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        WEEKLY UPDATE March 24, 2015 

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NEMWI's MS River Cities and Towns Initiative Mayors Meet in Washington, DC

 

Eighteen mayors were in DC last week for a Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative (MRCTI) two-day meeting. NEMWI houses MRCTI, a mayor-led effort comprised of 68 River Mayors committed to creating a coordinated voice for the Mississippi River. At the meeting, the mayors announced that they are forming a delegation to attend the UN's COP21 meeting in Paris; they also claimed as a victory the President's proposal for record level funding for the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant Program.

With guidance from the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, DC - long considered a global leader in climate mitigation - the River Mayors are assembling a delegation to travel to Paris for COP21, the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Also, after three years of hard work, the Mayors claimed a significant victory during their DC meeting with respect to the President's FY 2016 budget, which proposes an all-time high level of $200 million for FEMA's Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) Grant Program without tying the spending to tax reform. PDM reduces threats to Mississippi River Valley populations and structures by funding preparation in advance of natural disasters, while also reducing the River region's reliance upon federal post-disaster recovery funds. Further, the Mayors applauded the Administration's support of the National Flood Insurance Program Risk Mapping at a level of $400 million, a sizeable increase over current funding levels. More details are available here.

 

For more information, contact Colin Wellenkamp, Director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative at the Northeast-Midwest Institute. 

  

Regional Advisors Weigh in on NEMWI Aquatic Invasive Species Project

 

On March 17 and 18, the NEMWI hosted an advisory meeting for a Great Lakes Protection Fund-supported project entitled "Revealing How Clean is Clean: Great Lakes Invasive Species." This project seeks to develop a scientific basis for setting numeric standards for aquatic invasive species (AIS) discharges to protect the Great Lakes, and other ecosystems. The advisory committee includes individuals from academia and federal and state government agencies. The sixteen participating committee and project team members voiced strong support for the project purpose to better understand the risk of AIS to the Great Lakes associated with varying organism drop-off rates. The advisors gave input on practicable experimental design and survey methods to assess a direct cause-and-effect relationship of organism drop-off rate and AIS establishment, as well as further linking the results with federal and state AIS prevention policies and actions. The NEMWI project will be active in the field during the Spring, Summer and Fall of 2015 and results will be available in early 2016.    

 

For more information, contact Allegra Cangelosi, Sr. Policy Analyst - Environmental Projects and PI for GSI at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.

 

    EPA Selects 20 Communities for Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Grants; 11 in NEMW Region  

Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the selection of 20 communities in 16 states receiving approximately $4 million in Brownfields Area-Wide Planning (AWP) grants for cleanup and reuse of Brownfields sites to revitalize communities and strengthen local economies. EPA is awarding up to $200,000 per recipient to work with communities on brownfields planning activities and reuse in conjunction with community assets such as housing, recreation and open space, employment, education and health facilities, social services, transportation options, infrastructure and commerce needs. NEMW grantees are:
  • Camden Redevelopment Agency (NJ)
  • City of Dubuque, IA
  • City of Duluth, MN
  • City of Lawrence, MA
  • Redevelopment Authority of the City of Milwaukee (WI)
  • City of New Bedford, MA
  • City of Racine, WI
  • City of Rochester, NY
  • Greater Portland Council of Governments (ME)
  • South Bronx Overall EDC (NY)
  • Temple University (PA)

More details on the grant recipients and planned projects are available here.

  

For more information, contact Colleen Cain, Sr. Policy Analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.

 

HUD Creates Sustainable Communities Initiative Resource Library    


The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has created a Sustainable Communities Initiative Resource Library to house the products of HUD's Sustainable Communities Initiative Grantees. This new online library catalogues dozens of local and regional comprehensive plans, model codes and reports-and it will be expanded over the coming months with additional plans, tools, reports and fact sheets. The library serves as a showcase for the range of activities that grantee cities, counties and regions have taken since the first grant was awarded in 2010.

For more information, contact Colleen Cain, Sr. Policy Analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute. 

 

USDA Announces $97 Million Available to Expand Access to Healthy Food, Support Rural Economies

 

Last week, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the availability of $96.8 million in grants to fund innovative projects designed to support specialty crop producers, local food entrepreneurs, and farm to school efforts. The grant programs administered by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) include the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP), the Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program (FSMIP) and the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program which covers two types of grants: the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) and the Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP). AMS will host a webinar on March 25, to introduce FMPP and LFPP to potential applicants and a teleconference about FSMIP on March 31. For more information, visit the AMS grants  website. Also included in the announcement is the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) Farm to School Grant Program, designed to bring local foods into the school cafeteria. More information about the Farm to School grant program, upcoming webinars relevant to applicants, and sample grant applications can be found here.

 

For more information, contact Colleen Cain, Sr. Policy Analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute. 

 

NEMWI: Strengthening the Region that Sustains the Nation