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EPA SELECTS TWO PROJECTS IN THE SOUTHEAST FOR THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE GRANT PROGRAM

Release Date: 04/28/1999
Contact Information: Carl Terry, EPA Press and Media Relations, 440-562-8325

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has selected two innovative proposals in the Southeast for funding under its Sustainable Development Challenge Grant (SDCG) program. The Depot Avenue Eco-Development Project (University of Florida, Center for Construction and Environment) in Gainesville, Florida and Toward A Regional Sustainable Agricultural System (Mountain Valleys Resource Conservation and Development Council, Inc. ) in Asheville, North Carolina are two of forty-one national projects selected for the Sustainable Development Challenge Grant Program.

The SDCG program provides seed money to encourage creative local approaches to serious environmental problems through sustainable development strategies. This final selection completes the third year in the SDCG program which, when these new grants are finalized, will have funded 96 projects for $10.5 million. A new request for proposals for the 1999/2000 program will be released this summer.

The Florida project seeks to revitalize an old depot neighborhood and porters community currently suffering from urban decay, homelessness, environmental contamination and crime. The focus of the project is the development of the mostly vacant 22-acre Old Gainesville Depot site into a master stormwater basin and a Depot Park. The project site is part of an area that was designated a Brownfield Pilot Project in 1997. Therefore, the community design is scheduled to occur within the time line of the Brownfield assessment to ensure the community's vision for sustainability is realized.

The North Carolina project proposes to help farmers, the majority of the area's population, make the transition from conventional burley tobacco production to organic food production that is higher in profitability. As more markets open up to local producers, farming will become stabilized and the unnecessary outflow of food dollars will be minimized. Farming is the number one economic activity in many rural counties in Western North Carolina. However, rural residents and farmers are facing systemic challenges pertaining to the pressures from urban sprawl and a systematic substitution of imported goods that could be produced locally.

The SDCG program is one of twenty-five major environmental reforms announced by the Clinton Administration in 1995 as part of the National Performance Review's Reinventing Environmental Regulations initiative. EPA developed this competitive grant program in 1996 to encourage people, organizations, business, and government to work together in their communities to improve their environment while supporting a healthy economy and a sense of community well-being. The projects are to be designed by community stakeholders to ensure that those with the best insight into the problems and opportunities are involved in creating community-based sustainable development solutions. Successful proposals under the program should become self-sustaining at the end of the project period, without ongoing reliance from EPA.

Further information, including descriptions of the 41 new projects, is available at: www.epa.gov/ecocommunity/.