Friday, May 31, 2013, 12:00pm-1:00pm EST

Featured Speakers:
Keith Berg, Mayor, City of Ogden, IA
David Doyle, Sustainable Communities Coordinator, Region 7

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Description:
Over the summer and fall of 2010, the Local Synergy process was begun as part of EPA's Land Revitalization program in the little town of Ogden, Iowa. Local assets were identified, brownfields were demolished and cleaned, and community residents began to see the synergies between businesses, community activities, and revitalization efforts. Two years later, the leaders are back to share the progress made and challenges ahead.

About the Speakers:

Keith Berg was elected mayor of Ogden, IA and took office January 2010, and he is now in his second 2-year term.
He has been in business on the main street of Ogden since August 1, 1987. Prior to that he held positions with Deere and Company for fifteen years with his last position of Overseas Representative responsible for all sales and service support outside of North America for tractors built in Waterloo, Iowa. Keith has been active in promoting economic development in Ogden for 25 years.

David Doyle works for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Region 7 Office in Lenexa, Kansas. David has a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Engineering from Syracuse University and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Health Engineering from the University of Kansas. David has been with EPA for over 35 years and has worked in many of EPA's water, air, and hazardous waste programs as both a staff person and a manager. David is presently EPA Region 7's Sustainable Communities Coordinator, where he assists EPA program staff, property owners, communities and others in applying smart growth and sustainable community principles and techniques to make communities more sustainable. David is also a certified mediator for the Kansas City Area Federal Employee's Shared Neutrals Mediation Program and the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Board of Commissioners Office of Community Complaints.

Featured Speakers:
Brian Bidolli, AICP, Executive Director, Greater Bridgeport Regional Council
Adam Whelchel, Ph.D., Director of Science, The Nature Conservancy Connecticut Chapter

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Description:
Federal agencies and local governments are moving forward with strategies to deal with the impacts of climate change, developing planning methodologies and solutions to reduce risk across all sectors of the economy. In fall of 2011, a new partnership formed between the City of Bridgeport, Greater Bridgeport Regional Council, The Nature Conservancy, Clean Air Cool Planet, and The Regional Plan Association to address such risks. The partnership's focus was on increasing awareness of risks associated with extreme weather and natural and climate-related hazards and assessing the risks, strength and vulnerabilities within the City of Bridgeport. This focus was achieved through a series of Climate Preparedness Workshops in the winter/spring of 2012. The core directive of this effort was the engagement with and between community stakeholders in order to facilitate the education planning and ultimately implementation of priority adaptation actions.
Read the Bridgeport Climate Preparedness Workshops Summary of Findings.

About the Speakers:

Brian Bidolli is the Executive Director of the Greater Bridgeport Regional Council. Through his experience at the local and regional level, he has supported numerous quality of life initiatives in the San Diego and Greater Bridgeport region with a focus on integrating environmental mitigation strategies into land use and transportation plans.

Dr. Adam Whelchel's twenty year career has focused on ecological restoration and climate preparedness while employed with federal agencies, ecological consulting firms, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations across the United States, Caribbean and Africa. As the Director of Science for The Nature Conservancy in Connecticut, Dr. Whelchel is currently responsible for overseeing climate impact assessment and responses with municipalities and states via the Conservancy's Coastal Resilience Network (www.coastalresilience.org). Adam is also serving as a key advisor for Puerto Rico Climate Adaptation Project and a Lead Author on the Northeast section of the U.S. National Climate Assessment.

Featured Speaker:
Ernest Hutton, FAICP, Assoc. AIA, Principal of Hutton Associates, Inc.

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Description:
Can transformations in the built environment inspire people to be more physically active, and make our communities healthier? According to a growing body of research, the answer is yes. The 'Active Design Guidelines' developed for New York City translate this knowledge into concrete strategies for a healthier, more sustainable future. Designers, planners, developers, and operations managers can adapt the Guidelines to their own projects to promote physical activity and help counteract the most pressing health epidemics of our time - poor physical fitness and obesity and their relationship to chronic diseases such as diabetes.

'New York City's Active Design Guidelines' is a 1-hour presentation and discussion session that will:

• explore the relationship between health and the built environment;
• provide an overview of the Guidelines and its list of urban design and building design strategies;
• examine synergies between Active Design, environmental sustainability, and universal design;
• share details on the LEED Innovation Credit for Physical Activity; and
• highlight best practices and current planning and policy initiatives.

About the Speaker:
Ernest Hutton, FAICP, Assoc. AIA, and principal of Hutton Associates, Inc., trained as an architect and city planner at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. His award-winning projects range from the Pittsburgh Cultural District and Charlotte's Mixed-Use Development Strategy to two 'Roanoke Vision' Comprehensive Plans, ten interrelated Scenic Byway Corridor Management Plans for the State of Connecticut, eight hamlet center and corridor plans for the Town of Southampton NY, and his current role (2006-present) as planning advisor to Providence City Council. Recipient of the national 2011 AIA Associate Award, he was a member of the 2007-2011 AIANY Board of Directors and is Co-Chair of its Planning and Urban Design Committee and of New York New Visions. He is a member of the advisory board of the Center for Active Design and works with a unique consortium of NYC agencies initiated by the Department of Health in outreach and implementation of the award winning 'Active Design Guidelines'.

Featured Speakers:
Mary Sanderson, U.S. EPA, Office of Site Remediation & Restoration
David J. Monz, Principal, Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, P.C.
Russell Downey, Director of Environmental Engineering, Pfizer, Inc.

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Description:
RCRA cleanup sites, particularly large industrial sites that have been shut down by companies, pose some of the toughest problems for communities to move toward a new future. Because many of the sites are large and may have significant and complex cleanups associated with them, engaging owners in a process that leads to outcomes acceptable to the local community is many times unclear. However, there is hope. Through the dedication and concerted efforts of local stakeholders, municipalities, state and federal regulators, and owners of the properties, partnerships are emerging that lead to cleanups that address tough issues, redevelopments that lead to new uses, and benefits for all including tax generation, ecological restoration, and a renewed sense of hope in those communities.
This webinar focuses on the approach used at the Pharmacia and Upjohn site in North Haven, CT now under remediation. Visit the Pharmacia and Upjohn informational website to learn more about the progress of the project.

The EPA has also established guidance for use at cleanup sites and RCRA sites, including guidance for Community Engagement. Visit the USEPA website for examples.

About the Speakers:

Mary Sanderson is the chief of the Remediation and Restoration II Branch in the Office of Site Remediation and Restoration in the Region I/New England office of the EPA. Her work includes the Brownfields program, the Federal Facilities Superfund and Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) program, and the Underground Storage Tanks program.
Prior positions include a one-year assignment as the special assistant to the Deputy Regional Administrator in New England, project manager for a variety of Superfund sites, RCRA inspector and permit writer, and two assignments in EPA/Headquarters in Washington, D.C. She was a surveyor in Sweden prior to joining EPA.

David J. Monz has chaired the Community Advisory Panel for the Town of North Haven for 15 years. As an attorney, he concentrates his practice on environmental compliance law, land use permitting and power generation projects. On the environmental side, Mr. Monz represents both private and public sector clients in judicial and administrative proceedings; works closely with various federal, state and local regulatory authorities for permitting and remediation of a number of innovative Brownfield restoration projects; develops environmental compliance and risk management programs; and regularly counsels colleges and universities, healthcare organizations and biomedical research institutions on a wide range of environmental compliance and health and safety issues. On the power generation side, Mr. Monz has handled the permitting of and on-going regulatory compliance for a number of oil and gas-fired cogeneration facilities, and has extensive experience with ISO New England's various Demand Response programs. A nationally recognized authority in his field, Mr. Monz is a frequent speaker, author of numerous articles on environmental matters and has served in leadership roles within a number of organizations, including Co-chairman of the Environmental Law Section of the National Association of College and University Attorneys.

Russell Downey is the project director at the Pharmacia & Upjohn site and led the successful effort to reach a settlement with the agencies and begin site restoration.
Mr. Downey joined The Upjohn Company in 1990 as an Engineer and has held several managerial positions within Upjohn, Pharmacia & Upjohn Company and Pharmacia Corporation. Russ has been involved with environmental compliance auditing as well as environmental transactional due-diligence and environmental remediation. Today Russ is involved in several large remediation projects (e.g. North Haven, Bound Brook) as well as some other remediation projects with unique external stakeholder interaction.
Russ has 25-years experience in environmental and engineering-related work in both government and industry. He received a B.S. in Geological Engineering from Michigan Technological University and a M.S. in Geology from Western Michigan University. He is married with four children and enjoys the natural outdoors, exploring relic mining sites, mineral collecting, and hiking.

Featured Speaker:
Robert Pirani
Vice President for Environmental Programs, Regional Plan Association
Executive Director, Governors Island Alliance

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Description:
Large landscape conservation involves public and private collaborators who look beyond political boundaries and property lines to achieve their goals. It is an increasing popular and significant framework for decisions by state and federal agencies on the management of land and water resources, in particular addressing the challenges of land use, siting of infrastructure, and climate change. The webinar will share the results of an inventory and assessment of 165 landscape conservation initiatives in the 13 state Northeast Megaregion and examine the methods and strategies that private landowners, local land trusts, municipalities, national conservation organizations, and public agencies bring to these shared challenges.
Read the report.

About the Speaker:
Robert Pirani is Regional Plan Association's Vice President for Environmental Programs and Executive Director of the Governors Island Alliance. His responsibilities include developing and directing programs in parks and open space advocacy, land use management, water quality protection, and recycling and waste prevention. Mr. Pirani recently co-authored Landscapes: Improving Conservation Practice in the Northeast Megaregion: a survey and assessment landscape conservation initiatives in the 13 state Northeastern United States. Mr. Pirani holds a Master's Degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University and a Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Studies from Hampshire College. He serves on numerous non profit boards and advisory committees, and is currently Chair of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative.

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Featured Speakers:
Timothy Fields, Senior Vice President, MDB, Inc.
Sue Briggum, Vice President, Federal Public Affairs, WM Waste Management

The Sustainable Materials Management Coalition has produced a new report, "Sustainable Materials Management: A New Materials Hierarchy, Solutions to Barriers, and Recommendations for a Path Forward." The report recommends the creation of an improved materials hierarchy, defines solutions for addressing barriers to sustainable materials management, and promises a subsequent report on potential new life-cycle based performance metrics to evaluate materials management processes. This report is the result of a year-long effort by representatives of business and industry, academic institutions, environmental and community organizations, and State and local government organizations to speed the path forward for sustainable materials management. Timothy Fields, Senior Vice President, MDB, Inc., and former EPA Assistant Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response, and Sue Briggum, Vice President, Federal Public Affairs, Waste Management, will present a webinar on this important effort, and discuss next steps for the Sustainable Materials Management Coalition.

Speaker Bios:

Sue Briggum
Since 1987, Sue has been with the Washington, D.C. office of Waste Management, where she is responsible for advocacy regarding federal environment regulation and policy. She manages the company's sustainability reporting, and directs the company's public policy group.

Sue served on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's NACEPT Superfund Advisory Committees in 1994 and 2004; Title VI of the Civil Rights Act Advisory Committee; and Compliance Assistance Advisory Committee. She served on the U.S. EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (as Council or work group member) from 1994 to 2012, and co-chaired both terms of the National Environmental Policy Commission, convened at the request of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

Sue received her B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh; Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin (where she taught literature and business writing); and J.D. from Harvard University.

Timothy Fields
Timothy Fields is Senior Vice President at MDB, Inc. He is an expert in Superfund, Brownfields, Emergency Response, Worker Training, and Environmental Justice, who provides technical and analytical support to public and private sector clients. He has 40 years of experience addressing complex site assessment, cleanup, reuse, and waste management issues. Mr. Fields worked at the US Environmental Protection Agency for 30 years, serving for four years as Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER). He provided national direction and oversight of the nation's environmental site assessment, cleanup, reuse, and waste management programs, including Superfund toxic waste sites, Brownfields, Hazardous and Solid Waste Management, Underground Storage Tanks, Emergency Management, Technology Innovation, and Federal Facilities Site Remediation programs. Mr. Fields is an expert mediator/facilitator, and also serves as an expert on environmental cleanup and waste management matters. At MDB, he leads its environmental justice (EJ) practice, and does work for a variety of clients in this area. He has facilitated an industry- community-government EJ dialogue for eleven years in Spartanburg, SC. He has provided national EJ program mission support to EPA, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the Department of Energy. He has directed a study of the EJ benefits of hazardous waste worker training programs, and has directed the conduct of several national EJ conferences. Mr. Fields chairs the Sustainable Materials Management Coalition. He has been awarded four Presidential Rank Awards for outstanding executive service. He has a B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering from Virginia Tech University, and an M.S. degree in Operations Research from George Washington University.

Featured Speakers:
Robin R. Jenkins, EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics
in the Office of Policy
Heather Klemick, EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics

Moderator:
Peter B. Meyer, President and Chief Economist, The E.P. Systems Group, Inc

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Description:
This past fall, the EPA issued a new Handbook providing recommendations for economic analysis of land cleanup and reuse activities and programs. These activities pose significant measurement problems associated with such unique qualities as the diversity of contaminants and affected media across sites, market pricing problems such as stigma, and the impacts of significant events that transpire over the course of a sometimes lengthy time frame.

EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics and its Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response collaborated to assure that the new Handbook was both economically rigorous and applicable in the real-world. The peer- reviewed Handbook reviews some outstanding analytical problems and then provides policy planners and evaluators with recommendations for estimating the benefits, costs, and economic impacts of land cleanup and reuse. The state of knowledge is such that many questions remain in the literature so the Handbook highlights relevant questions as well.

Two of its authors, Robin Jenkins and Heather Klemick, will review the Handbook, address the distinction between benefit-cost analysis and the more common economic impact analysis and discuss some issues regarding use of property value analysis for estimating land cleanup and reuse benefits. Peter Meyer, who will moderate the webinar, will join them in discussing the use of the Handbook by local public sector decision-makers and its value in assessing the net local economic gains associated with different redevelopment choices.

Featured Speakers:
Shira Gidding, South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation (SoBRO)
Zach Schreiber, New York City Mayor's Office of Environmental Remediation

Download slides from this webinar:
Part 1 - Shira Gidding
Part 2 - Zach Schreiber

Description:
This webinar will focus on the intersection of area-wide planning, environmental remediation, and revitalization initiatives as shaped by a local community vision in the Bronx, New York City. In that regard, the webinar will showcase a public-private collaboration between the City of New York and SoBRO, a New York City-based local economic development corporation advancing sustainable planning and redevelopment efforts in distressed sections of the Bronx. This collaboration is currently working toward re-positioning strategically located properties that face brownfield issues, where redevelopment would greatly benefit the surrounding area.

SoBRO's planning initiatives are supported by a program administered by the NY State Department of State called the Brownfield Opportunity Areas (BOA) program. Under the BOA program, the State awards funding to municipalities and community based organizations who facilitate the implementation of a community's vision for economic development and revitalization. Funds advance the community visioning process, land use planning, and assessment/development of under-utilized and/or contaminated property within these oftentimes under-served communities. The City of New York has embraced the BOA Program and is fully engaged in working with BOA grantees like SoBRO to ensure the success of their efforts. New York City is home to twenty (20) BOA areas, each with a unique approach to the program and overall goals related to community revitalization. This panel will present a sampling of these dynamic approaches and how the City has become an important partner in their efforts.

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See how communities in the New York Metropolitan region are using this innovative national program involving DOT/HUD/EPA to reshape communities and create greater choice for moving around the region. With a unique bi-state coalition brought together to compete for rare national planning dollars, nine cities in CT and NY are working to take better advantage of our regional rail system to create sustainable communities. The region's activities include both local place-based projects as well as regional activities to facilitate the implementation of those projects and to foster comparable developments in other communities.

March 30, 2012 - 12:00pm eastern

Featured Speaker:
Walter Kovalick, Former Director of EPA's Technology Innovation Office

Moderator:
Marianne Horinko, President, The Horinko Group

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Newly emerging technologies hold the promise of addressing environmental problems more cost-effectively, while encouraging new companies and promoting economic development. In October, 2011, EPA adopted a "road map" to chart a path for the Agency to play more broadly in the technology marketplace--helping to define new needs, using its regulatory agenda to encourage new technology solutions, and partnering with all levels of government, the financial community, and technology developers to assist in technology commercialization, both domestically and internationally. Two activities already underway to carry out the strategy will also be discussed.

Join Walter Kovalick, former Director of Technology Innovation Office in EPA's waste programs, for a wide ranging discussion of the strategy and its direction as the nation tackles the "clean technology" sector. Marianne L. Horinko, President of The Horinko Group and former EPA Acting Administrator, will moderate and provide opening remarks.

Resources:

NACEPT Technology Programs Engaging Marketplace 2007
NACEPT Report Technology Programs and IntraAgency Coop 2006
NACEPT EPA and Venture Capital 2008
EPA Response to Regulatory Review Requirement - Aug 2011
EPA Technology Innovation Roadmap (.docx format)
2011 Regulatory Review requirement
LPJ speech to Metro Water Agencies 3/22/10
LPJ speech to National Press Club 3/8/10
LPJ/SBA announce Water Technology Innovation Cluster 1/18/2011
ORD Jan. 2011 Cluster News
Water Technology Innovation Cluster background

The Database of State Incentives for Renewable & Efficiency (DSIRE) a project of the North Carolina Solar Center and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council has a wide range of tools for policy makers and business leaders looking to promote green economic development. DSIRE has a state-by-state list of Financial Incentives for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency as well. In addition, the database contains rule, regulations and policies for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency for each state. The site also provides additional resources such as maps comparing different programs and policies across the US and a library or reports, technical papers, articles and presentations. The Database can be found by visiting www.dsireusa.org.