setting and local consen-
sus-building. (EPA was one of several partners
providing funding and technical assistance for
this project; other participants included  the Ohio
EPA, Case Western Reserve Institute for Public
Health Sciences, and the George Gund Founda-
tion.) On completing the ranking exercise and
related deliberations, an ad hoc Cleveland public
committee reached the conclusion that many of
their highly ranked problems were directly or
indirectly driven by urban sprawl; it was decided
that urban sprawl—which was not on the origi-
nally compiled working list of 16 problems—
should take priority as the "umbrella issue" to be
addressed during the implementation phase of
the project. (See box.)

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In a Cleveland suburb,
a housing development
abuts a cornfield.
Photo by David Beach, EcoCity
Cleveland. Copyrighted.
                               Regional Priority Setting—
                               Urban Sprawl in Cleveland
In spring 1994, a regional "Public
Committee" consisting of commun-
ity, industry, and environmental
leaders from northeast Ohio and
Case Western Reserve University's
Center for the Environment began a
three-year project with the follow-
ing objectives:

• To characterize and rank environ-
mental problems facing the greater
Cleveland area

• To set environmental priorities
for the region

• To develop coalition approaches
and  action strategies for addressing
environmental problems.

  As a first order of business, mem-
bers of the committee collectively
crafted the following 20-year vision
statement, articulating shared
environmental values and goals for
the greater Cleveland community:

  Over the next 20 years, the region
  consisting ofCuyahoga, Lake,
  Lorain, and Summit counties will
  strive to achieve a high level of
  environmental quality such that air,
water, land use, and the food supply
all contribute to a safe and healthy
lifestyle for all our citizens and the
ecological system more generally.
This work is of great urgency because
many irreversible processes have
already been set in motion. To
accomplish this we need to develop:

• A sense of community in which all
sectors, public, private, nonprofit,
and business, work together toward
common goals for present and future
generations through community
decision-making that strongly consid-
ers local, regional, national, and
global environmental impacts of all
major policy decisions

• An environmentally educated and
positively motivated population of
responsible citizens and organizations

*A healthy and sustainable
regional economy, that creates
jobs which promote pollution
prevention while minimizing the
consumption of nonrenewable
materials and energy

• An accessible human habitat
promoting safety from hazards to

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(Continued from page five)
  health and from violence; a habitat
  which balances the needs of humans
  while preserving the ecological
  integrity of nature in the region.

  Reflecting input from the public
and from a variety of organizations,
16 issues were characterized and
included in the ranking of environ-
mental problems:

  Quality of ground water
  Quality of surface waters used for
     drinking or for aquatic habitat
  Quality of outdoor air
  Quality of indoor air
  Stratospheric ozone loss
  Acid rain
  Global warming
  Food contamination
  Hazards in households and schools,
     including lead poisoning
  Environmental and economic
     impacts of outmigration from
     the urban core
  Quality and use of natural areas
  Quality of urban environment
  Solid waste disposal
  Use of resources/energy
  Ecological balance
  Radiation exposure from human
     sources
  During the provisional ranking
process, each problem was ranked
low-, medium-, or high-risk in each
of three categories: public health,
ecological resources, and other
"quality of life" aspects.
  Which of the above issues ranked
as the top-priority problem overall?
In fact, none of them did. Instead,
during the deliberations of the
Public Committee, it became clear
that many of the problems receiv-
ing high rankings were directly or
indirectly driven by urban sprawl.
This shared insight led to the
consensus decision that urban
sprawl should take priority as the
"umbrella issue" to be addressed
during the implementation phase of
the project. As a result, the area
covered by the project has been
expanded to include Gesuga,
Medina, and Portage counties—
which are part of the greater
Cleveland sprawl  area. Over 10
focus groups were convened across
the region, with different stakehold-
ers to define the key barriers and
opportunities. A regional Work
Group was formed on Urban
Sprawl/Quality of the Urban
Environment to promote near-term
actions to alleviate urban sprawl,
working with existing programs
wherever possible, and also to
 convene existing actors to stimulate
 long-term collaborations beyond the
 duration of the Priorities Project.
 There was also a parallel Work
 Group focusing on energy usage
 issues.

   Public Committee participants and
 others have been working to follow
 through with several implementation
 projects in the Cleveland area. These
 include several resource- and
 information-sharing initiatives and
 collaborative efforts to develop
 criteria for funding highway projects
 that are sensitive to land-use and
 economic and  health implications.
 EPA has incorporated the findings of
 the Regional Environmental Priori-
 ties Project into its Northeast Ohio
 Initiative and is following up on
 various needs  identified by the
 project, such as the need for tools to
 assist the community in assessing the
 environmental impacts of urban
 sprawl.
Project contacts: Deb Martin, EPA Headquarters,
at 202 260-269 (phone) or
MARTIN.DEBORA@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-mail);
Dr. Norman Robbins, CWRU Center for the
Environment at 216 368-2194 (phone);
Rich Winklhofer, EPA Region 5,
at 216 522-7260 (phone) or
WINKLHOFER.RICH@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-mail).
                                                              Elements of CBEP

                                                              Is CBEP, then, an updated approach slated to
                                                              replace EPA's traditional environmental regula-
                                                              tory programs? The answer is decidedly no.
                                                              CBEP does not represent a retreat from national
                                                              goals or standards, nor does it imply an aban-
                                                              donment of the regulatory approach. A working
                                                              assumption of CBEP is that the nation's baseline
                                                              environmental standards must be kept in place;
                                                              to do otherwise would invite a return to the
                                                              pollution problems of previous decades.

                                                                CBEP is a holistic approach to environmental
                                                              protection that is sensitive to local conditions and
                                                              employs multi-level, cross-sector partnerships to

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 achieve results. It supplements, rather than
 replaces, EPA's existing media-specific and
 statutory programs. CBEP efforts sometimes go
 by other names, such as ecosystem management
 or place-based and geographically targeted
 environmental protection. The CBEP approach is
 based on the conviction that it is necessary to
 both maintain nationally applicable standards
 and accommodate other important concerns that
 are locally driven.

   CBEP can facilitate priority setting, planning,
 and decision making in cases where several
 agencies at different levels of government are
 involved and private parties also have some
 degree of responsibility. An example is the
 National Estuary Program, which involves
 stakeholders—local citizens as well as partici-
 pants from government, industry, and
 academia—in developing Comprehensive
 Conservation and Management plans.

   CBEP efforts may be organized around a
 neighborhood, a town, a city, or a region (such as
 a watershed, valley, or coastal area). They may
 be defined by either natural geographic or
 political boundaries. The key factor is that the
 people who live and/or work in the community
 (the local stakeholders) have a common interest
 in protecting an identifiable shared environment
 and quality of life.

   While there are no prescriptions for CBEP, it
 usually includes the following elements:

 •  Identifying the geographic area which is the
 focus of the environmental protection efforts,
 usually using natural boundaries or ecological
 features of the place

 •Involving diverse stakeholders in developing a
 vision, goals, priorities, and strategies

 * Assessing the local ecosystems, including the
ecological, human health, economic, and socio-
cultural aspects  of the community that relate to
the environment
 * Developing a plan aimed at meeting environ-
 mental, economic, and social goals in a sustain-
 able manner

 • Taking actions through a potentially wide
 array of voluntary, educational, and regulatory
 activities

 * Monitoring conditions, evaluating results, and
 re-directing efforts through adaptive manage-
 ment

 * Increasing EPA's efficiency and effectiveness
 by building partnerships and leveraging re-
 sources, and developing better ways of inform-
 ing, assisting, and involving the public we serve.

 CBEP, then, affords a vehicle for integrating
 environmental goals with economic and social
 goals at the community level.

  The CBEP approach builds on the proven
 successes and substantial experience of federal
 and state agencies with geographically focussed
 efforts in places such as the Chesapeake Bay, the
 Great Lakes, and the estuaries of the  National
 Estuary Program. Like these earlier "place-
 based" initiatives, CBEP recognizes the impor-
 tance of local stakeholder involvement and
 responsibility and the benefits and leveraging
 power of working through partnerships. In
 addition, CBEP builds on EPA's experience—
 successes and lessons learned—with  the water-
 shed approach, which is a form of community-
 based environmental protection. The watershed
 approach uses the natural boundaries of drain-
 age basins to define an area of interest for the
 purpose of protecting shared water resources.
 Guiding principles of the watershed approach, as
 synopsized in EPA's June 1996 publication
entitled the Waterstied Approach Framework,
 include working through partnerships, a geo-
 graphic focus, and sound management tech-
 niques based on strong science and data.
 (See box on New York City watershed experience
on  next page.)

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 New York City: Case Study
 in Watershed Management
New York State law authorizes New
York City to regulate the two upstate
watersheds—the Croton and the
Catskill-Delaware—that provide the
city's drinking water.  These two
watersheds contain within their
boundaries parts of eight counties,
60 towns, one city, and 11 villages,
and more than 500 agricultural and
horticultural units. The two water-
sheds, together, produce 1,2 billion
gallons of water daily, providing
drinking water for 9 million consum-
ers—roughly half the population of
the state. The water traditionally has
been of such high quality that it
often won contests. Eight million
people served by this water supply
reside or work in New York City
itself; the remaining million reside
upstate in the watersheds.
  The natural beauty of the water-
sheds, however, and their proximity
to the metropolitan area have
encouraged land development,
particularly on the East Side of the
Hudson River.  Close to the city,
development has been aggressive
and suburban encroachment has
                             caused serious degradation of the
                             Croton reservoirs.  This, in turn, has
                             triggered an EPA requirement that
                             filters must be installed to protect
                             against the threat of microbial
                             contamination in water from the
                             Croton system.
                               The Croton system produces only
                             about 10 percent of the water
                             consumed by New York City. If
                             similar degradation were to occur in
                             the more remote Catskill-Delaware
                             system, and filters became necessary,
                             the costs would be enormous.
                             Construction costs could exceed $5
                             billion; annual operating costs
                             would approximate $300 million.
                               In 1993, EPA agreed to postpone
                             the decision on filtering the Catskill-
                             Delaware supply while the city
                             attempted to demonstrate that it
                             could maintain the quality of the
                             water through watershed control.
                             As a backup measure, the city is
                             required to complete the preliminary
                             design of the filters. Recently, the
                             terms and conditions of the original
                             agreement were reviewed in light of
                             progress made since 1993; in January
1997, an updated agreement was
signed which includes a number of
specific mandates, such as wastewater
treatment plant upgrades and a
review of the existing water quality
monitoring program.
  Following the 1993 agreement, a
comprehensive farm management
program was established under the
title, "Whole Farm Planning Pro-
gram." The program was endorsed
by New York State agencies, New
York City, the farmers themselves,
and EPA. The program assumed that,
in a populated rural landscape, well-
managed agriculture was the best
protection for water quality. Further,
compulsion was unlikely to succeed
with fiercely independent farmers,
and the program had to be a volun-
tary one based on providing incen-
tives to farmers to participate.
Finally, farming practices adopted to
protect water quality had to be based
upon sound scientific principles.
  New York City provided $4 million
for the first two years of the program,
during which the objective was to
develop plans on 10 demonstration
New York City Watersheds
                               Schoharie County
                                                                                                Pattsrsln
        Delaware County
                                                                                            Westchester County   —
                       Sullivan County


Catskill/Delaware Watershed
                                                                                  Croton Watershed

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                                                                                The continued safety of
                                                                                New York City's water
                                                                                supply hinges on upstate
                                                                                farmers' use of watershed
                                                                                protection practices.

                                                                                New York City Watershed
                                                                                Agricultural Council photo.
farms. Of the roughly 500 farms in
the watersheds, the majority are
dairy farms, and the 10 selected for
demonstration were all dairy.
  Each farmer worked with County
Project Teams comprising staff from
Cornell Cooperative Extension, Soil
and Water Conservation Districts,
and the U.S. Soil Conservation
Service. These teams received advice
and training from scientists at
Cornell University. Administrative
coordination was provided by the
New York City Soil and Water
Conservation Committee. Leader-
ship later passed to a Watershed
Agricultural Council comprising
watershed farmers, watershed
agribusiness, and the New York City
Department of Environmental
Protection (NYCDEP).
  In the second phase of the pro-
gram, now underway, the city
expects to implement Whole Farm
Planning on 85 percent of the
remaining farms. Funding for this
phase was set at $35 million.
  As Whole Farm Planning pro-
gressed, inter-agency and commu-
nity groups sought to establish a
Whole Community Planning
Program.  Local government was
represented by the Coalition of
Watershed Towns. Technical
working groups and a policy
dialogue group, involving about 300
individuals, were created to seek
technical and institutional agree-
ments.
  To demonstrate how community
planning might protect water
quality, six towns assumed a pilot
role. Each town formed a Citizen
Advisory Committee; the commit-
tees were supported by technical
staff from County Health and
Planning Departments, by Cornell
Cooperative Extension, the New
York State Water Resources Institute,
and the NYCDEP. Each committee
identified and assessed priorities for
their town. On-site wastewater
disposal, stormwater and drainage
and land-use management were
shared major priorities. The towns in
the Catskill-Delaware watershed
were also concerned with streambed
and streambank management.
  The programs negotiated under the
New York City Watershed Agreement
should enable the city to protect its
water supply while avoiding the
multi-billion dollar cost of a filtration
plant. The city will finalize regula-
tions for watershed land uses,
acquire sensitive lands to protect key
reservoirs and waterways, conduct
water quality testing in the water-
shed, and support upstate/down-
state partnership programs. New
York State will establish a new
Watershed Inspector General's office
to ensure that the city's regulations
are implemented to protect public
health. EPA will continue to oversee
New York City's filtration waiver and
the city and state's action to imple-
ment the agreement.

EPA Region 2 contact: Maureen Krudner at
212 637-3519 (phone)  or
KRUDNER.MAUREEN@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e mail).

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 Benefits of CBEP

 CBEP is results-oriented. Its geographic focus
 has practical advantages in that definable
 geographic areas have proven to be effective
 units of work, as measured in environmental
 results. Communities are manageable entities for
 defining collaborative goals and developing
 plans and implementation strategies tailored to
 specific ecological systems, economic circum-
 stances, and socio-cultural situations.

   The stakeholder involvement element of CBEP
 offers multiple benefits. One of the working
 premises of CBEP is that neither EPA nor any
 other government agency has all the answers for
 solving local or regional problems. Local stake-
 holders have specific knowledge and expertise
 about local social, economic, and environmental
 conditions. Moreover, it is important for those
 who will live with environmental decisions to be
 involved in the decision-making process. Stake-
 holder involvement creates a sense of local
 ownership of issues and solutions and encour-
 ages long-term community support and account-
 ability. It is also cost-effective in that it augments
 federal resources with the leveraged resources of
 participating public and private stakeholders—
 not funding only, but technical data and exper-
 tise as well. In addition, improved communica-
 tion and collaboration through integrated action
 can enhance the efficiency of government ser-
vices by reducing costly duplication of efforts
 and conflicting actions.

   CBEP strengthens teamwork between the
public and private sectors at the federal, state,
tribal, and local levels to achieve the greatest
environmental benefits with the resources
available. By fostering partnerships among
public and private stakeholders, CBEP helps
reconnect government agencies and their em-
ployees with the people and places they serve.
An Approach Whose Time
Has Come

As the preceding discussion suggests, there are
many reasons why CBEP is an approach whose
time has come. Moreover, increasing numbers of
tools that support community-based manage-
ment are being developed, including information
technologies such as geographic information
systems (GIS), mapping, and community vision-
ing methods. At the same time, the public
appears to be more informed, knowledgeable,
and involved in environmental issues than ever
before.

  EPA's role in CBEP projects varies consider-
ably from community to community. As ex-
plained in Section 2 of this report, in some
instances (e.g., in communities that cross state
boundaries or in places that are nationally
significant), EPA may lead a CBEP effort or be an
active partner in designing and implementing
environmental solutions. Often, however, EPA's
role will be limited to providing communities,
states, and the public with essential "capacity-
building" resources. Section 3 describes how
EPA is working to help communities help
themselves with tools such as the following:
environmental information and monitoring
systems; science and socio-economic analysis
and information; flexible grants; direct technical
assistance; negotiation and facilitation; or train-
ing. Section 4 profiles regulatory reinvention
initiatives at  EPA that are designed to promote
CBEP. Q
                                   10

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SECTION 2
Working in Places—
EPA as Leader or Partner in Community-Based  Efforts
                  Our regulators have rolled up their sleeves and actually joined
                  with us to become part of the solution.
                                                          —Mayor of Henryetta, Oklahoma
          One of the key features of CBEP is a
          geographic focus, which encourages a
          more integrated approach to environ-
   mental protection in a particular place than can
   be achieved through across-the-board modes of
   environmental protection. By definition, CBEP is
   place-based in orientation, whether the place is a
   small town, an urban neighborhood, or a major
   metropolitan area—whether a community shares
   an endangered watershed, a fragile ecosystem, or
  In Utah's Arches National Park, Delicate Arch
  perches on the brink of a canyon—a monument to
  the unique geology of the area.
  M.W. Williams photo. National Park Service.
perhaps a coastal region that is experiencing
development pressures. The key factor is a
commonality of interest among people who have
a stake in a particular environment.
   It is important to acknowledge the leading
roles that community groups and local and state
governments are playing in place-based environ-
mental projects across the country; EPA is
contributing indirectly to these CBEP efforts, as
explained in Section 3, by making technical tools,
information, and other "capacity-building"
resources available to them. Clearly, EPA need
not and cannot be involved directly in every
community-based effort in the United States.
However, EPA is directly and actively involved,
as a leader or partner in CBEP efforts, in selected
communities around the country. These commu-
nities generally fit one or more of the following
categories for "priority" places where EPA may
be directly involved in a CBEP initiative:
•  Natural resources of national (or international)
significance
•  Areas with transboundary (i.e., interstate or
international) environmental concerns
•  Areas with exceptional risk to human health
or the environment
•  Communities with environmental justice
concerns—i.e., communities where environmen-
tal effects are disproportionately felt by minori-
ties and/or economically disadvantaged citizens.
   In places where EPA is already present due to
ongoing efforts—such as a Superfund-related
cleanup, a Brownfields site (see Section 4, page
46, concerning the Agency's Brownfields Rede-
velopment Program), or the need to address
                                       11

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 health risks due to water quality problems—
 CBEP serves as an organizing principle to better
 integrate environmental initiatives.

 Natural Resources of National
 Significance

 The United States is fortunate to have many
 natural resources of national and even interna-
 tional significance. These resources, when
 threatened, receive priority consideration for
 direct EPA involvement in CBEP efforts. Two
 examples of stressed natural resources where
 EPA is directly involved in place-based work are
 described in this section. The first is the Middle
 Platte River watershed in south-central Ne-
 braska, renowned as the staging area for half a
 million migrating sandhill cranes and several
 million migrating ducks and geese each year. The
 river  and the biological diversity of the water-
 shed, which depends on a complex web of
 interdependent habitats, are endangered by
 multiple stressors and competing uses of re-
 sources. (See adjoining box .) The second case is
 the ecologically rich Everglades ecosystem in
 South Florida. Decades of drainage and
 channelization have halved the area of the South
 Florida Everglades, and current restoration
 efforts could be undercut if present urban sprawl
 trends continue. (See box on pages 14-15.)

 Areas That Cross State Boundaries

 Areas that cross state boundaries but need
 holistic consideration as integral ecological
 systems are also priority places for possible
 direct EPA involvement. This does not mean, of
 course, that all transboundary ecosystems
 automatically become sites for EPA's direct
 involvement as a leader or partner in place-based
work. For example, one of the largest
transboundary ecosystems in the United States is
the Great Plains ecosystem, which extends across
several states, the tribal lands of more than 60
Native American tribes, three Canadian prov-
inces, and portions of Mexico. Rather than direct
place-based involvement, EPA is supporting
CBEP in the Great Plains primarily through a
comprehensive information-sharing and capac-
ity-building project called the Great Plains
Project (see Section 3, page 32).
                                                        NATURAL RESOURCES OF
Middle Platte River
Watershed

As the Platte River flows eastward
across central Nebraska, it provides
water for agricultural irrigation,
electric power production, and
recreation, as well as community and
industrial uses. It also provides
important habitat for fish and
wildlife. The Middle Platte watershed
has hemispherical significance as a
stopover point for spectacular
numbers of migrating birds.  It is the
major staging area for 500,000
sandhill cranes and  several million
ducks, geese, and other birds that
migrate annually through the area.
Many other species  of mammals,
birds, and fish—including several
endangered or threatened fish and
bird species (such as the whooping
crane, bald eagle, and peregrine
falcon)—use the water, woodlands,
remaining native grasslands, and wet
meadows in the Middle Platte River
valley. The area is a virtual mosaic of
interdependent habitats that support
diverse biological communities.
Surface and groundwater flows from
this segment of the Platte River
system are also important to the
economic stability of central Ne-
braska, irrigating about 2 million
acres of land, primarily for corn
production.
  The Middle Platte River watershed
has been significantly transformed
over the last century. In addition to
irrigation and other water withdraw-
als, dams in Colorado, Wyoming, and
Nebraska have reduced the volume
and variability of water flows to the
middle segment of the Platte River.
Agriculture has replaced most of the
native prairie and indigenous river-
dependent vegetation. Reductions in
quality and quantity of water and
habitat have prompted concern for
the welfare of the sandhill crane,
other migratory bird populations,
and threatened and  endangered fish
and bird species.
                                      12

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NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
     For decades, efforts to protect this
   south-central Nebraska watershed
   have been inhibited by controversies
   over the proper uses of its resources
   together with jurisdictional, financial,
   and technical obstacles. Agricultural,
   urban, industrial, and environmental
   interests have frequently clashed in
   disputes over water allocations and
   resource uses,
     EPA is working in the Middle Platte
   River subbasin to analyze the stres-
   sors and resulting ecological effects in
   the watershed and to promote
   community awareness of watershed-
   related issues. With the participation
   of many state, federal, and locally
   based partners, the Agency is con-
   ducting an ecological risk assessment
   to evaluate the following key stres-
   sors and their effects in the region:
   * Changes in the magnitude, timing,
   and frequency of Middle Platte River
   flows

   * Loss or disturbance of critical
   wildlife habitat

   » Changes in stream channel charac-
   teristics

   * Degraded water quality due to
   agriculture-related activities.
    A whooping
   crane readies
       for flight.
    Photo courtesy of
   Nebraska Gam 6 and
   Parks Commission.
  The results of the risk assessment
will provide a foundation for strategic
resource management by providing
key information to resource managers,
so they can make environmentally
knowledgeable decisions. Through
studies and surveys, EPA and its
partners are working to assess some
of the social, cultural, and economic
links between the ecologically rich
resources of the Middle Platte and the
local communities.
   Middle Platte Subbasin in Nebraska
  Continued economic development in
the central Platte River valley is
essential to maintaining local and
regional prosperity. Agriculture will
continue as a mainstay in the region.
In addition, there is potential for
economic benefit to the watershed
from resource-dependent recreational
tourism, namely wildlife watching. In
response to an EPA-sponsored survey,
visitors who traveled to the Platte
valley to observe the migrating birds
indicated that they were very satisfied
with their experiences. Many said
they would return to the area to watch
wildlife again. These survey results are
preliminary. Additional recreation
surveys will be conducted in order to
profile existing and potential links
between the local economy and the
region's ecological resources. If these
links are widely recognized by com-
munity stakeholders, they are more
likely to be reflected in long-term
resource management strategies for
the watershed.
                                                                          EPA Region 7 contact: Robert Fenemore at
                                                                          913 551-7745 (phone) or
                                                                          FENEMORE.ROBERT@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-mail).
                                                           13

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   Two examples of transboundary areas where
 EPA is more directly involved on an ongoing
 basis are Southern Appalachia, where there are
 extensive federal lands (see box on pages 16-17),
 and Long Island Sound, which is part of the
 National Estuary Program (see box on page 18).
 In addition to being a transboundary area, the
 Southern Appalachians have also been desig-
 nated by the United Nations as one of the
 world's finest remaining ecological systems.

 Areas of Exceptional Risk
 Another category of places that are priority
 candidates for direct EPA involvement includes
 areas where there may be exceptional risk to
 human health or the environment, or to both.
 Such areas would include, for example, water-
 sheds with high PCB contamination in sedi-
 ments, areas subject to advisories against fish
 consumption, or ecosystems at particular risk of
 collapse. An ecosystem may be at risk of collapse
 due to extreme stresses such as extensive habitat
 losses or severe disruption of key processes such
 as the cycle of nutrients.
  The particular examples presented in this
 section are the Biologically Integrated Orchard
Systems (BIOS) Project in Central California, and
ongoing CBEP work in the Coeur d'Alene River
basin in Idaho. The BIOS Project began after
widespread toxic effects were seen in sensitive
"indicator species" in California rivers, raising
concerns about chemicals used in Central Valley
agriculture and their effects on local ecosystems
and human health. (See box on page 19.) In the
Coeur d'Alene River basin—where decades of
mining activities have left a legacy of toxic metal
contamination that threatens the area's ecosys-
tems and presents significant health  risks—the
CBEP approach is being used to develop a plan
for ecosystem management.  (See box on page 20.)
                                                        NATURAL RESOURCES OF
 South Florida and the
 Everglades

 The once-vast South Florida Ever-
 glades ecosystem has been reduced to
 half its original area due to years of
 channelization and  drainage. Efforts to
 protect and restore the Everglades have
 been under way for several years, and
 as of December 1996, a consensus-
 driven plan for Everglades restoration
 was approved and sent to Congress.
 However, what now remains of this
 fragile and ecologically rich ecosystem
 is still at risk from the  consequences of
 urban sprawl and a  population
 growing so fast that it  is expected to
 triple in the next 50  years.
  In 1996, following three years' work,
 the Governor's Commission for a
 Sustainable South Florida, the Federal
 Everglades Restoration Task Force,
 state and local governments, and
 private sector and public interests
 reached a consensus agreement on a
 comprehensive Everglades restoration


Everglades Ecosystem
16 County Region
Eastward Ho! Study Area
  Agricultural Area

    CZI3
 Conservation Area
                                     H

-------
NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
  plan, called the Central and South
  Florida Project Comprehensive
  Review Study ("Restudy" for short).
  The plan, which began implementa-
  tion in January 1997, includes a
  "modified water deliveries" compo-
  nent, the purpose of which is to
  restore more natural water flows in
  the Shark River Slough and else-
  where. The plan also provides for
  creation of a buffer area between
  agricultural lands to the east and
  Taylor Slough to the west; among
  other things, the buffer zone will
  maintain flood control for remaining
  agricultural land to the east, maintain
  higher water levels in lands adjacent
  to Taylor Slough, and eliminate
  damaging freshwater flows into
  Manatee Bay and Barnes Sound. Also,
  Everglades National Park will be
  expanded to include 107,600 acres of
  what is now known as the "East
  Everglades."
   If South  Florida's current trends
  toward urban sprawl continue—
  accelerated by rapid population
  growth—current Everglades restora-
  tion work could be undermined.
  Therefore, EPA is working with other
        Visitors at Corkscrew swamp in
                       the Everglades.
            Photo courtesy of Florida Department of
                 Commerce, Division of Tourism.
                                        Great White Heron, South
                                        Florida Everglades.
                                        Photo courtesy of Florida Department of
                                        Commerce, Division of Tourism.
federal agencies, the state of Florida,
and local governments, in an initia-
tive called "Eastward Ho!", to redirect
future settlement patterns. The
objective is to direct development
away from Southeast Florida's
remaining environmentally sensitive
prime water resources and agricul-
tural lands into partially developed
areas that were either passed over or
underutilized for development, or
into previously developed areas that
were allowed to deteriorate. The
Eastward Ho! urban corridor is 85
miles long and includes Palm Beach,
Broward, and Dade counties.
  The Florida Department of Com-
munity Affairs (DCA) is the lead state
agency for the urban component of
Everglades restoration efforts. The
Florida DCA has requested EPA's
assistance in key areas including
Brownfields, transportation, fiscal
impact analysis, and public participa-
tion. In order to move forward, the
South Florida partners also need
assistance in enlisting the participa-
tion of other federal agencies with
  applicable authorities to help restore
  the "human ecosystem," the cities and
  communities. EPA has detailed a
  senior-level employee to the area to
  work with the Florida DCA, the
  Governor's Commission, and the
  Federal Everglades Restoration Task
  Force to build federal connections and
  local capacity to address urban issues
  that affect the Everglades.
   The Eastward Ho! challenge is
  multi-faceted: to promote revitalized,
  livable communities where citizens
  can enjoy quality education, safe
  neighborhoods, jobs with opportunity,
  viable transportation options, and
  equitable environmental quality—in
  short, to achieve sustainability in
  central and south Florida. As a
  cornerstone of sustain- ability efforts,
  EPA is working to build the Eastward
  Ho! Brownfields Partnership, which
  will work together to achieve the
  Eastward Ho! vision through the
  coordinated efforts of federal agen-
  cies, state and local governments, and
  community stakeholders.
EPA contacts: Elisabeth LaRoe in South
Florida at 305 348-1659 (phone) or
LAROE.ELISABETH@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-mail);
Karen Metchis at EPA headquarters
at 202 260-7069 (phone) or
METCHIS.KAREN@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e mail).
                                                           15

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 CBEP and Environmental Justice

 On February 11,1994, President Clinton signed an
 Executive Order concerning environmental justice
 that reads as follows:
   To the greatest extent practicable and permit-
   ted by law, and consistent with the principles
   set forth in the report on the National Perfor-
   mance Review, each Federal agency shall make
   achieving environmental justice part of its
   mission by identifying and addressing, as
   appropriate, disproportionately high and
   adverse human health or environmental effects
   of its program, policies, and activities on
   minority populations and low-income popula-
   tions in the United States and its territories and
   possessions, the District of Columbia, the
   Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the
   Commonwealth of the Mariana islands....
   Because environmental justice issues are nearly
 always place-based or community-based, CBEP is
 particularly appropriate as a method of addressing
 environmental justice issues that may slip through
 the cracks of the nation's baseline environmental
 protection programs.
   Two communities where EPA is directly involved
 in CBEP efforts where environmental justice issues
 are predominant are the South Bronx in New York
 City and metropolitan East St. Louis.  (See boxes on
 pages 21 and 22-23.)
Integrating EPA Program Efforts
Through CBEP
Early CBEP progress reports indicate tangible
benefits where EPA's involvement in an area or
community has evolved from a focus on a single
facility or source of pollution, to a more holistic,
community-based approach.  In such cases, CBEP
operates as an organizing principle that unifies
initiatives under separate environmental laws and
EPA programs—such as clean drinking water
requirements, solid waste (trash) disposal  require-
ments, wastewater treatment standards, clean air
standards, or pesticide regulation.
  One example of a community where EPA first
became involved in a limited way, through prelimi-
nary site assessment activities on an abandoned
industrial site, and then began working in a collabo-
rative relationship with residents and state and local
officials to address a panoply of related environ-
     AREAS THAT CROSS
 A Vision for Southern
 Appalachia
The recently completed Southern
Appalachian Assessment (SAA), a
multi-agency project co-led by EPA
Region 4 and the U.S. Forest Service,
is the ecological equivalent of a
thorough medical checkup for the
ecosystem known as the Southern
Appalachians.  This vast ecological
"community" covers some 37.4
million acres of mountains, foothills,
and valleys stretching from northern
Virginia and eastern West Virginia to
northwestern South Carolina,
northern Georgia, and northern
Alabama. The original impetus for
the project was the need for high-
quality data to support forest
management planning in this
internationally recognized
bioreserve, but SAA results will have
broad applications in community-
based efforts.
  During the 20th century, the
Southern Appalachians have experi-
enced dramatic changes. In the early
1900s, land management practices
routinely destroyed the area's natural
resources.  The  consequences in-
cluded rapidly eroding cropland and
pasture, heavily logged forest in
which little of value remained—and
an exodus of people looking to find
better opportunities in a more
hospitable environment.
  Toward mid-century, the nation
took steps to restore and conserve the
natural resources of the Southern
Appalachians. National forests were
created to protect the headwaters of
major rivers in the Southeast from
land uses that encourage flooding,
erosion, and stream sedimentation.
The Great Smoky Mountains and
Shenandoah National parks were
established to preserve certain
special places in the Southern
Appalachians. Due to efforts such as
these, the area regained esteem as a
                                      16

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STATE BOUNDARIES
   desirable place to live or to spend
   recreation time. As the 21st century
   approaches, however, human develop-
   ment pressures are again taking a toll.
     As a significant step toward sustain-
   able resource management in Southern
   Appalachia, the SAA—which began
   in the summer of 1994 and was com-
   pleted in May 1996—meets a need for
   more comprehensive and scientifically
   credible data to support sustainable
   decision making. The assessment does
   not recommend particular solutions to
   particular problems; rather, its pur-
   pose was to provide the best informa-
   tion available for a productive public
   discussion of identified problems. It
   also identifies data limitations that
   warrant attention in the future. The
   cross-agency team adopted the
   foliowing vision statement:
     Our vision for the Southern Appala-
     chian region is an environment for
     natural resources management that
     applies the best available knowledge
     about the land, air, water, and people
     of the region. Applied on public lands,
     this knowledge would provide a
     sustainable balance among biological
     diversity, economic uses, and cultural
     values. All would be achieved through
     information gathering and sharing,
     integrated assessments, and
     demonstration projects.
     Public participation was an impor-
   tant part of the SAA. In 1994, public
   meetings were held in the SAA study
   area to solicit public concerns about
   specific issues. Based on these con-
   cerns, questions were formed that
   directed the work of the four technical
   teams formed to assess major resource
   groups: terrestrial, atmospheric,
   aquatic, and social/cultural/eco-
   nomic.
     Although the assessment reveals no
   major crises, some of its findings are
   worrisome. Forest pests are causing
   some serious damage, particularly in
   northern Virginia. Ecological changes
   are occurring in the region's forests.
   Pollution has made some streams
       Southern Appalachian Assessment Area
   Alaba
unsuitable for human use.  Acidity has
significantly affected water quality
and fish species in certain streams.
Human development pressures are
causing serious effects on natural
resources around the region's cities,
and conflicts over uses of the area's
natural resources are brewing.
  On the other hand, the assessment
highlights some ecological treasures,
such as an extraordinarily high level
of species diversity in the Southern
Appalachians, particularly in the
aquatic arena.   The findings of the
SAA are available in a series of five
publications:  a Summary Report and
four technical reports covering forest
health, air quality, aquatic environ-
ments, and social/cultural/economic
history (available from the National
Forests of North Carolina at 704 257-
4200).  SAA results are also accessible
on three Internet sites:
» SAMAB homepage: http://
www.lib.utk.edu/samab
* U.S. Forest Service homepage;
http: / / www.ffs.fed .us
* Info South homepage: http://
www.fs.libs.uga.edu

  EPA's Region 4 office has devel-
oped a Geographic Information
System (CIS) demonstration tool
based on SAA data, together with a
reference guide on the use of GIS
analysis in a project area. Also
building on SAA findings, a pilot
assessment and restoration project
has been launched in the Hiwassee
River Basin, as a cooperative effort
among several agencies.

EPA Region 4 contact: Cory Berish at
404 562-8276 or
BERISH.CORY@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-mail).
                                                          17

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                  mental and economic issues is Henryetta,
                  Oklahoma. Henryetta is a small town in
                  Okmulgee County which has begun to rebound
                  from a series of environmental and economic
                  problems.  Henryetta appears to be on its way
                  to becoming a revitalized community, thanks to
                  coordinated efforts that could not have come
                  together without a community-based frame-
                  work. (See box on pages 24-25).
                     Another example of CBEP where EPA
                  programs have been addressing seemingly
                      disparate environmental issues is the highly
                      urbanized metropolitan area of Providence,
                      Rhode Island, which includes a disadvantaged
                      community among its population. As Providence
                      and other examples illustrate, integrating envi-
                      ronmental efforts is a necessary step for the kind
                      of coordinated results needed to move a commu-
                      nity toward a sustainable future in the face of
                      existing disadvantages. (See box on page 26.) In
                      this respect, Providence is not unlike many inner-
                      city communities. Q
AREAS THAT CROSS  STATE BOUNDARIES
   Long Island Sound:
   Testing Watershed
   Innovations

   Several states contribute to the drainage
   basin of Long Island Sound, including
   New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachu-
   setts, New York, and Connecticut. The
   sound's 16,000-square-mile watershed
   also extends into Canada. Under the
   National Estuary Program (NEP), New
   York and Connecticut share resource-
   management responsibility for Long
   Island Sound with two EPA regions:
   Region 1 (New England) and Region 2
   (headquartered in New York City).
   Through the stakeholder-based NEP
   process, a Comprehensive Conservation
   and Management Plan (CCMP) was
   developed and subsequently approved
   by EPA, New York, and Connecticut in
   September 1994.
     The CCMP identified several priority
   problems in Long Island Sound: low
   dissolved oxygen in the water as a
   result of excess nutrient loads  (espe-
   cially nitrogen), toxic contamination,
   pathogen contamination, floatable
   debris, diminished water quality, and
   natural habitat degradation and loss,
   and adverse impacts on living resources
   as a consequence of water quality
   problems and habitat degradation.
     Although much work remains to be
   done, progress has been made on
   several fronts.  For example, nitrogen
   loads to the estuary have been reduced
   5,000 pounds per day below 1990
   baseline levels; sewage treatment
retrofit projects have been completed
or are under way at a number of
sewage plants; a new denitrification
plant is on line in Connecticut; and in
both Connecticut and New York,
increased funds have been targeted
to reducing nitrogen runoff into Long
Island Sound.
  In addition to efforts already under
way under the umbrella of the Long
Island Sound CCMP, EPA, the
Natural Resource Conservation
Service (NRCS), and the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service (FWS) have
recently formed a partnership to
address land-use issues on a water-
shed basis. The first initiative under
 this new partnership is the Norwalk
 River Watershed effort, which will
 serve as a test model for more
 comprehensive watershed manage-
 ment in the Long Island Sound
 watershed. EPA, the NRCS, and the
 FWS are working together with the
 Connecticut Department of Environ-
 mental Protection, the Westchester
 County Department of Planning, the
 Connecticut municipalities of
 Norwalk, Wilton, New Canaan,
 Redding, Weston, and Ridgefield,
 and the New York municipality of
 Lewisboro to develop and implement
 a watershed management plan for
 this coastal drainage basin, which
 has been identified as contributing to
 the problem of low dissolved oxygen
 in the western part of the sound. The
 Norwalk River watershed has a mix
 of environmental issues—including
 chronic flooding, historical habitat
 degradation and destruction, and
 ongoing water quality problems—
 that make it a useful model for
 testing comprehensive watershed
 planning in the larger watershed of
 Long Island Sound.
  The Norwalk partnership is
 considering a range of innovative
 options for protecting flood-prone
 areas and restoring water quality and
 fish and wildlife habitat, including
 expanded open spaces and more
 recreational use  opportunities.

EPA contact (Long Island Sound Office):
Carolyn Hughes at 203 977-1541 (phone) or
HUGHES.CAROLYN@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-mail).
                                                  18

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AREAS OF EXCEPTIONAL RISK
   The Biologically

   Integrated Orchard
   Systems (BIOS)

   Project—Central
   California

   The Biologically Integrated Orchard
   Systems (BIOS) project is an innova-
   tive, agricultural pollution-preven-
   tion program in the heart of the
   world's richest agricultural region,
   California's Central Valley. In a broad
   collaboration between California's
   $900 million almond industry,
   nonprofit organizations, farmers,
   private foundations, state agencies
   and EPA, the BIOS program takes an
   innovative approach to addressing
   widespread findings of acute toxic
   effects in central California rivers.
   The toxicity was traced to organo-
   phosphate pesticides blown by winter
   storms from Central Valley Orchards.
     Rather than focusing on traditional
   modes of managing and regulating
   farm chemicals, the BIOS project
   reflects the kind of farming systems
   approach recommended by the
   National Research Council in 1993,
   which recognizes the inherent links
   between farm system components,
   such as tillage practices, nutrient
   applications, water uses, and pest
   management practices.
     Under the farming systems
   approach, a farm is managed as a
   biological system, taking into account
   multiple environmental impacts.
   Supported by a grant from EPA
   Region 9's Central Valley Agriculture
   Initiative, a grassroots organization—
   the Community Alliance with Family
   Fanners—manages the BIOS project
   on site.
     Working with growers of almonds
   and walnuts, which represent a
   billion dollar-plus industry in
   California, the BIOS Project promotes
   farm plans that replace chemical
   inputs with biologically intensive
   pest control, nutrient enrichment, and
   soil management systems. Farmers
   are offered financial and technical
   incentives to join the BIOS project,
 including technical
 assistance in developing
 a comprehensive farm
 transition plan tailored to
 the needs of a particular
 grower.  BIOS farmers use a
 system of pollution-prevention
 practices, adapted to their
 particular needs. Most of these
 practices are biologically based,
 such as the following:

 • Biologically intensive  integrated
 pest management (DPM)

 * Soil building with composting and
 cover cropping

 * Cover cropping with nitrogen-
 fixing legumes

 * Water quality testing for back-
 ground nitrogen levels

 » Perennial insectary plantings

 • Habitat maintenance for raptors
 (birds of prey), for rodent control.

  To date, participating farmers,
 representing 1,000 acres of farmland
 in the Central Valley, have achieved
 the following results:

 * Reduced and/or eliminated use of
 pesticides known to be contaminating
 ground water, surface water, and air

 • Reduced use of synthetic nitrogen

 * Eliminated open-air burning of
orchard pruning debris

 * Enhanced soil quality.

Through reductions in chemical use
and the elimination of open-air
burning, the BIOS Project is reducing
contaminants in all environmental
media—water, air, and land—in the
         Agricultural
           consultant
  Steve Foiada confers
         with almond
       growers Diane
  Goodman and John
    Lagier concerning
  cover cropping, one
      of the practices
      being promoted
  by the BIOS Project.
  Mam'i Kate photo. Nut Grower
             magazine.
                                                      19
 Central Valley Because minority
 farmworkers and low-income rural
 workers have been disproportion-
 ately exposed to the toxic contamina-
 tion that gave impetus to the BIOS
 project, the environmental gains
 being made include gains in environ-
 mental justice.
  Through the recent passage of
 California Assembly Bill 3383 (the
 "BIOS Bill"), the BIOS model will be
 extended to five additional commodi-
 ties throughout California.

EPA Region 9 contacts:
Paul Feder at 415 744-2010 (phone) or
FEDER.PAUL® EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-mail)
and Tim Hatten at 415 744-1983 (phone) or
HATTEN.TIM@EPAMA1L.EPA.GOV (e-mail).

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AREAS OF EXCEPTIONAL RISK
  A Future for the
  Couer d'Alene River
  Watershed

  Over the years, mining and ore
  processing activities in the South
  Fork of Coeur d' Alene River
  drainage area in Idaho produced
  approximately 104 million metric
  tons of trace element-enriched
  tailings. Approximately 65 million
  metric tons of the tailings were
  discharged directly into the river.
  These toxic discharges represent
  significant risks to human health
  and to aquatic and terrestrial
  ecosystem in the Coeur d'Alene
  watershed.  In addition, oxygen
  depletion (caused by the presence
  of excess nutrients in lake water)
  threatens to release toxic heavy
  metals trapped in the sediments of
  Lake Coeur d'Alene, also as a result
  of earlier mining activities.
    Of particular concern are the
  elevated blood  lead levels in
  children and adults in the area and
  the failure of local water bodies to
  support designated uses. Other
  environmental effects also are
  widespread, including soil erosion,
  destabilized stream banks, losses of
  habitat, and nutrient enrichment
  from polluted runoff.
    EPA Region 10 began using a
  community-based approach in the
  Coeur d'Alene basin in 1996 and
  will be working with stakeholders
  and partners to develop a compre-
  hensive Ecosystem Management
                 Coeur d'Alena
                 Basin
Plan for the watershed. The follow-
ing long-term environmental goals
have been set;

• Reduce blood lead levels in
children to less than levels sug-
gested by the Center for Disease
Control

* Restore and maintain water bodies
to fully support their intended uses

* Ensure environmental monitoring
and data management systems are
adequate to support overall environ-
mental management activities for
the basin

• Develop a Strategic Ecosystem
Management Plan that guides
environmental management activi-
ties in the basin.

  The following are long-term
measures, or environmental indica-
tors, for use in gauging progress
toward the health and environmen-
tal goals cited above:
* Trends in blood lead levels of
study participants (outside the
Bunker Hill remedial site)

• Trends in chemical water quality
compared to Water Quality Stan-
dards Criteria at reference locations
in the basin

* Trends in number of water bodies
formally designated  as "impaired"

• Number of water bodies in the
basin assessed for whether they can
support healthy aquatic ecosystems

• Normalized number/percent of
assessed water bodies that support
healthy aquatic ecosystems

* Improvements in the long-term
quality of ground and surface-
water quality as monitored both
uphill and downhill from mine waste
repositories

• Compliance by operating mine
sites with an approved "Operation
and Maintenance Plan"

* Periodic surveys of users' satisfac-
tion levels with the quality and
quantity (and accessibility and
usability) of environmental monitor-
ing data and information concerning
the Coeur d'Alene basin.

* Adoption and implementation of
an Ecosystem Management Plan by
all stakeholders in the basin.

EPA Region 10 contact: Earl Uverman at
208 664-4858 (phone) or
LIVERMAN.EARLeEPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
(e-mail).
                                                20

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CBEP AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
  CBEP in
  the South Bronx:
  An Open Forum for
  Environmental
  Justice Concerns

  In the South Bronx, located in one
  of New York City's five Boroughs,
  EPA, along with city and state
  agencies, is using a community-
  and partnership-based process to
  address citizens'  concerns about
  environmental problems and to
  respond in a timely way to wide-
  ranging questions and issues they
  have raised about the mixed
  industrial-residential area where
  they live.
    Of particular concern to South
  Bronx residents are the many waste
  handling facilities in their commu-
  nity. These include solid waste
  transfer stations, a municipal
  wastewater treatment plant, and a
  sewage sludge treatment plant—all
  of which residents believe contrib-
  ute to odors and health problems in
  their neighborhoods.  Residents
  have complained that the odors
  compromise their quality of life.
  They have also expressed concerns
  about air pollution and its possible
  effect on health.
    Asthma is a major public health
  concern in the South Bronx.
  Residents have a higher rate of
  asthma than in other areas of New
  York City, which itself has one of
  the highest asthma rates in the
  United States. Some residents  of the
  Hunts Point community in the
  South Bronx believe that emissions
  from the nearby waste facilities are
  a significant cause of the high  rate
  of asthma.
    As a starting point, EPA and the
  New York State Department of
  Environmental Conservation (state
  DEC), the New York City Depart-
  ment of Environmental Protection
  (city DEP), and the New York City
  Department of Sanitation (city
DOS) conducted more than 350
compliance inspections in 1994.
Included were the waste handling
facilities noted by the community.
Where any noncompliance was
found, appropriate enforcement
actions were initiated.
  To address citizens' concerns about
odors, the city DEP and state DEC
have worked with the operators of
both the privately owned New York
Organic Fertilizer Company
(NYOFCo) and the city-
operated Hunts Point Water Pollu-
tion Control Plant to improve
operations. In response to a city DEP
enforcement order to NYOFCo to
conduct an odor assessment and
make improvements in its opera-
tions, the fertilizer company hired a
consultant to investigate methods to
further reduce odor releases. An
operational problem found at
NYOFCo involved the maintenance
of negative air pressure.  The com-
pany upgraded its operations in
March 1996, at a  cost of $2 million.
Since then, say residents, the inci-
dence of odors has been reduced
significantly.
  In April 1996, EPA inspected the
Hunts Point sewage treatment plant
and the surrounding neighborhood.
EPA identified several potential
     South Bronx
   residents have
        multiple
        concerns
      about their
      community
    Environment.
       Photo by David
     Valdu, eourtwy of
     U.S. Department of
    Housing and Urban
       Development
sources of odors within the facility,
and recommended changes in
procedures for maintaining negative
air pressure and managing treatment
tanks. These changes, together with
upgrades made by the city DEP
involving its sludge dewatering
building and existing odor-control
systems, have resulted in dramati-
cally reduced odors. Upgrades at the
facility are ongoing, with continuing
oversight by EPA and the state DEC.
  As part of its work with the New
York City Department of Health (city
DOH) and the New York State
Department of Health (state DOH) to
study and address asthma in the
South Bronx, EPA conducted an in-
depth review of existing scientific
literature and medical research. The
prevalence and severity of asthma
have risen dramatically worldwide
over the past several decades, with
the greatest  reported increase among
children in minority and low-income
communities. While scientists and
doctors do not completely under-
stand the reasons for this trend, they
suspect that asthma is the result of
multiple factors, including poor
access to medical care, stress, hered-
              (Continued on page 22)
                                                     21

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                                                                                CBEP AND
(South Bronx continued)
ity, and both outdoor and indoor air pollution. For
this reason, the problem of asthma in the South
Bronx is being addressed on several fronts concur-
rently:
• EPA and the state DEC have monitored ambient
air in the South Bronx to compare pollutant levels
with those in other areas of New York City where
asthma rates are lower.  Pollutant levels were not
found to be higher in the South Bronx than other
parts of the city. However, the federal Agency for
Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is
funding a state DOH study of ambient air quality
and asthma hospital admissions in the South Bronx
and northern Manhattan to look for any relation-
ship between asthma and ambient air quality in
these areas which, although geographically similar,
have different asthma rates.
* Since indoor air pollution has been widely
reported to contribute to asthma attacks, EPA has
awarded grants totaling $235,000 for investigatory
studies on indoor air pollutants and  outreach and
training on asthma management and control of
potential asthma triggers in the home. Rutgers
University, the American Lung Association, the
state DOH, and Columbia University are grant
recipients.
• The city DOH is conducting a $375,000 childhood
health promotion initiative in the South Bronx,
sponsoring free asthma  clinics citywide and
training more than 100 school nurses to teach
children how to avoid asthma triggers and manage
their condition.
  Education and community outreach are impor-
tant to ongoing work in the South Bronx.  Under its
Community University  Partnership environmental
justice grant program, EPA has awarded $375,000 to
the Hostos College Center for a Sustainable Urban
Environment to support development of a geo-
graphic information system (GIS) incorporating
regional environmental, health, and demographic
data to be shared with local hospitals, community
boards, and libraries. The grant also supported
public outreach seminars on  environment and
health. EPA staff regularly exchange information
with Hunts Point community representatives and
attend monthly community board meetings. EPA
has established an information repository at the
Hunts Point Community Board 1 office.

EPA Project Coordinators; Leonard Grossman at 212 637-4153
or GROSSMAN.LENNY«EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-mail); Irene Purdy
at 212 637-4176 or PURDY.1RENE@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-mail).
East St.  Louis, Illinois:
The Gateway
Initiative

The Gateway Initiative is a commu-
nity-based effort focusing on 18
communities in metropolitan East St.
Louis, many of which have environ-
mental justice problems. More than
70 industrial facilities, including oil
refineries, chemical companies, a
steel mill, a commercial hazardous
waste incinerator, five active or
closed hazardous waste landfills, and
copper, lead, and zinc smelters lie in
this 60-square mile area on the
eastern flood plain of the Mississippi
River. The metropolitan area does
not meet health-related air quality
standards for ozone and lead;
ambient air concentrations for
cadmium are among the highest in
the country. In addition, citizens of
underserved communities in metro-
politan East Louis have deep con-
cerns about the prevalence of illegal
dumping, open burning, abandoned
and deteriorating houses, and
persistent flooding.
  The goals of the Gateway Initiative
are to improve the quality of life and
protect the natural resources of these
communities while building sustain-
                                       22

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ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
  able public involvement in local
  environmental issues. EPA is
  furthering these goals by building
  partnerships with other agencies, by
  awarding grants to develop environ-
  mental stewardship at the local
  level, and by offering education and
  opportunities for increased public
  involvement. In addition to EPA,
  Gateway Initiative partners include
  the Department of Housing and
  Urban Development, the U.S. Army
  Corps of Engineers, the Illinois EPA,
  the Illinois Department of Public
  Health, the University of Illinois,
  several local agencies, and numer-
  ous neighborhood organizations.  In
  fiscal year 1996, more than $300,000
  in grants supported environmental
  activities by local groups such as
  New Spirit Neighborhood Organiza-
  tion, Neighbors United for Progress,
  Project HOPE, Stop Pollution in
  Illinois, Clean Sites, East St. Louis
  Community Action Network, the
  American Lung Association, and the
  St. Clair Sheriff's Department.
   Metropolitan East St. Louis has
  made great strides through leverag-
ing of resources. The following
progress can be attributed to the
synergy and partnerships generated
by the Gateway Initiative:
• More than 17,000 illegally dumped
tires from at least five communities
have been collected and shredded for
use as fuel supplement by local
plants.
• Twenty of the 1,800 abandoned
and derelict structures in East St.
Louis have been demolished, funded
by a $20,000 donation from
Monsanto to a neighborhood organi-
zation. Demolition of 66 more
structures was sped up significantly
as a result of involvement by East St.
Louis Community Action Network,
an EPA grantee.
• Community gardens have been
sampled for heavy metals of concern
to the community (lead, cadmium,
arsenic). Most came up clean.
Information on ways to reduce
exposure to these metals in gardens
with elevated levels has been shared
with neighborhood groups.
 • Site assessment work was done at
20 abandoned sites in East St. Louis
at the request of the community. The
majority do not appear to be con-
taminated. However, one—-an old
lead smelter—warranted off-site
sampling. The results of the site
assessments and sampling have been
made available to the economic
redevelopment office in East St.
Louis and will be communicated to
the general public in a newsletter this
summer.
• Grants and  training initiatives
have been developed for the purpose
of capacity-building (see Section 3) in
East Louis citizens. Grant-sponsored
projects include lead-abatement
training provided by St. Louis
University to nonprofit organizations
like Habitat for Humanity, a new
environmental crimes unit in the
County Sheriff's Office, and a grants-
writing workshop held in summer
1996 for community leaders.

EPA Region 5 contact: Karen Lumino,
Gateway Initiative Team Manager, at 312
886-0981 or
LUMINO.KAREN@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV.
        Illegally
 dumped tires in
   East St. Louis
   communities
     have been
   collected and
   shredded for
    use as a fuel
 supplement by
    local plants.
  Karen Lumino photo,
            EPA.
                                                        23

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INTEGRATING EPA PROGRAM EFFORTS THROUGH CBEP
   Pulling Together in
   Henryetta, Oklahoma

   Although it has had its share of
   environmental and economic set-
   backs, Henryetta, Oklahoma—
   located about 60 miles south of Tulsa
   and 80 miles east of Oklahoma
   City—is actively building its own
   sustainable future. In, doing so, this
   municipality of 6,200 has sought and
   received help from EPA and other
   federal and state agencies, which
   have formed a working partnership
   to help Henryetta help itself.
    From 1916 to 1968, Eagle-Picher
   Mining and Smelting, Inc. operated a
   lead and zinc smelter on 70 acres of
   land on the northeast side of
   Henryetta. Over SQ-plus years,
   smelter emissions contaminated the
   surrounding area with lead and other
   metals. Local people unknowingly
   spread the contamination  by using
   spoils piles, which had been left at
   the abandoned site, for fill dirt in
   construction projects, such as
   driveways, in Henryetta and nearby
   Dewar. When Eagle-Picher closed
   the facility in 1968, it donated the 70
   acres to Henryetta for industrial
   development. However, it turned
   out that after several decades,
   smelter operations had left an
   environmental legacy that hindered
   commercial redevelopment.
    Faced with significant environmen-
   tal problems/diminished economic
   prospects, and limited local financial
   and technical resources, community
   officials sought aid from the Okla-
   homa Department of Environmental
   Quality (DEQ) and, through DEQ,
   from EPA's Region 6 (Dallas) office.
   A once-adversarial relationship with
   government officials (over wastewa-
   ter compliance problems) was
   replaced by a cooperative partner-
 ship able to bring leveraged re-
 sources to bear on the contamination.
  The Eagle Picher site is not a full-
 scale "Superfund site" (an aban-
 doned hazardous waste site that
 poses an imminent and substantial
 threat to public health and the
 environment, as specified under the
 Comprehensive Emergency Re-
 sponse, Compensation and Liability
 Act), However, when soil contami-
 nation by heavy metals (arsenic,
 cadmium, lead, and zinc) was
 confirmed by laboratory analyses,
 the site did qualify for emergency


      Henastta
approach. In November 1995,
technical experts began analyzing all
aspects of the environmental infra-
structure, identifying specific
problems, and setting priorities for
action. In short, they concluded that
existing infrastructure deficiencies
(not just contamination at the Eagle-
Picher site) could undermine future
development.  As the wider prob-
lems of the community came into
perspective, the working partnership
expanded to include not only
Henryetta officials, DEQ, and EPA,
but also the Oklahoma Water Re-
     Daily  Free-Lance
                  Agencies Join to Help Henryetta
                           Participants Pleased with Accomplishments
                                  "
removal and remediation assistance
by EPA. In August 1995, EPA,
working with the state DEQ, con-
ducted preliminary site assessment
activities on the former Eagle-Picher
site and the cleanup phase of the
work was kicked off with a public
ceremony on September 18,1996.
EPA's sponsorship of the cleanup
through its Superfund program has
been augmented by state and local
funds—and a local citizen's donation
of soil cap material  needed for the
site once cleanup is complete.
  But the Eagle-Picher site cleanup is
not the whole story. While work at
the former smelter site was still at the
assessment stage, the community-
based collaborations prompted the
partnership to assess overall environ-
mental conditions in Henryetta,
taking a holistic, community-based
sources Board, the University of
Oklahoma, the Bureau of Reclama-
tion, the Natural Resource Conser-
vation Service, a nonprofit organi-
zation called Community Re-
sources Group, Henryetta city
officials, local citizens, Okmulgee
County officials, and others.
  Rather than setting their sights
on the minimum requirements to
meet baseline environmental
standards, the Henryetta partners
came up with a vision: to achieve
the highest level of public health
protection practically available for the
community. Goals have been set and
actions taken on several fronts;
drinking water treatment and
distribution, sewage collection and
treatment, sewage sludge disposal
(some of which will be beneficially
disposed of at the former smelter
                                              24

-------
site), garbage collection, recycling,
and public education. Along with
on-site technical assistance, EPA has
provided $20,000 and D1Q $42,000 to
support Hemyetta's community-
based projects.
  Some economic gains have already
accrued from actions taken to correct
environmental problems.  For
example, to correct "water hammer"
effects (uneven water pressure that
results in a hammering effect and
leaks that contaminate the water
supply) and problems with broken
water lines in the community's
drinking water distribution system,
EPA provided diagnostic engineering
assistance, and Henryetta personnel
received technical assistance and
training on contract with the Okla-
homa Rural Water Association. As a
result, an estimated $30,000 was
saved over an eight-month period. If
preliminary stream flow modeling
results are on target, a $2 million
expenditure to upgrade Henryetta's
existing wastewater treatment
system can be avoided, thanks to a
community-action project: clearing
debris from nearby Coal Creek.
                 Jane Metcalfe photo, EPA.


  As Henryetta Mayor Wayne
Francis has testified, "our regulators
have rolled up their sleeves and
actually joined with us to become
part of the solution."

EPA Region 6 contacts: Shirley Bruce at 214
665-6547 or
BRUCE.SHIRLEY®EPAMAIL.EPA.COV or
CINDY WOLFE AT 214 665-7291 or
WOLFE.CINDY@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV.
                                                         25

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INTEGRATING EPA PROGRAM                THROUGH CBEP
   Partnership for Urban Restoration
   in Providence, Rhode Island

   The Woonasquatucket River, which
   winds through Providence, Rhode
   Island, once provided power and all-
   too-convenient waste disposal to
   19th- century textile mills, which
   dammed its waters at several sites
   upstream. The mills are now closed
   and abandoned, and many former
   mill and other industrial sites are so-
   called "Brownfields." Whether
   contaminated or just suspected of
   contamination, Brownfield sites
   present obstacles to economic revital-
   ization because environmental risk
   and liability concerns deter develop-
   ers who might renovate these sites
   for beneficial uses. The Woonasqua-
   tucket, having served for decades as
   an industrial workhorse, still fails to
   meet the "fishable, swimmable, drink -
   able" criteria of the Clean Water Act.
     Since 1995, EPA's Region 1 (New
   England) office has been working
   with other agencies and organiza-
   tions to revitalize Providence and
   help citizens reclaim their communi-
   ties and their river. EPA is focusing
   its technical resources on problem
   areas that could otherwise become
   obstacles to progress in ongoing
   initiatives.  For example, EPA is
   working with the Rhode Island
   Department of Environmental
   Management to revitalize two
   Brownfield sites that stand in the
   path of the Woonasquatucket River
   Greenway Project,  The purpose of
   the greenway project is to restore the
   hidden beauty of the river and
   revitalize the river corridor, as a
   catalyst for promoting growth and
   stability in local neighborhoods.
     In addition to Brownfields efforts,
   EPA Region 1 is working in the
   Providence metropolitan area as part
   of its Urban Environmental Initiative
   (UEI), an umbrella project focusing
   on inner-city communities in Provi-
   dence and two other New England
   cities (Boston, Massachusetts, and
                                                 26
Hartford, Connecticut). Through
environmental data-gathering and
site-specific technical assistance, UEI
works to promote "urban areas where
rich and poor alike share in the benefits
of a healthy environment and a strong
local economy.  In these urban areas, the
natural balance of all living things is not
threatened and urban residents are
committed to the prevention of pollution
at work, home,  and play" (EPA vision
statement for UEI/Providence).
  When completed, the greenway
project will significantly increase
access to the river. Part of the vision
EPA shares with the greater Provi-
dence community is to make the
Woonasquatucket River fishable and
swimmable, as mandated by the
Clean Water Act. In the meantime,
EPA and its partners are working to
identify contaminants in fish from
the river, to educate citizens concern-
ing EPA scientists' findings from fish
tissue sampling and analyses, and to
identify potential sources of contami-
nation. Since contaminants tend to
concentrate in fish through
bioaccumulation, fish tissue analyses
provide an important indicator of
river health as well as a basis for
estimating potential dietary risks to
subsistence consumers of fish from
the river.
  A risk-screen analysis done by EPA
scientists indicated that daily
consumption of 70 grams or more of
sunfish and/or eels could result in an
elevated cancer risk, due to dioxins
and PCBs. The Rhode1 Island Depart-
ment of Health (DOH| therefore
advised a "catch-and-release" policy
for fish caught from the
Woonasquatucket River. On October
16,1996, EPA and the state DOH
issued  a joint press release announc-
ing the catch-and-release policy and
explaining the findings from the fish
tissue analyses. Several of EPA's local
partners are conducting public
outreach concerning the advisory.
Effective risk communication is
particularly important in order to
dissuade citizens from consuming
fish caught from the river, without
unduly alarming the public and
discouraging further investment in
revitalization efforts. And since the
affected community is multilingual,
outreach must be conducted in at
least three languages (Spanish,
Cambodian, and English).

Project contact: Indira Balkissoon at 617
565-9123 (phone) or
BALKISSOON.INDIRA@EPAMAILEPA.GOV
(e-mail).

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  SECTIONS
  Helping Others Protect  Local  Environments

  Our vision is ... environmental programs and resources focused and coordinated to
  achieve positive environmental results in human and natural communities. The
  enthusiasm of citizens for protecting community health and natural places will provide
  the energy and commitment necessary to foster successful collaborative efforts with
  stakeholders.
                                                       EPA Region 4 CBEP Mission Statement
  August 1996
     meeting
    of Cahaba
   River Basin
  stakeholders
  in Alabama.
Dr. Mindi La/or
appears in the
  foreground.
Grace Deatrick photo,
    EPA Region 4.
        One of the basic components of Com-
        munity-Based Environmental Protec-
        tion (CBEP) is "capacity-building" in
the sense of providing local stakeholders with
tools, information, and technical assistance to
equip them to become active partners or leaders
in community-based efforts. As it would be
impractical for EPA to work directly in all the
nation's communities, the Agency can best
promote CBEP in the majority of communities
by providing states, local governments, private
businesses, and the general public with re-
sources needed for sustainable, democratic
planning and decision making at the local level.
  Strong science and information management
are essential for environmental decision-making
in any context, and this holds true for CBEP
efforts at every stage. At early visioning and
goal-setting stages, for example, environmental
data are needed to assess existing risks and
environmental trends and conditions. Scientifi-
                                                       cally based environmental indicators are also
                                                       key tools for community trends analyses. As
                                                       communities work toward CBEP goals, environ-
                                                       mental monitoring information is needed to
                                                       track progress toward those goals. Through
                                                       research and development, EPA is continuing to
                                                       build the information and technology base
                                                       available to support CBEP (see box).
Science Support for
CBEP—Strategic
R&D Goals
EPA's Office of Research and
Development has adopted the
following science support goals
for building EPA's own CBEP
capacity and that of its partners:
* Increased access to, and
integration of, spatially related
data (data sorted by geographic
area)
• Indicator development for
human health and environmen-
tal quality
» Promotion of innovative
technologies for risk manage-
ment
• Development of methods for
factoring costs and social issues
into local environmental
management decisions
* Development of skilled
methods to communicate the
risks, costs, and benefits of
environmental management
options to local officials and
their constituencies.
                                                27

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                "Spatially related" data, specifically cited as
             an R&D building block to support CBEP, can
             include everything from descriptions and
             locations of regulated facilities in a given area,
             the regulatory compliance histories of those
             facilities, and information on chemicals stored
             and released in communities, to inventories of
             natural resources and environmentally vulner-
             able sites in a given area, and demographic and
             economic profiles of communities.

                In a given community, the kinds of spatially
             related data needed for informed planning and
             decision making depend on local conditions and
                          resources. Where essential data are inad-
                          equate, EPA may join forces with other
                          agencies and organizations to develop or
                          upgrade a specialized database. One example
                          of this kind of technical capacity-building
                          partnership is the collaboration that resulted
                          in the recently completed Inventory of
                          Critical Biological Resources for the South
                          Platte River Watershed—where accurate
                          biodiversity data are needed for informed
                          decision making in the face of often conflict-
                          ing proposals for land and water uses. (See
                          box.)
South Platte River
Watershed—
Inventory of Critical
Biological Resources

In early 1994, EPA's Region 8
(Denver) office joined in a working
partnership with The Nature
Conservancy, the Natural Heritage
Programs of Colorado, Wyoming,
and Nebraska, and the Denver
Water Board to update and synthe-
size information on the biological
resources of the South Platte River
Watershed, where there is rich
biodiversity as well as a number of
threatened and endangered species.
The project had three major phases:
• Phase 1: Locate, compile, and eval-
uate existing data on threatened and
endangered species, species that are
candidates for threatened or endan-
gered status under the Endangered
Species Act, species otherwise of
concern, critical and essential
habitats, and/or "Potential Conser-
vation Sites" (areas within which
conservation attention is needed)
under the Natural Heritage Pro-
gram. Rank the sites according to
their global biodiversity signifi-
cance. Evaluate sources of data
according to their usefulness for
identifying locations of these
elements on the landscape.
• Phase 2: Digitize the information
collected in Phase 1, and enter it into
The Nature Conservancy's regional
Geographic Information System
(GIS) systems.

• Phase 3: Verify and assess data
quality through on-site evaluation
("ground-truthing").

  The final inventory report, pub-
lished June 1996, catalogues occur-
rences  of "elements of biological
diversity" (Natural Heritage
methodology units designating
plants, animals, and ecological
communities of concern) of the
following kinds: fish, amphibians,
reptiles, birds, mammals, inverte-
brates, plants, and ecological
communities. At the end of the
project, 490 Potential Conservation
Sites—sites encompassing ecologi-
cal processes that support specific
biodiversity elements—were
documented in the South Platte
Watershed.    ,
  The inventory results are being
made widely available to the public
and are expected to aid decision
making under programs and
initiatives including the following:
county and other local planning;
community involvement in land
and water use decisions; Denver
Water Board and Water Conserva-
tion District watershed manage-
ment programs; U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service listed species
protection programs; the Western
Governors' Association Great
Plains Initiative; and The Nature
Conservancy's bioreserve and
natural heritage inventory pro-
grams.

EPA Region 8 contact: Karen Hamilton
at 303 312-6236 or
HAMILTON.KAREN@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
(e-mail).
                                            Biodiversity Significance Ranks

                                                 Outstanding

                                                 Very High

                                                 High

                                                 Moderate

                                                 General Bio. Interest
                                              28

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 Communication Networks—
 Sharing Data, Tools, and
 Lessons Learned

 To date, 26 years of EPA research and informa-
 tion collection have resulted in a considerable
 amount of environmental quality data. Agency
 efforts to understand and use this data have
 yielded numerous mapping, modeling, and
 other analytic tools which, in addition to assist-
 ing national regulatory efforts, can facilitate
 informed local decision-making.  Technological
 advances such as the Internet have recently
 made it possible to share data and tools with
 anyone who has access to a computer,
  EPA programs and regional offices will
 continue to provide information directly to our
 many customers—members of the general
 public, the regulated communities, and other
 governmental bodies. In addition to more
 traditional printed publications, such as this
 report, the Agency is tapping into the tremen-
 dous potential of Internet technologies to
 disseminate information via the World Wide
Web. For example:

 • Since 1996, a centralized  CBEP Internet Home
Page has been up and running, with easy links to
environmental tools and geographic informa-
tion, and with directories of other federal
resources. Data on "hits" to the CBEP Home
Page indicate that nearly 50 percent of visitors
are from commercial, educational, or nonprofit
organizations. To access EPA's CBEP Home
Page:
  http: / /www.epa.gov/ecocommunity

 * In addition, several EPA regional offices have
developed CBEP Home Pages tailored to
particular regions of the country: Regions 4
(Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South
              Through the Internet, even the
         community's youngest stakeholders
       can gain access to environmental data
                               and tools,
                         Steve Otlaney photo, EPA.
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and
Mississippi), 5 (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin, and Minnesota), 6 (New Mexico,
Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana), and
8 (Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, North
Dakota, and South Dakota). These EPA Regional
CBEP Home Pages are accessible from EPA
Headquarters' CBEP Home Page at the Internet
address cited above.

*  EPA's New England Regional Office (Region
1) has established a Listserver, which enables
school teachers to exchange information about
local environmental protection.

• Surplus EPA computers are being provided to
community groups needing Internet connections
to access environmental databases and libraries.

* Public comments on EPA actions can now be
submitted to the Agency via e-mail.

  To think through environmental management
options, local decision-makers and  other con-
cerned community members require easy access
to environmental data.  In addition, they need to
be able to compare and integrate different kinds
of data in order to get a holistic picture of trends
and problems in their community EPA is
making a concerted effort to provide convenient
access to the many kinds of information needed
by communities, as well as tools to  help them
use the data in a problem-solving context.
                                                    29

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                A consolidated Storefront of Community Envi-
              ronmental Tools is now available online. (See
              opposite page.) This diverse collection of tools
              can be accessed through the EPA Headquarters
              CBEP Home Page (click on Integrated Ap-
              proaches, and then on A Collection of CBEP
              Tools). Alternatively, to reach the storefront
              directly:
                http://www.epa.gov/ecosystems/storefront/

                Following are some of the tools available
              through the Storefront:

              • Envirofacts—a national information system that
              provides an integrated single  point of access to
              data extracted from five major EPA programs:
              Air, Water, Superfund, Hazardous Waste, and
              Toxic Chemicals. It contains data, updated
              monthly, that is available under the Freedom of
              Information Act. This information includes:

                >   Data on airborne pollution in the United
                   States and various World Health Organiza
                   tion (WHO) member countries
    EPA's online
     Envirofacts
 system includes
  information on
  the status and
      location of
hazardous waste
          sites.
  EPA Region 2 photo.
                        Pesticide monitoring information from
                        states and other federal agencies is^
                        available through EPA's online
                        Storefront of Community
                        Environmental Tools.
                        Charles O'Rear photo, USDA.
   >  Water-discharge permit data for more than
   75,000 facilities nationwide

   >  Information on hazardous waste site
   assessments and remediation from 1983 to
   the present(Superfund data)

   >  Tracking information concerning handlers
   of hazardous waste, regulatory compliance,
   and cleanup activities under the Resource
   Conservation and Recovery Act

   >  Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data:
   Annual information about manufacturers'
   releases and transfers of more than 300
   toxic chemicals and compounds to the
   environment.

• Surf Your Watershed—an online service to help users
locate, use, and share environmental information on
their watersheds or communities. To access their
watershed, users must enter a postal code or an 8-digit
U.S. Geologic Service hydrologic code. To access Surf
Your Watershed directly:
       http://www.epa.gov/surf

• Build Your Own Map—a simple-to-use Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) application (entitled
SITEINFO) which can create and map displays of
information reports of EPA management concerns,
regulated sources, and ecosystem information for
areas surrounding any given location in the United
States. To get started, users must provide a latitude/
longitude coordinate within the lower 48 states. Users
can search for a latitude/longitude coordinate for an
EPA facility by clicking on Envirofacts Form.

• Databases—several data bases that maybe  relevant
to community self-assessments.  Examples include:

   > Fish consumption advisories for the 50
   states, the District of Columbia, and  four
   U.S. territories

   > "Green Book" data—information on areas
   of the country where air pollution levels
   persistently exceed the national ambient
   air quality standards for ozone, carbon
   monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide,
   particulates, and lead

   > Pesticide monitoring information from
   states and other federal agencies.
                                                       30

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                              Storefront of Community
                                 Environmental Tools
  Tools Home Page O Welcome O What's New O Planning Guides O Maps and Databases O Protecting Resources O
 Specific Issues Q Partnerships and Financial Resources Q Additional EPA Resources O Comments O EPA Home Page
                            Original graphic courtesy ofJimtown  copyright

 Welcome to EPA's collection of community-based environmental protection tools! The information on
 this web site is designed to introduce you to a set of EPA environmental tools that will help you tailor
 solutions that fit your community's needs. Included in this tool kit are Internet resources containing
 guidance documents, databases, mapping tools, hot lines, and fact sheets. Many of these resources are
 already available on the EPA home page; however this tool kit provides easy access to a number of tools
 targeted specifically at communities.

 We realize that each community is unique, thus, you, and those you are working with, are in the best
 position to find the solutions that are the right fit. The information on this page has been included with
 that in mind. By clicking on the categories below, you can get general and technical information. Please
 be sure to let us know what you think about this site so we can continue to improve it.

 EPA's Storefront of community environmental tools provides links to resources in the following broad
 areas:

      Comprehensive guides to community planning and management
      Maps, databases and other tools
      Protecting and restoring ecological resources
      Tools and information to help you with specific environmental issues
      Building partnerships to support your efforts
      Additional EPA Resources
      Office of Sustainable Ecosystems and Communities

      What's new!
     Tools Home Page Q Welcome Q What's New Q Planning Guides O Maps and Databases Q
   Protecting Resources O Specific Issues Q Partnerships and Financial Resources Q Additional EPA
                          Resources O Comments O EPA Home Page
June 26, 1997
http://www. epa.gov/ecosystems/storefront/welcome. htm
                                                   31

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                Information sharing between government
              agencies, nonprofit associations, and others has
              proved to be an extremely valuable tool. The
              Great Plains Project is an example of a major
              capacity-building initiative that has been an
              effective catalyst to community-based efforts in
              the Great Plains area—a vast ecosystem that
              encompasses parts of 13 states, three Canadian
              provinces, and portions of Mexico, as well as
              lands under the jurisdiction of more than 60
              Native American tribes.  (See box below.)
The Great Plains
International Data
Network
The Great Plains ecosystem in
North America was once the
largest grassland on Earth,
covering more than a million
square miles.  The ecosystem as a
whole is under pressure from
factors including population
stresses and urban and rural land
use practices. Agricultural and
other pressures have given rise to
environmental concerns that
include water quality and quan-
tity issues, public health concerns,
and the preservation of wetlands
and wildlife habitat.
  Rather than taking a strictly
traditional regulatory approach to
Great Plains environmental
problems, EPA has chosen a more
innovative role that includes
engendering partnerships and
creative sharing of tools and
information.  The stated mission
of the Great Plains Partnership is
"to empower the people of the
Great Plains to define and create
their own generationally sustain-
able future."
  The Great Plains Partnership—a
coalition of federal, state, and
local government agencies,
together with nonprofit organiza-
tions and private-sector partici-
pants—focuses primarily on
capacity building and information-
sharing. EPA's role in the partner-
ship has included providing
funding for The Nature Conser-
vancy to undertake a rigorous
program to identify species and
habitats at risk and thereby help
set priorities for the place-based
work of the Great Plains Program.
The project has identified a
number of areas of high priority
for protection, enhancement, or
preservation based on the existing
quality of habitats and the risk
factors threatening particular
habitats. The data generated by
The Nature Conservancy will be
made available through TNC's
home page and through the Great
Plains International Data Network
(GPIDN), accessible on the World
Wide Web.
  A number of place-based
initiatives in the Great Plains area
have ties to the Great Plains
Partnership. These include
wetlands management in
Nebraska's Rainwater Basin, which
is a crucial staging area for more
than 6 million ducks and geese
annually; the work of the Belle
Fourche River Partnership in
Wyoming, South Dakota, and
Montana; conservation efforts in
the biodiversity-rich Texas Great
Plains vicinity; the Northern
Tallgrass Prairie Habitat Preserva-
tion Project in Iowa and Minne-
sota; coalition work to preserve
globally unique natural communi-
ties in Nebraska's Sandhills; and
U.S.-Canadian preservations
efforts in the Glacial Lake Agassiz
Interbeach Areain Minnesota,
North Dakota, and Manitoba,
Canada.
  For more information about the
Great Plains Project (current status
and future directions), readers
should consult the Great Plains
International Data Network, which
is online at:
   http://www.epa.gov/GPIDN
                                            32

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   Because watershed management has a longer
track record of experience at EPA than other forms
of community-based work, formulations of "lessons
learned" have come first from EPA's experience
with the watershed approach, (See box.)
    Top 10 Watershed
    Lessons Learned

    1. Clear Visions, Goals, and
    Targets Must Reflect Consensus.
    Visions and goals are powerful
    mechanisms to motivate and guide
    action, as demonstrated by the 40-
    percent nutrient reduction goal for
    the Chesapeake Bay watershed,
    The power of the 40-percent goal
    stems from its being scientifically
    sound and easily understandable.
    Also, it has the buy-in of key
    community players, such as local
    government officials who guide
    land-use decisions.

    2, Good Leaders Empower.
    Leaders who can empower others
    are key to successful watershed
    initiatives. Dennis Bowker of the
    Napa Valley Resource Conservation
    District sees leadership as being
    catalyzed and  driven by ideas,
    rather than by individuals. Ideas,
    embraced by the community, are
    not personality-dependent and do
    not collapse with the departure of
    an individual.

    3. Having a Full-time Coordinator
    at the Watershed Level Is Ideal. A
    locally based person can establish
    trust with key constituencies and
    maintain momentum; without a
    coordinator, some watershed
    groups have not been able to
    maintain momentum. In
    Louisiana's Tensas River Water-
    shed, Mike Adcock—full-time
    coordinator for over four years—
has been critical in securing
farmers' trust and in restoring
many wetlands.

4. Environmental, Economic, and
Social Needs are Compatible. The
Nashua River watershed in
Massachusetts, for example, is
integrating these needs through
initiatives such as incentives to
farmers, better management of
forests, and "ecotourism."

5. Focus and Implement the Plan.
Watershed management plans are
successful only if they are imple-
mented. Experience shows that
successful plans have a clear focus,
enjoy community support, are
based in science, and reflect clear
priorities,

6. Partnerships Can Be Powerful.
A key to successful partnerships is
giving credit where appropriate
and tapping into each others'
strengths. The Know Your Watershed
group in West Lafayette, Indiana,
nurtures such partnerships. There
are now more than 1,000 water-
shed partnerships nationally.

7. Good Tools Are Available.  Of
the many excellent CBEP tools
available, one particularly useful
one for municipal officials is the
Project NEMO CIS-based tool,
which offers build-out scenarios
for projecting the amount of
impervious surface in a watershed
over time—a key indicator of
watershed health.
8. Measure, Communicate, and
Account for Progress, As a
useful aid, the Tennessee Valley
Authority has developed
"pocket-sized" watershed maps
that depict the relative health of
water bodies, indicating "good",
"fair", and "poor" conditions.

9. Education and Involvement
Drives Action. The Lake
Pontchartrain Basin Foundation
in Louisiana, for example, has
found that taking people to visit
the resource—to experience it
first hand—often prompts them
to active involvement.

10. Build on Small Successes.
For example, in Morro Bay,
California, the California Coastal
Conservancy started small by
talking to local residents and
focusing only on sedimentation
issues. Over time, the Conser-
vancy expanded involvement
and the range of issues ad-
dressed, Morro Bay is now a
National Estuary Program, due
in part to this hard work.

  For more detail concerning
watershed lessons:
  http: /1'www.epa.gov/
  OWOW/watershed/lessons/
  wll.htm
                                                       33

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                 EPA programs are continuing to work to
               develop tools to help communities make in-
               formed local decisions and carry out protection
               strategies. In addition to environmental data
               and mapping resources, tools are needed to help
               communities set goals and priorities. These
               include: facilitating stakeholder involvement
               processes; assessing economic and socio-cultural
               conditions; planning environmental protection
               opportunities; and offering methods for priori-
               tizing activities. One such capacity-
               building tool, soon to be made available online,
               is EPA's Green Communities Assistance Kit. (See
               box.)
 EPA's Green
 Communities
 Assistance Kit

 When it becomes publicly avail-
 able in summer 1997, EPA's Green
 Communities Assistance Kit will
 help local communities ask the
 right questions at the right time
 during five progressive stages of a
 do-it-yourself integrated commu-
 nity-planning process. The
 program has been developed by
 EPA's Region 3 (Philadelphia)
 office and is being field-tested in
 selected communities to ensure its
 compatibility with local needs.
  The first stage of this five-stage
 process, for example, is a Commu-
 nity or watershed self-assessment
 that centers around the question,
 "Where Are We Now?"
  Why spend time on this ques-
 tion? There are several reasons.
 Answering the "Where Are We
 Now?" question requires taking
 stock of a community's assets—
 social, economic, and environmen-
 tal. "Let's see what is working,
what is not working, what is
highly valued, and what needs
improvement." A basic checklist
is provided for conducting a
community self-assessment,
including, among other things:
identifying community values,
delineating the boundaries of the
community planning area,
compiling an inventory of natural
and human-made features
(including sensitive areas and
cultural resources), determining
problem areas and opportunities,
locating the "sphere of influence"
of problem areas, evaluating the
effectiveness of facilities and
infrastructure, making linkages
between economics and the
environment, and demonstrating
land use trends. The outcome of
the self-assessment is a community
profile.
  By developing a detailed commu-
nity profile, a community can better
position itself to set priorities based
on risk to the very attributes that
provide a unique sense of place and
make the community livable. In
addition, a good inventory and
assessment can help provide a basis
for answering the questions that
drive the next stages of the commu-
nity-planning process. Much as the
"Where Are We Now?" question
results in a community profile, the
succeeding questions in the series
have the outcomes listed  below:

  Where Are We Going?
           —TrendsAnalysis

  Where Do We Want to Be?
           —Vision Statement

  How Do We Get There?
           —Action Plan

  Let's Go!  —Implementing the Plan

Contact: Susan McDowell, EPA Region 3,
at 215 566-2739 or
MCDOWELL.SUSAN@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
(e-mail).
                                            34

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Providing Training and
Technical Assistance

EPA has much to offer in terms of technical training.
EPA staff have expertise in traditional scientific
fields—e.g., water quality assessment, risk assess-
ment, and substance toxicity analysis. In addition,
the Agency's staff and contractors have other skills
needed in decision-making—e.g., socio-cultural
analysis, process management, group facilitation.
To share CBEP-related expertise, EPA offers training
to community partners, at low or no cost, as a
catalyst for more complete, rigorous, and defensible
local decisions.
    Gateway:
    East St. Louis, Illinois

    EPA's place-based work in the
    environmental justice communities
    of East St. Louis is described in
    Section 2. In conjunction with this
    place-based work through partner-
    ships, a major focus of EPA's efforts
    in East St. Louis has been to em-
    power individual members of the
    community to steward environmen-
    tal improvements. This is largely
    accomplished through a series of
    educational opportunities and public
    involvement in decision-making.
      The Citizens Environmental Academy
    is a six-session seminar series for the
    general public on environmental
    legislation, environmental issues,
    and the public participation process.
    As a result of information taught in
    this class, residents understood their
    rights to ensure that soil tests were
    completed at the  site of an aban-
    doned gas station before plans
    proceeded to develop the site into a
    city park and community garden.
      Local Law Enforcement Officers from
    15 agencies in the Gateway partici-
    pated in EPA-sponsored environ-
    mental issues such as illegal dump-
    ing and open burning. The St. Clair
County Shriff's Department used an
EPA grant to establish an environ-
mental crimes unit. This unit
furthers the training by focusing on
educating the public about illegal,
but common activities.
     The New England
     Environmental
     Assistance Team

     EPA's New England Regional Office
     offers a series of workshops to
     provide local government officials
     with an array of information about
     environmental issues. In the first year
     the series was offered, approximately
     400 town managers, selectmen, code
enforcement officers, and water
and wastewater treatment
operators attended. The work-
shops assist officials whose
responsibilities include ensuring
compliance with environmental
laws.  The actual topics ad-
dressed are diverse, such as
disposal of construction and
demolition debris, shore land
zoning, sewage transport and
disposal, and composting.
                                                   At workshops
                                                   offered by EPA's
                                                   Region 1 (New
                                                   England) office,
                                                   local government
                                                   officials acquired a
                                                   working knowledge
                                                   of environmental
                                                   requirements
                                                   affecting
                                                   wastewater
                                                   treatment and other
                                                   environmental
                                                   issues that concern
                                                   communities
                                                   EPA photo.
                                                     35

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Grants and other Financial
Resources
EPA financial resources are catalysts for state and
local environmental protection efforts. EPA
currently manages a wide array of program
grants which can be awarded to states or com-
munity groups. Following are examples of
programs for which grants are available:

* Environmental Justice
• Pollution Prevention

• Brownfields Assessment Demonstration

• Superfund Technical Assistance

*  Environmental Education
* Solid Waste Management Assistance
• Wetland Protection
• Water Quality Planning.
  Eligible applicants for these grants vary, but
may include local governments, tribes, councils
of governments, research and educational
institutions, religious organizations, community
groups, and other nonprofit organizations. Grant
awards can range from $10,000 to as much as
$300,000 or more.
EPA Region 2
Community
Grants
Program
As part of IPA's ongoing
commitment to providing
environmental protection
resources to community
groups, EPA Region 2 estab-
lished a Community Grants
Program to coordinate the
different grant programs that
serve communities, and to
respond more effectively to the
needs of potential grant
applicants. The program has
prepared a single point of
reference fact sheet, which
outlines numerous community
grant programs sponsored  by
EPA and identifies eligibility
criteria. This information has
already been distributed to
over 2,000 community groups.
EPA's Region 2 is now in the
process of developing an
information kit that will make
the grant application process
more user-friendly.
                                   36

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Sustainable
Development
Challenge Grants

The Sustainable Development
Challenge Grant Program, a
result of the 1995 White House
report "Reinventing Environ-
mental Regulation," provides
funds to encourage people,
organizations, and businesses
to work together in their
communities to improve the
environment while maintaining
a healthy economy. The overall
concept is that federal grant
money can be used to "chal-
lenge" communities to work
together, putting different
interests aside, and plan
development in a way which
incorporates sustainable
environmental quality. This
program is designed to:
» Catalyze community-based
and regional actions that
promote sustainable develop-
ment, thereby improving
environmental quality and
economic prosperity while
providing equitable opportuni-
ties for health, safety, and well-
being
* Leverage significant private
and public sector investments
to enhance environmental
quality by enabling sustainable
• e
    community efforts to continue
    past initial EPA funding
    * Build partnerships that
    increase a community's long-
    term capacity to protect the
    environment through sustain-
    able development.
      In 1996, the "pilot" year of the
    program, EPA supported 10
    local sustainable development
    projects. Pilot projects
    include sustainable housing
    and subdivision design in
    the desert southwest,
    sustainable forestry prac-
    tices, community-supported
    organic agriculture, develop-
    ment of an eco-industrial
    park, and an inner-city
    building materials exchange.
    In 1997 EPA may provide as
    much as $5 million to
    communities through this
    program.
Jobs Through
Recycling Grant:
The Hualapai Tribe
                /~
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   Sometimes a strategically targeted grant, based on
knowledge of local circumstances and environmental
conditions, can bring a strong environmental return
for a relatively small monetary investment in CBEP.
The case of Tassel Creek in the Olympic Peninsula,
where an EPA grant was critical to the timely restora-
tion of salmon spawning habitat, is an example.
                    EPA Regional Offices and the CBEP Home Page
                    can provide detailed information about various
                    community grants, who are eligible to apply, how
                    to apply, and by when:
                      http://www.epa.gov/ecocommunity
     Targeted Grant Helps
     Remove Barrier to
     Salmon Habitat

     As people of the Quileute Tribe
     have known for many genera-
     tions, Tassel Creek, an important
     tributary to the Sol Due River in
     Washington's Olympic Peninsula,
     is a historically rich spawning
     habitat for anadromous salmon
     including fall Chinook, fall coho,
     and winter steelhead, and for
     cutthroat trout. Today the
     Quileute work in partnership with
     other stakeholders to protect this
     valuable watershed and its
     resources. Other members of the
     partnership include the Washing-
     ton Department of Fish and
     Wildlife, Clallam County, the U.S.
     Fish and Wildlife Service, the
     National Marine Fisheries Service,
     the U.S. Forest Service, and EPA.
       The partnership recently
     conducted a basin-scale watershed
     analysis, under the rubric of the
     Northwest Forest Plan, and
     developed a Sol Due Basin
     Restoration Strategy which
     identified several high-priority
     projects for restoring the water-
     shed. One recommendation was
     to remove a barrier to an esti-
     mated three miles of historically
     excellent fish habitat upstream in
     Tassel Creek. According to
     information provided by the
     Quileute tribe, a culvert on the
     Whitcomb-Dimmell Road was
blocking salmon migration to the
habitat. Access was partially
blocked for adult salmon, and
juvenile salmon migration was
blocked entirely.
  The cost of replacing the culvert
with one that would not block
salmon migration, aligning the
road as necessary, reseeding and
replanting the riparian area, and
completing other related tasks was
estimated at roughly $160,000. Of
this, approximately $25,000 came
from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service "Jobs in the Woods" fund;
$38,000 from the North Pacific
Regional Fisheries Enhancement
group; $50,000 from the Clallam
County Roads fund, and another
$20,000 from Clallam County's
general fund. As it turned out,
there was a shortfall of nearly
$30,000, which could have delayed
completion of the project, which
began in August 1996, for at least
a year. EPA was able to help out
by providing a grant for $30,000
at a critical time. As a result,
construction of the culvert was
completed in October 1996.
  The culvert replacement has
been a success. Clallam County
officials have publicly praised the
outcome of this coordinated
partnership effort. The salmon
will now be able to reclaim their
previous habitat in Tassel Creek.
The Quileute Tribe will continue
to monitor the creek and keep
records on coho and steelhead
spawning and springtime fish-
rearing activities.

EPA Region 10 contact: Ron Lee at 206
553-4013 (phone) or
LEE.RON@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-
mail).
                                      U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife photo.
                                               38

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 Further Resources
Sometimes what the public needs is easy access to
someone at EPA who can answer specific inquiries.
To help meet this need, in every EPA Regional Office,
specific staff have been designated as CBEP coordina-
tors. The Agency's CBEP coordinators serve as central
contact points on questions concerning community-
based issues and initiatives. (See inside back cover for
names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of
EPA's CBEP coordinators.)
  Another significant resource is the newly
establishedjoint Center for Sustainable Communities.
EPA has formed a partnership with the National
Association of Counties (NACo) and the U.S. Confer-
ence of Mayors (USCM) to support this Joint Center.
The Departments of Commerce and Energy help
support the partnership. The center fosters sustain-
able communities by providing local elected officials
with a network of experts on how to achieve and
sustain quality communities; by providing a central
place for community leaders to share successes and
challenges; and by providing resources for support-
ing plans and actions that exemplify sustainable
communities. Q
Joint Center for
Sustainable Communities—
Support Services Offered

Following are some of the community
support services available from the new
Joint Center:

• Regional workshops, focus groups,
seminars, and national meetings

• Newsletters, electronic bulletin boards,
and other communication tools

• Demonstration projects in targeted
communities

• Ongoing evaluation of the Joint Center
and its tools and support.

Contacts: Joint Center codirectors Carol Everett at
202 861-6773 (phone) or CEVER78204@AOL.COM
(e-mail) and Nick Keller at 202 942-4224 (phone) or
NKELLER@NACO.ORG (e-mail).
                                                    39

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        SECTION 4
        CBEP  and Reinvention
       Watershed
protection depends
       on working
  partnerships and
           public
     participation.
      Storm drain
 stenciling done by
volunteers in Anne
   Arundel County,
       Maryland.
     Citizen Water quality
 monitoring Program photo.
       Through regulatory reinvention, a new
       generation of environmental protection
       is evolving at EPA, one that encourages
innovation at state and local levels and is more
"user-friendly" to Community-
Based Environmental Protection (CBEP) than a
strictly top-down regulatory system. EPA is
working to increase the flexibility of its pro-
grams and regional operations, so that complex,
place-specific problems can more easily be met
with appropriately tailored solutions.
   To support CBEP, EPA has articulated the
following operational goals for its own pro-
grams and practices:
•  Integrate the delivery of EPA's services and
programs on a geographic basis
•  Address the often difficult and intractable
problems that EPA's regulatory approaches
cannot, by themselves, solve
•  Create the flexibility in EPA programs that
allows the Agency to respond to the needs of
diverse ecosystems and human communities
and help communities reach informed decisions
that affect their environment and quality of life
*  Ensure that EPA programs and activities
promote socially, economically, and ecologically
sustainable communities
•  Increase EPA's efficiency and effectiveness by





building partnerships and leveraging resources,
and developing better ways of informing,
assisting, and involving the public.
   Certain flagship initiatives presage the next
generation of environmental protection at EPA.
Among others, these include the watershed
approach as embodied in EPA's water programs'
new ways of doing business; newly flexible
Performance Partnerships between EPA and the
states; Project XL (which stands for excellence
and Leadership), a pilot program for testing
innovative environmental management strate-
gies; the Brownfields program, which offers
incentives for cleanup and redevelopment of
urban centers; Flexible Attainment Regions
(FARs), which encourage community-based
solutions to air quality problems; and Supple-
mental Environmental Projects for the benefit of
communities, negotiated as part of the terms
and conditions of enforcement actions. This
section highlights these six forward-looking
initiatives as indications of new directions at EPA.

Watershed Protection
EPA's national water program has examined its
work and already instituted a number of key
operational changes to support watershed-based
CBEP efforts.  EPA's Office of Water has trans-
formed a range of water quality programs to
introduce the flexibility needed to encourage
watershed approaches. In this respect, EPA's
water programs, which are continuing to evolve
to facilitate watershed efforts, are in the van-
guard of community-based environmental
protection.
   For example, the Agency's National Pollutant
Discharge  Elimination System (NPDES) pro-
gram, which is a permitting program under the
Clean Water Act, is actively coordinating NPDES
permits, water quality monitoring requirements,
and enforcement decisions on the basis of
watersheds. EPA's drinking water program is
helping thousands of communities take water-
shed approaches to protecting both ground- and
surface-water sources of drinking water. As
evidenced  by New York City and other commu-
nities working to protect their drinking water
                                                   40

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sources, a watershed protection approach can
sometimes save communities millions and even
billions of dollars in drinking water treatment
costs. The Agency's wetlands protection pro-
gram is working with other federal agencies to
support techniques to preserve and protect
wetlands on a watershed basis.  The water
quality standards program has formally started a
process to establish standards better tailored to
watersheds.
   EPA is not alone in redesigning its programs
to encourage watershed management. In fact, a
majority of state water quality agencies are in the
process of developing or implementing water-
          shed approach frameworks—a paradigm shift
          that EPA supports through training and techni-
          cal assistance.
            Through its Office of Water, EPA offers
          several forms of assistance to help water quality
          managers and staff in both the public and
          private sectors develop and implement water-
          shed approaches. The four main areas covered
          include watershed management training, statewide
          watershed approach facilitation, watershed program
          scoping, and technical analysis assistance. Training
          and facilitation have been the services most
          often requested. (See box.)
   Watershed Support
   From EPA

   *  Watershed management training is
   offered through EPA's Watershed
   Academy, which offers a set of core
   courses and related reference materi-
   als about basic watershed manage-
   ment principles and techniques—as
   well as contact information on more
   specialized and advanced courses.
   The core courses cover watershed
   management fundamentals, water-
   shed tools, the statewide approach to
   watershed management, and an
   executive overview course. In
   addition to the courses offered by
   EPA, dozens of watershed training
   opportunities are available. To share
   information about watershed
   training courses offered by local,
   state, and other federal agencies and
   private organizations, EPA's Water-
   shed Academy will continue to


  THE WATERSHED ACADEMY
update its Catalogue of Watershed
Training Opportunities. For further
information on EPA's Watershed
Academy, call 202 260-7017. To access
the Watershed Academy's catalogue
on the Internet:
   http: / /www.epa.gov/OWOW/
watershed/wacademy.htm
* EPA offers watershed approach
facilitation to states and tribes that
intend to reorient their water re-
sources management programs along
watershed lines.  Facilitation in-
volves several onsite working
meetings with water program
managers and decision makers to
help them develop a transition plan,
schedule, and comprehensive
organizational framework based on
major river basins and their compo-
nent watersheds. For further
information on watershed facilita-
tion, scoping, or technical analysis,
call 202260-2656.
          « EPA's Office of Water
          offers assistance in
       t  watershed program scoping
          and technical analysis to
    '!."/.'  states and tribes. Scoping
          projects are preliminary to
          full-scale reorientations
          and involve one or two
meetings with managers to deter-
mine what form a watershed ap-
proach might take, the effort in-
volved, and the next steps needed.
Technical analysis projects focus on
scientific, economic, or programmatic
analysis as related to specific water-
shed management issues.  For further
information, call 202 260-2656.
  The following documents may be
useful. They are available on the
Internet at the following URL:
  http: / /www.epa.gov/OWOW
Except for Watershed '96 Online
Highlights (available only at the
Internet address just given), printed
copies can be obtained by calling 513
489-8190 or by sending a written
request by fax to 513 489-8695 or by
mail to NCEPI, 11029 Kenwood
Road, Building 5, Cincinnati, OH
45242.
Watershed Protection: A Statewide
Approach (EPA 841-R-95-004)
Watershed Protection: A Project Focus
(EPA 841-R-95-003)
Watershed '96 Online Highlights

Why Watersheds? (EPA 800-F-96-001)
Watershed Tools Directory (EPA841-B-
95-005).
                                                     41

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 Performance Partnerships
 Since May 1995, when EPA reached an agree-
 ment with state environmental commissioners
 to establish Performance Partnership Agree-
 ments (PPAs), these individualized agreements
 with states have afforded a mechanism for
 more flexible state-EPA working relationships.
 Through PPAs and the added management
 flexibility they offer, states can negotiate ways
 to incorporate CBEP into their programs in
 innovative ways.
   Based on an assessment of environmental
 trends in a particular state, EPA and the state
 negotiate what and how environmental work
 will be performed in the state. As a result of
 this more cooperative approach, states can
 target and leverage their resources for greater
 environmental gains including gains achievable
 through CBEP, than could be achieved under
 the single-media approach to environmental
 protection. States can also benefit from admin-
 istrative savings by combining funding from
 more than one environmental program and
 streamlining associated administrative and
 management tasks.
   Traditionally, the federal-state process of
 funding and addressing environmental and
 public health concerns has been conducted
 with a single-media focus. Under the tradi-
 tional system, individual states have submitted
 multiple annual work plans and received
 multiple grants to support air, drinking water,
 hazardous waste, and other pollution control
 programs. The pre-PPA approach diverted
resources from on-the-ground improvement
efforts because of sometimes excessive invest-
 ments in administrative management and
 oversight. Performance partnerships are
 designed to overcome this drawback by placing
 much greater emphasis on environmental
 results and achieving better coordination
between federal and state environmental
programs.
   Performance partnerships begin with a
comprehensive assessment of a state's problems
and conditions to establish a stronger basis for
decision-making. In some cases, this step may
be the first such undertaking. In other cases,
states may use an existing assessment, such as
an annual State of the Environment report or a
comparative risk assessment. Based on this
information, the state proposes environmental
and public health objectives and an action plan
as a basis for negotiating an annual agreement
with EPA. At this point, if not before, the state
also conducts outreach efforts to ensure appro-
priate public understanding and support. EPA
and the state then begin negotiating the actual
agreement as well as grants arrangements.
Under a Performance Partnership Agreement,
states have the option of combining two or more
single-media grants into a single Performance
Partnership grant. They also have the option of
maintaining media-specific grants or requesting
a combination of both.
  To date, more than two-thirds of states have
elected to negotiate performance partnerships
with EPA. Feedback from these states indicates
that the PPA process has resulted in indirect
benefits, such as better information on environ-
mental trends in the state and how their environ-
mental programs affect those trends, and en-
hanced communications within the state on
environmental issues. Performance partnerships
are thus helping to shape a fundamentally
different and more productive relationship
between EPA and the states, one that can achieve
more effective environmental and public health
protection for communities, for states, and for
the country overall.
                                 42

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 Utah Performance
 Partnership

 One of the first Performance Partnership
 Agreements (PPAs) to be negotiated and
 signed was that between EPA Region 8
 and the Utah Department of Environmen-
 tal Quality (DEQ), Signed on November 2,
 1995, this PPA—along with a Partnership
 Council formed in 1993 by the Utah DEQ
 and the state's 12 local health depart-
 ments—provided a cooperative frame-
 work for a pilot community-based
 initiative known as the Southwest (Utah)
 Partnership Initiative.
   The Southwest Partnership Initiative
 began in January 1996 as a result of a
 statewide comparative environmental risk
 assessment. Southwestern Utah, a
 beautiful and fragile environment under
 stress from rapid growth and develop-
 ment, was chosen as the pilot project.  The
 primary goal was to listen to local officials
 and the community in order to help them
 improve their environment.  In April 1996,
 EPA, the Utah DEQ, and representatives
 from local Public Health Departments met
 to develop a joint vision on how to work
 together to solve environmental problems.
 The following vision statement and
 shared values were adopted:
 • Vision: EPA, the Utah DEQ, and the local
 health departments work together to solve
 environmental problems.
 * Shared values:
   > We focus our activities at the local level,
  > We solve or prevent problems by using
 each agency's resources and authority.
   > We take risks, build trust, and listen to
 community needs.
   > Personal leadership, teamwork, and
follow-through will assure success.

  To guide the partnership through day-
 to-day challenges and decision making,
 operating principles and coordination
 processes were formulated. In accordance
 with agreed-upon principles and pro-
 cesses, proposals for action are developed
 with the cooperation and involvement of
local citizens and community represen-
tatives. In this way, a model ordinance
aimed at protecting fragile ground
water resources from the impacts of
rapid growth and development has
been developed and is being brought
before the community for final consid-
eration.
  The community-based "partnership
for the environment" tested first in
Southwest Utah has become a catalyst
for extending community-based efforts
throughout the state.  Areas where
community-based efforts are planned
include: Jordan River/Utah Lake; Bear
River; Sevier River; Weber River; Upper
Green River; Beaver River; Virgin River;
Great Salt Lake Desert/Columbia River;
Southeast Colorado River; and the
Western Colorado River. In addition,
the approach is being considered for
other geographic areas of Utah faced
with complex environmental problems
as well as difficult community issues,
such as rapid growth and tribal re-
source management concerns,

EPA Region 8 contact: Nat Miullo
at 313 312-6233 or
MIULLO.NAT@EPAMA!L,EPA.GOV (e-mail).
New housing units being
developed in the red
rock area outside St.
George, Utah.
Carol Sisco photo, Utah Depattmtnt
of Environmental Quality.
                                                 43

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 Project XL: A Laboratory
 for the Future
 What innovations can improve the current
 regulatory system for protecting people and the
 environment? At EPA, that question has led to
 the creation of Project XL, a major reinvention
 priority that is serving as a laboratory for
 testing innovative environmental management
 strategies for the future.  Project XL, which
 stands for excellence and Leadership, is a
 national pilot program defined by three key
 elements: superior environmental performance,
 meaningful  stakeholder involvement, and
 regulatory flexibility. It challenges regulated
 entities—communities, facilities, industry
 sectors, and government agencies—with a
 proven track record of environmental perfor-
 mance to find cleaner, cheaper ways of protect-
 ing the environment.
   The offer is simple: If you have an idea that
 promises superior environmental protection to
 what would be achieved under the current
 regulatory system, and if you use a meaningful
 stakeholder involvement process, then EPA will
 work with the relevant state and local agencies
 to grant the  flexibility needed to put those ideas
 to the test. The goal is to engage those parties
 affected by environmental regulation in an
 unprecedented effort to find solutions that work
 better than those currently mandated, and to
 apply what is learned more broadly to improve
 public health and environmental protection.
 Project XL offers a sound way to explore
 possible changes, one community at a time,
without putting those people living in or
 around these areas at increased risk.
   Announced in the Federal Register on Novem-
 ber 1,1995, Project XL for Communities (XLC)
 features additional selection criteria that have a
 distinct community-based focus. These include:
 •  Capacity for stakeholder involvement—
builds, supports, and promotes broad-based
community involvement in determining how
project goals will be pursued
 •  Economic opportunity—demonstrates ways
 of creating economic opportunity through, or in
 conjunction with, improved environmental
 quality
 •  Community planning—uses consensus-based
 approach to build community support for
 project goals which are consistent with commu-
 nity planning efforts.
   By emphasizing these project characteristics,
 along with the other Project XL criteria, EPA
 supports innovative projects that take a compre-
 hensive approach (e.g., multi-facility, multi-
jurisdictional, or other community-based
 environmental protection approaches) to ensure
 environmental quality. Through XLC, EPA
 promotes strategies that build cooperation
 among citizens, businesses, non-profit organiza-
 tions, and governments at the community level
 to achieve superior environmental results.
   To date, EPA  has received 15 XLC proposals—
 four are being negotiated with the project
 sponsors and stakeholders; three are under
 review by EPA;  and eight have been withdrawn
or rejected. (See box on Clermont County, Ohio,
 for an example of how Project XLC can serve
community objectives.)
   For more information on Project XL, contact
the XL Information Line at 703 934-3241, or
request information over the fax by dialing our
automated phone system at 202 260-8590.
Information is also available on the Internet at:
   http://www.epa.gov/oppe/xlcomm/
xlc home.html
                           UNITIES
           Environmental Excellence and Leadaship
                                    44

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 Project XLC in
 Clermont County, Ohio
Clermont County, which includes a
significant portion of the Uttle Miami
River watershed, is located in southeast
Ohio near Cincinnati and is one of the
fastest growing counties in the state.
This rapidly urbanizing county de-
scribes one of its primary missions as
"balancing economic growth with the
preservation of the natural character
and environment of the County."
Consistent with Clermont County's
vision, the objective of its recently
submitted XLC proposal is to develop a
community-designed water resources
management strategy that achieves
water quality goals while maintaining
environmentally and economically
sustainable growth in the county.
  Clermont County administrators
view the current water quality regula-
tory framework administered by the
Ohio EPA (O1PA) as inadequate.  The
county argues that OEPA attempts to
regulate only "point source" pollutants
(e.g., discharges from factories and
wastewater treatment plants), which
contribute less than 30 percent of the
pollutant load on the Little Miami
River. The main part of the load,
polluted runoff—also known, more
technically, as nonpoint-source pollu-
tion—goes largely unregulated. As part
of a watershed management plan, the
county anticipates using an effluent-
trading system in which pollution
credits may be exchanged among point
and non-point source polluters.
  In an attempt to improve water
quality and encourage all polluters to
share in the expense, the county
proposes to replace the command and
control regulatory framework with a
collaborative goal-setting approach.
Once businesses, citizens, and environ-
mental groups establish water quality
goals, the county wants to shift the
responsibility for achieving the goals
from OEPA to the local level.
  The county believes that OEPA's
statewide rules are not conducive to the
proper management of the unique Little
Miami River watershed. They propose to
integrate the county's watershed manage-
ment plan into the broader state plan
administered by OEPA. As part of the
watershed management plan, Clermont
County will develop a sampling and
monitoring program, a computer-based
watershed model, and a county environ-
mental protection plan. The sampling
and monitoring program will, among
other things, allow the county to compile
data on existing environmental condi-
tions in the watershed.  The data will help
in assessing the effects that land manage-
ment policies will have on the environ-
mental condition of the watershed and
will aid the  county in establishing
permitting requirements for both point
and nonpoint sources.
                                                 46

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      A cluttered
Brownfield site in
the Chicago area.
 Photo courtesy of EPA's
   Bfownfields program.
Brownfields Economic
Redevelopment

Many areas across the country that were once
used for industrial and commercial purposes
have been abandoned or are underused—some
are contaminated or perceived as such.  Lend-
ers, investors, and developers have for years
been afraid that involvement with these sites
may result in environmental cleanup liability
for contamination they did not create. They are
therefore more attracted to sites in pristine
areas—called "greenfields." This situation can
result in blighted areas, rife with abandoned
properties that create safety and health risks for
residents, increase unemployment, and foster a
sense of hopelessness—these areas are called
"Brownfields."
   EPA's Brownfields Economic Redevelopment
Initiative is a major community-based effort
designed to empower states, cities, tribes, and
other communities to work together in a timely
manner to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and
sustainably reuse Brownfields. The initiative
empowers communities to use local solutions
to return abandoned industrial properties to
productive use.
   This work began with the Brownfields Action
Agenda, announced by EPA in January 1995,
which included four broad categories:
• Brownfields Pilots: EPA has awarded 111
Brownfield pilot cooperative agreements to
states, cities, towns, counties, and tribes. The
pilots are intended to provide EPA, states, tribes,
cities, and other communities with useful
information and strategies as they continue to
seek new methods to approach site assessment,
environmental cleanup, and monitoring.
   Pilot communities are being used to test
redevelopment models, direct special efforts
toward removing  regulatory barriers without
sacrificing protectiveness, and facilitate coordi-
nated environmental assessments and cleanup
efforts at the federal, state, and local levels.
Pilot funds are used to generate interest by
pulling together community groups, investors,
lenders, developers, and other affected parties
to address the issues of assessing and cleaning
up sites contaminated with hazardous sub-
stances and returning them to safe and sustain-
able use.
•  Clarification of Liability and Cleanup Issues:
EPA is addressing concerns of lending institu-
tions, municipalities, property owners, develop-
ers, prospective purchasers, and others. EPA
has issued a number of guidances to clarify
liability and other issues and has "archived"
(designated as no  longer of federal interest) over
30,000 of the 40,000 sites from the Superfund site
inventory.
•  Partnerships and Outreach: EPA is building
partnerships with  federal agencies, states, cities,
and other organizations to assure a coordinated
approach to addressing Brownfields. The
Agency is developing the Brownfields Partner-
ship Action Agenda to provide a framework for
collaboration on brownfields by federal and
state agencies and public and private organiza-
tions.
•  fob Development and Training: EPA is working
with community colleges and others to foster
workforce development in brownfields commu-
nities through environmental education and
                                                   46

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training models, recruitment of students from disadvan-
taged communities, and quality worker training.

   For more information on the Brownfields Economic
Redevelopment Initiative, visit the following Internet site:
   http://www.epa.gov/swerosps/bf
   Brownfields Pilot:
   Baltimore, Maryland
   Many old industrial sites in
   Baltimore have been abandoned,
   causing Baltimore to lose more
   than 50 percent of its manufactur-
   ing jobs between 1970 and 1990,
   The threat of contamination and
   liability at these sites has inhib-
   ited reuse and redevelopment. In
   particular, the city was concerned
   about sites located in Baltimore's
   Empowerment Zone, where
   contamination could present an
   additional obstacle to economic
   revitalization.
     For over a century, the Ameri-
   can Smeltering and Refining
   Company (ASARCO) operated
   on a 33-acre site in Baltimore. By
   the late 1970s, ASARCO was
   gone, and most of the site trans-
   formed into a wasteland of
   desolate warehouses, piles of
   debris, and shattered windows.
   EPA awarded a $200,000
   Brownfields pilot grant to the city
   in September 1995. The  City of
   Baltimore, EPA, and a developer,
   Tom Obrecht, joined together to
   create a vision that has lead to
   economic growth, new jobs, and
   productive reuse of the property.
     The developer assembled a
   $11.5 million financing  package
   funded by Mercantile Bank and
   private investment; in addition,
   the State of Maryland contributed
   a $3.5 million loan guarantee, as
   well as a $1 million low interest
   loan. By April 1996, when the
   developer's company, Obrecht
Realty Services Inc., stepped
forward and purchased the
ASARCO site, a public/private
partnership had been created
between EPA, the Maryland
Department of Economic
Development, the Maryland
Department of the Environment,
the City of Baltimore, and a host
of other, individual players.
  By the conclusion of the
project, more than 100,000
square feet of old buildings will
have been razed, and 350,000 of
the 750,000 square foot complex
will have been renovated.
Currently there are 170 con-
struction workers employed on
the property. Additionally, it is
expected that more than 50
permanent jobs will be put in
place over the next three years,
  The EPA Brownfield assessment
grant has helped to lead the way
for other agencies, such as the
Maryland Department of Eco-
nomic Development, to become
active in Brownfield sites through-
out Baltimore, In addition, EPA
and the state Department of
Economic Development recently
signed a memorandum of agree-
ment to coordinate efforts to
encourage voluntary cleanups of
contaminated properties in
Maryland.
EPA Region 3 contact: Tom Stolle at 215
566-3129 (phone) or
STOLLE.TOM@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (e-
mail).
    Brownfields Pilot:
    Dallas, Texas
    The city of Dallas, with helping hands
    from EPA and a well-known sports
    figure, is turning two Brownfield
    properties into the focal point of a more
    livable community. Local residents are
    pleased by the prospects of both safer
    neighborhoods and a healthier economy
    due to newly spawned activity that is
    taking place on formerly contaminated,
    abandoned property.
      The Dixon Street site and the JPI
    North end site were vacant lots in
    downtown Dallas that drew criminals
    and blighted the surrounding commu-
    nity. JPI North End, a 22-acre site that
    once housed factories producing
    batteries, paint, and lead products is
    being transformed into a residential
         area. Since available housing in
         downtown Dallas is scarce, this
         cleanup and redevelopment effort is a
         boon to the city.
           On the other hand, the Dixon Street
         site is being converted from an
         extremely irritating eyesore into a
         valuable recreation center. The three
         and one-half acre site was an apart-
         ment complex until 10 years ago,
         when it was torn down and left as a
         vacant lot with no vegetation on one
         side and weeds on the other. The site
         collected trash and was a magnet for
         criminal activity. Larry Johnson, the
         sports celebrity, donated $1 million to
         cover the cost of constructing a new
         recreation center for local youth on the
         property. Other redevelopment
         activity is expected to follow.

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 Flexible Attainment Regions
Under the Clean Air Act, EPA sets National
Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for
ground-level ozone (smog) and other "criteria
pollutants" that commonly threaten air quality
throughout the country. Through the mechanism
of Flexible Attainment Regions (FARs), EPA is
working in parternship with local .officials to
help local communities meet national ozone
standards through flexible agreements that allow
a mix of mandatory and voluntary emission
controls tailored to local conditions.
  Since the 1970 clean air statute, each state has
been required to prepare a State Implementation
Plan (SIP) describing how it will control emis-
sions from mobile and stationary sources in
order to attain compliance with the NAAQS.
State and local governments have primary
responsibility for preventing and controlling air
pollution. EPA's role includes conducting
research and development programs, setting
national standards and regulations, providing
technical and financial assistance to the states,
and in cases of "nonattainment" (cases when an
area fails to meet one or more of the NAAQS)
working with the state to develop a revised SIP
that includes additional pollution control mea-
sures targeted at bringing the area into "attain-
ment" status.
  EPA and the states routinely conduct air
quality monitoring to ensure compliance with
the NAAQS. Air quality monitoring data are
used to track trends in pollution levels, and these
trends can provide early warnings that patterns
of growth and development in a community are
putting an area at risk of violating NAAQS.
However, the traditional approach has not
encouraged action until an area reached
nonattainment status, triggering a SIP revision
process that can be cumbersome and time-
consuming. Examples of supplemental require-
ments that might be included in a revised SIP
include mandatory transportation control
measures, limits on industrial growth and
development, and requirements to inventory all
emission sources.
   The FARs option allows qualified localities to
develop and implement community-based
solutions to their own air quality problems, in
conjunction with technical assistance from EPA,
before these problems warrant nonattainment
status. To be eligible for the FAR approach, an
area is required to meet the following criteria:
•  Must once have been designated a
nonattainment area but subsequently reached
attainment and been redesignated accordingly by
EPA
•  Must have a SIP in place
•  Must demonstrate commitment to identifying
and implementing measures to keep the area in
attainment status.
   The FAR approach to improving air quality
gives communities flexibility to tailor their
pollution control strategies to local conditions,
such as weather, traffic patterns, industrial
activity, and local economics. A FAR plan is
                                   48

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typically implemented through a Memorandum
of Agreement between the parties. In the event
of an air quality violation after an MOA is in
place, EPA allows additional, locally determined
measures to be added to the SIP and also allows
time for the measures to affect air quality before
initiating action to change the area's status to
nonattainment.  To date, three FAR agreements
are in place, all for ground-level ozone—for
Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Corpus Christi, Texas, and
for a five-county region in northeast Texas. Each
MOA calls for both voluntary and mandatory
ozone-reducing measures. (See box for more
detailed information concerning the Tulsa,
Oklahoma, FAR.)
                    Tulsa, Oklahoma:
                    Flexible Attainment
                    Region
                    On August 22,1995, EPA, the city of
                    Tulsa, and the state of Oklahoma
                    signed a FAR agreement allowing the
                    city and state to develop solutions to
                    smog problems in the Tulsa area. Tulsa
                    had been in attainment with the ozone
                    standard since 1990, but a steady
                    pattern of one-day "exceedances"
                    raised the need for additional air
                    quality control measures.
                     Tulsa has a continuing program of
                    public health education concerning the
                    need to control ozone and the actions
                    citizens can take to reduce ozone
                    precursors. In addition, as part of the
                    1995 agreement, Tulsa committed to
                    notifying additional businesses on bad
                    ozone days and initiating a program to
                    identify smoking vehicles.
                     Tulsa also agreed that if an ozone
                    violation occurred, the city would
require the sale of gasoline with a
lower volatility, implement a gas-
cap pressure test as part of its
vehicle maintenance inspection
program {leaking gas caps are
known sources of VOC emissions);
and conduct and submit to EPA an
emissions inventory. The  state SIP
will be revised to incorporate these
measures in the event of a viola-
tion. Acting on a proposal from the
mayor of Tulsa, the Oklahoma state
legislature has passed legislation
needed to permit adding the gas
cap pressure test to the vehicle
inspection program. This action
would not have been possible
without strong local support.
  EPA staff continue to work
closely with Tulsa officials on
updating the emissions inventory.

EPA Region 6 contact: Thomas Diggs 9
214 665-7214 (phone) or
DIGGS.THOMAS@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
(e-mail).
                                                     49

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          Supplemental Environmental
          Projects
          Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) are
          environmentally beneficial projects which a violator
          of an environmental law agrees to undertake in
          settlement of an enforcement action (but which the
          violator is not otherwise legally required to perform.)
          SEPs give EPA added flexibility to craft enforcement
          settlements that may benefit communities through
          positive contributions to environmental or public
          health protection. In return, some percentage of the
          cost of the SEP is factored into establishing the final
          civil penalty paid by the defendant.
                         Under EPA's SEP policy (first issued in 1991;
                       revised in 1995), SEPs must have a distinct relation-
                       ship to the environmental violation that triggered
                       an enforcement action. Typically, a SEP is designed
                       to remedy or reduce the probable overall environ-
                       mental or public health impacts to which the
                       violation contributed. Alternatively, a SEP may
                       reduce the likelihood that similar violations will
                       occur in the future. (See box below concerning two
                       community-based SEPs that are part of the same
                       enforcement settlement.)
Supplemental
Environmental
Projects in South Side
Chicago

On January 30,1997, EPA announced
settlement of litigation over alleged
violations of the Clean Air Act, the
Clean Water Act, the Resource
Recovery and Conservation Act, and
the Emergency Planning and Com-
munity Right-To-Know Act at a
Sherwin-Williams resin and paint
manufacturing facility on the South
Side of Chicago. The settlement
illustrates how Supplemental Envi-
ronmental Projects (SEPs) can be used
to promote community-based envi-
ronmental protection.
  In addition to requiring Sherwin-
Williams to reduce the emission of
hundreds of tons of ozone-forming
VOCs into the air, the settlement
contained two SEPs. One requires
the company to contract with the
City of Chicago to perform a
$950,000 cleanup and restoration
project at a Brownfield site near the
facility in Southeast Chicago—a
predominantly minority area with a
number of active community groups.
The City of Chicago has targeted the
area as a focus for its well-estab-
lished Brownfield program, and EPA
expects the city's involvement will
help ensure the success of the
cleanup and restoration activities in
this community.
  The second SEP requires Sherwin-
Williams to contract with a local
environmental group to perform a
$150,000 wetland restoration project
near the facility. The wetland
restoration project will also be
located in Southeast Chicago, near
Lake Calumet, and provides for a
local environmental group, "Open
Lands," to undertake the cleanup,
protection, and upkeep of habitat, as
well as the planting of new habitat.
  Both of these projects were
suggested by, and will directly
benefit, the local community.

EPA contact: Peter Rosenberg at 202 564-
2611 or
ROSENBERG.PETER@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV
(e-mail).
                                                                                   Restoration efforts will
                                                                                   help reverse a long
                                                                                   trend of wetland
                                                                                   degradation in the
                                                                                   highly industrialized
                                                                                   Lake Calumet area of
                                                                                   Southeast Chicago.
                                                                                   For many decades, the
                                                                                   area's rich wetland
                                                                                   resources—such as
                                                                                   O'Brien Lock Marsh
                                                                                   (above)—were treated
                                                                                   mainly as swamps and
                                                                                   dump sites,
                                                                                   Mary Rolek photo, courtesy of the
                                                                                   Calumet Ecological Park Association.
                                                                                   Copyrighted.
                                                  60

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EPA Regional Coordinators
for Community-Based Environmental Protection
 Region 1
 New England States
 Deb Harstedt: 617565-3541
 Rosemary Monahan: 617 565-3551
 Fax: 617565-4940
Region 2
NJ, NX PR, VI
Rabi Kieber: 212 637-4448
Fax: 212 637-5045
Region 3
DC, DE, MC, PA, VA, WV
Dominique Lueckenhoff: 215 566-2738
Susan McDowell: 215 566-2739
Fax: 215566-2782/2783

Region 4
AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN
Grace Deatrick: 404 562-9250 (x29294)
Fax: 404562-9318  .

Region 5
IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI
Marilou Martin:  312353-9660
John Perrecone: 312 353-1149
Fax: 312353-5374

Region 6
AR, LA, NM, OK, TX
Shirley Bruce: 214 665-6547
Cindy Wolf: 214665-7291
Fax: 214 665-6490
Region 7
IA, KS, MO, NE
John Houlihan: 913 551-7432
Fax: 913 551-7765

Region 8
CO, MT, ND, SD, UT, WY
Karen Hamilton: 303 312-6236
Nat Miullo: 303 312-6233
Ayn Schmit: 302 312-6220
Stacey Erickson: 303 312-6692
Fax: 303 312-6071
Region 9
AZ,CA,HI,NV,AS,GU
Debbie Schechter: 415744-1624
Stephanie Valentine: 415-744-1178
Denise Zvanovec: 415 744-1620
Fax: 415744-1680

Region 10
AK, ID, OR, WA
Eric Winiecki: 206 553-6904
Fax: 206 553-6984
 To contact EPA staff by e-mail:
 LASTNAME.FIRSTNAME@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV

 Inquiries may also be directed to EPA headquarters in
 Washington, DC. To contact EPA's Office of Sustainable
 Ecosystems and  Communities: phone: 202 260-4002; fax:
 202 260-0513.
Visit EPA's CBEP Home Page: http://www.epa.gov/ecocommunity

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