Brownfields Training, Research,
and Technical Assistance Grant
Fact Sheet

Environmental Law Institute

EPA BROWNFIELDS PROGRAM

EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states, tribes, communities, and other stakeholders to work together to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. EPA funds eligible applicants through assistance agreements to provide training, research, and technical assistance to facilitate brownfields revitalization.

ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION

The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) is a nonprofit organization that provides information services, publications, training courses, seminars, research programs, technical assistance, and policy recommendations to engage and empower environmental leaders throughout the United States and around the world. ELI's audience extends from environmental professionals in government, industry, public interest groups, and academia to community-based organizations, with a special focus on people of color and low-income populations. ELI's Brownfields Center (www.brownfieldscenter.org) brings together a wide array of resources with the goal of increasing collaboration to ensure tangible benefits to community health and environment. The Brownfields Center provides information on topics relating to brownfields cleanup and redevelopment, helps community groups respond to brownfields opportunities and challenges, conducts research on the legal and policy issues associated with brownfields, and convenes diverse stakeholders for discussions on key issues in brownfields redevelopment.

BROWNFIELDS AND PUBLIC HEALTH INITIATIVE

Grantee
Environmental Law Institute

Project Focus:
Training and Technical Assistance on Public Health

Project Period:
August 2003 to September 2007

Project Description:
ELI's Brownfields and Public Health Initiative (BAPH) is a model that promotes community sustainability and overcomes systemic challenges through brownfields redevelopment. ELI developed BAPH in 2002 and has built a strong foundation for BAPH in Florida, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. In Florida, ELI works with a diverse group of federal, state, local, and city governments, community health organizations, nonprofits, financial institutions, legal experts, and engineering firms to bring the successful approach to other Florida communities. In New Bedford, Massachusetts, ELI has implemented BAPH and helped expand the city's federally qualified health center that serves disadvantaged people living near brownfields. ELI anchored its New Jersey BAPH efforts in Paterson and works closely with community leaders across all sectors. ELI organized and facilitated multi-stakeholder dialogues; built the capacity of the Paterson Environmental Revitalization Committee (PERC) to address public health issues as part of brownfields redevelopment; engaged the Paterson Division of Health in brownfields redevelopment, including its representation on the PERC; convened with its partners a successful one-day workshop: Revitalizing Paterson through Brownfields Redevelopment: How Paterson is Succeeding and You Can Too!; and, produced a 170-page Tool Kit on brownfields, public health, and community revitalization.

CONTACTS

For further information, including specific grant contacts, additional grant information, brownfields news and events, and publications and links, visit the EPA Brownfields web site at: http://www.epa.gov/brownfields or call 202.566.2777.

For further information about the ELI and its brownfields activities, visit ELI's web site at: http://www2.eli.org/index.cfm or contact Suzi Ruhl, J.D., M.P.H., Director, ELI's Public Health and Law Program, at ruhl@eli.org.

*The information on this fact sheet is subject to change.