Welcome to the Free Range Podcast.
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I’m your host, Mike Livermore.
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This bonus episode is sponsored by the Environmental Institute at the University of Virginia.
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With me today is Adam Ortiz, who’s currently the Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, a post in which he oversees implementation of a wide range of core environmental programs across several states.
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Hi, Adam.
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Welcome to the podcast.
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Mike, thanks for having me.
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So maybe to start us off, we could talk a little bit about the role of EPA regional administrator, right?
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So obviously in the United States, in the U.S., we have like, you know, the well-known federal system and you have these clear constitutional levels of the national government in Washington, D.C., and then you have the states.
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But there are really important kind of functional levels that exist in the U.S.
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kind of political and
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governance situation, including regions, including, of course, municipalities, which don’t have a constitutional role, but play hugely important governance roles in the states.
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So in a regional office, you sit between the national level and states, right?
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And so it’s
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In region three, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia are the states, plus the District of Columbia, which of course is not a state, but has its own peculiar status.
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And then also several federally recognized tribes, which again are not states, but they have their own special status.
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So how do you kind of, or how generally do you think of regional offices kind of fitting into this bigger cooperative federalist structure in the area of environmental law?
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Well, principally, it’s to facilitate the federal relationship with the states.
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And 50 states are a lot, and they’re very diverse.
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They’re very different.
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Even in our region, the states that you mentioned, there’s a lot of diversity as well.
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And, you know, we know, you know, Washington, D.C.
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does live up to some of those stereotypes.
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You know, they’re dealing with inside the beltway stuff, Congress.
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But the regional offices really are a layer that’s closer to the states, our principal focus.
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is on the relationships with the states to carry out federal statutes and laws.
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So we have these authorities that we delegate to the states, but we have to keep an eye on them and work with them to make sure that the air is clean and that the water is clean and all the associated programs that go with it.
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But in a more practical way, Mike, the regional offices add a lot of value
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Because environmental issues are, as you know, so complex, so interdisciplinary.
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It’s not just because you’re administering a program or giving a grant or awarding a permit.
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It’s not like you’ve cleaned up the water or cleaned up the air 100%.
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So it’s a level of engagement and problem solving, not just with the states, our co-regulators and our partners, but also, as you mentioned, with the municipalities, with the hundreds and hundreds of
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interest groups and non-governmental organizations and academic institutions.
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In our view, especially here in the Mid-Atlantic region, all of us, whether we’re a formal government entity or not, are part of team environment.
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So we really want to empower folks who are there to help.
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And a little neighborhood group that does a litter cleanup is on
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is absolutely important, you know, maybe not important in the same way as an inspector from Richmond from the Department of Environmental Quality, but they have a role.
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So, you know, we want to support those groups through grant making, technical assistance, education.
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So to answer your question, it provides an important role between the federal entity and the federal level and the folks who are doing it inside of the states.
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Yeah, great.
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And also in your, you know, kind of your background, you’ve worked at the municipal level as well.
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I know, so you ran, you were a mayor, so you, you know, worked, you know, across, obviously oversaw an entire municipal apparatus and then running environmental protection departments in Maryland, in Prince George’s County and Montgomery County.
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And I think that, you know, especially in law schools, we can…
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kind of underappreciate the role of municipalities in environmental governance, but it’s really where the rubber hits the road in a lot of these, a lot of environmental issues.
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So I’m just curious, you know, and with that experience prior to your current position,
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You know, what are some of the challenges and opportunities that you saw for environmental progress or what are some of the difficulties in achieving environmental progress that you have kind of seen at that kind of really rubber hits the road base level of the municipality?
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Well, it’s all hands on deck and everybody has a role.
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And as folks know, it’s not the EPA that picks up your garbage recycling, but it’s your municipality that does.
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Or in little flooding issues, the way that traffic flows, tree canopy, those everyday quality of life services are really delivered by local governments.
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So local governments are the ones that
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at the end of the day, are the executors, the implementers, the ones that get it done.
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And I admit my bias.
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Most of my career has been in local government in a little town or for counties that are delivering these services.
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But that’s a big deal, just the stuff that people see and touch every day.
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And then sometimes the municipalities have delegated authorities from the federal government and responsibilities.
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So
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So, you know, we’re all in it together.
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But, you know, I really, really believe in the local level of government.
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It’s the one that’s accessible to people.
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It’s the one that they experience every day.
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And the local government does the stuff that people see and touch and impacts their quality of life.
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So I think it’s important and I think it’s really important, especially as a federal agency, to spend time aligning and engaging with that level.
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So we’re really working together.
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Yeah.
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And maybe we can, maybe we can, um, return a little bit to, um, to some of these, I think really kind of, there’s almost kind of political philosophy questions about, you know, how government interacts with people at the, at these different level where you go from the, the very felt experience of like your garbage getting picked up, right.
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To quite abstract, you know, things like federal rulemakings happening in DC that are hugely impactful, but in a, in a
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in a way that’s just very different, right, from that everyday felt impact, which is quite interesting.
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But maybe before we get to those questions, we could talk a little bit more concretely about what you’ve been up to and what’s going on in the region.
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I mean, it’s a really fascinating, I think, and maybe I’m biased, fascinating set of environmental challenges that are
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unique to the, to the mid-Atlantic, right?
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Like every region has its own set of challenges, like this region two with New York and, and the big metropolitan area there.
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And, you know, obviously out in California and the West, they’ve got a different set of issues.
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And so, so what are some of the issues that, you know, kind of in broad brushes that you think of are kind
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kind of special to the Mid-Atlantic region?
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Obviously the Chesapeake Bay is huge.
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So what do you think of as some of the characteristic challenges of the region?
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You know, there’s so many ways to answer that question, you know, from a sort of a big scale and, you know, climate change is front of mind for folks, especially in, you know, coastal regions and much of the Mid-Atlantic is a coastal region.
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You know, that’s a big deal.
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We have the Chesapeake Bay, but even
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The Delaware Estuary, the Ohio River are subject to storm impacts and sea level rise and impacts on aquifers and drinking water.
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So water is a big deal.
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And as you know and listeners probably know, in the east, our issue principally is getting too much water.
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Right.
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In the West, it’s getting too little.
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So resilience of infrastructure.
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And we can talk about just how our models, our FEMA flood models, our built infrastructure is built for storm impacts that are quickly becoming outmoded and outdated.
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So that’s a big deal.
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But also, this region isn’t.
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Again, my biases, but I just love this region.
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There’s so much happening here.
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So we’re talking about the coastal communities, but we have the historic cities along the I-95 corridor, including ports and the shipping in these old industrial cities.
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you know, uh, in great cities, these powerful suburbs, you know, around Washington, DC and greater Philadelphia and Richmond and, you know, on down the line, um, you know, you know, incredible, uh, you know, very dynamic metropolitan areas.
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Then as we, um, moved West Appalachia, uh, you know, West Virginia, uh, Western Virginia and, um,
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in parts of Western Pennsylvania.
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So Appalachia extraction industries historically, coal, natural gas, manufacturing.
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PFAS were invented in our region.
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Is that right?
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In Parkersburg, West Virginia.
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So there’s a close connection with those energy producers as well as chemical manufacturing and the role that that’s played in our economy.
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Over time, and then also interestingly, farming.
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Often we overlook the farming community, but big, a lot of generation of food products coming out of the Mid-Atlantic in the Delmarva, which is the eastern shore, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.
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Big poultry producers.
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Purdue, for example, is based there.
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And then principally Pennsylvania, but not just Pennsylvania.
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And part of upstate New York that you’re familiar with, I know, Mike, dairy producers, small-scale historic producers.
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daily producers with a significant percentage of what’s called plain sect or Amish and Mennonite farmers that, you know, have been there for centuries, whose families have been there for centuries.
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So it’s really a fascinating region.
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You know, there’s lots of nooks and crannies.
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But in a lot of ways, it’s also a microcosm of our country, you know, with all of the
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Social and historic issues from the First Nations that greeted the colonists back in the day to the tribes that are still around and resilient, as well as immigration patterns, civil war, segregation and post-segregation.
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So redlining, like, so all this stuff is here.
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Yeah.
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The good stuff and the bad stuff, but, you know, and I know I’m going on a bit, but, you know, I’ll just end with this, is there’s also incredible, you know, intellectual resources and, you know, I would say passionate, passion resources.
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People really care about the environment.
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You know, it’s been front and center historically, you know, as, you know, our agricultural background, our connection to the water environment.
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water men and women in the Chesapeake and other places.
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So it’s also a very, it’s a constituency, you know, whether it’s a red area or a blue area, quote unquote, people really care about the environment and are invested in it.
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So I’m a big fan, as you can tell, of EPA Region 3, but I think for good reason.
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Yeah, no, I mean, it is.
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It’s just the diversity on so many different fronts.
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It is a fascinating area, part of the world.
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And so maybe we can dive into some of these different dimensions.
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And it is one of the fun things about working in the environmental domain is that you interact kind of with everything all the time.
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You know, big cities, rural areas, different parts of the economy at different levels.
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You know, it’s really part of the fun.
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So you mentioned kind of the ports and some of the industrial past and the issues around segregation and so on.
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So one of the ways that this comes up is in the context of environmental justice, obviously.
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These are issues that are highly salient, especially these days, but of course have been with us around for a very long time.
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And, you know, maybe we could talk a little bit about –
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you know, a particular program that often is closely involved in, you know, many of these issues, the Superfund program, Superfund cleanups and so on.
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And there’s a big proposed cleanup happening in Bear Creek in Baltimore County.
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And so obviously the… So maybe one question is, you know, how do you…
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For folks who aren’t maybe so familiar, what is the role of the EPA regional office on a big superfund cleanup like that?
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And what are some of the other players, like the state’s going to be involved, local government’s going to be involved?
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So maybe that’s just to get us warmed up, and then we can maybe dig into some of the complexities of these kinds of decisions.
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Sure.
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Well, you know, one way to think about our work is, and it’s a little oversimplistic, is land, air, and water.
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And we have a bunch of laws and a bunch of grant programs and resources and staff dedicated to each of those media, each of those mediums.
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So Superfund is, you know, obviously in the land portion along with our brownfields program.
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And that’s looking back.
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It’s like, you know, we’re cleaning up land.
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um stuff um you know hazardous material toxics um from places that were sacrificed from years and years ago from from industry of some kind uh or neglect or dumping um in uh you know lands that are just too toxic for you know people to do stuff on so the superfund program and our brownfields programs um are our investment
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And there’s a process for eligibility, and it’s working with locals in the state to list these as priority sites for us to work on and clean up and remediate.
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And the way that I think of it is plug them back into our society, into our economy.
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And you were mentioning these port areas and the industrial cities, including Pittsburgh.
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You know, and Pittsburgh is a great example of, you know, back in the day before there was an EPA or before the laws were strong enough, you know, we built a lot of stuff.
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And some of it was kind of dirty to build with a lot of byproducts.
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And, you know, this was before we had the awareness and the sophistication we had.
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And, you know, people just buried it in the ground or dumped it, whether it was –
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munitions in some cases.
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And we had a huge Superfund cleanup of munitions and ordinance in Hampton Roads area that is now a shipping center and a logistics center.
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To boxcar manufacturing in West Virginia, another Superfund site that transformer fluid, PCBs, a variety of other heavy metals were in
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in the ground, and we work with locality to clean up that toxic waste, and now it’s a baseball field, a minor league baseball field with Marshall University.
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So these programs, and this is a long-winded answer, I get so excited about them, right?
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So forgive me and your listeners, but these are places that were productive, that were
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doing stuff, providing a service in a way that in hindsight, you know, was a little clumsy, a little dirty and sacrificed, you know, these important parcels.
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And the Superfund and the Brownfields programs clean them up and then work with localities to plug them back in.
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Because often they’re in important places.
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That’s why they existed in the first place.
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They’re close to the rail line.
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They’re close to the river for shipping.
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They’re close to a highway.
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They’re close to downtown because the workforce was there.
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So these are places that, you know, if they can be activated, can really improve the quality of life.
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And, you know, I gave some examples of the ballpark and the other facility.
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But, you know, there are also parks, riverfront parks.
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We just have an ongoing project with Wheeling, the city of Wheeling, West Virginia, on the Ohio River that now operates.
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Instead of, you know, manufacturing and dumping stuff in the river, people can go biking and fishing and hiking along the river.
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So it’s putting these places, you know, you know, desacrificing them, breathing life into them so people can enjoy them, whether it’s from recreation or economic activity, everything from, you know, breweries to parks to ballparks.
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You know, you know, we do that, that restoration, working closely with the localities.
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So they can achieve their goals for their local economies.
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Yeah, great.
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And then, of course, there’s these kind of physical places that can serve these really important roles in the community life and in the local economy.
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And then, of course, there’s the folks who live near the contaminated places.
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And this is where, you know, this is where…
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A lot of conversation around environmental justice comes up because it’s not a it’s not a random sample of people who happen to live near these places.
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It’s often, you know, economically disadvantaged folks.
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There is often a highly racialized component to who lives where vis-a-vis these these types of sites.
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So when the when the
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you know, when the regional office, when your staff is working on these issues and really much kind of thinking about a particular site that’s in a community and there’s folks that live there, how does, you know, how does EPA, how does the regional office interact with those folks?
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You know, what’s the process to, I mean, is it usually like everyone’s happy and there’s no conflict or what’s the, you know, obviously that’s not going to be the case, but so how does the,
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How does that conversation look and how do you see the role of the agency vis-a-vis the local communities in these kinds of situations?
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Well, our agency, and especially here in the region, we try to, and I think we very much do, transcend these stereotypes of a distant government fortress agency.
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I mean, we are out.
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Just like today we’re out in Charlottesville and we’ve been out.
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This week, meeting with groups, the city here, environmental organizations and others, because this work is environmental work, but it’s also social work.
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It’s a human enterprise with a human component, a community component.
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So, you know, as we work to take on the sacrifice in toxic places, you know, we have to do it hand in hand with the local community.
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So we always engage.
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We always reach out.
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to the local town if there is one or city or homeowners association or neighborhood association.
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Often they’re aware of the facility.
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It’s part of their local history.
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So their dad or their mom or their granddad worked at the facility with stories and put bread on the table.
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So they know it and they also know it’s abandoned and could have a better life.
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So there’s an engagement process that we have
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to share our goals and the authorities and the resources that we have.
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Sometimes there’s funding needed from Congress.
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So having a constituency and local elected officials seeing the value can help us get funding for projects.
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And, you know, and then there’s the dirty stuff, you know, like construction and the remediation.
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Truck’s coming and we all know, you know, when the pipe has to be replaced on our street or our commute is disrupted, you know, because of construction projects.
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So there’s that phase, you know, and communication is really important, you know, that people understand, you know, why this disruption is occurring, how long it will last.
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You know, there’s always questions, you know, that come up about, you know, dust or traffic flow or,
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You know, potential, you know, fugitive pollution or what are you going to do when you dig up all this bad stuff and how you dispose of it?
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How do you dispose of it?
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So, you know, all of those things require community engagement.
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But really the really fun stuff is the what’s next.
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you know, so often places have a vision, you know, for their community.
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They’re like, you know, we would love to have a grocery store or we wish we could move the firehouse to this part of town.
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You know, we would love to have a place to, you know, get a bite to eat.
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You know, we would really like to, you know, provide, you know, some light manufacturing here for jobs.
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Like they have their vision.
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We need outdoor space for our kids or,
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And often the next life of these places are just that.
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We bring them back online, we take the liability out of the property because these lots have a lot of unknown junk in them.
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So what developer or investor is going to take that on?
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Often they’re like, ah, it’s too much of a liability.
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I’m going to go over here with my money.
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But, you know, when we can give it, you know, a thumbs up, you know, a certification that it’s clean and green and ready to go, municipalities and local community development groups can attract who they want, you know, because they’ve taken the liability out.
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The sites are ready to go.
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They’re environmentally compliant.
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And as I mentioned, just great stuff, ballparks, bike trails, shopping centers, breweries, employment centers.
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So that’s it.
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But you mentioned the environmental justice component, which is a big deal.
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But I don’t…
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You know, I don’t want to take up too much of my air time here, and I’ll let you ask the question, because I know you want to unpack the environmental justice and some of those legacy social issues.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I mean, I guess, you know, I mean, obviously what you’re speaking to a lot of those to a lot of those issues and in the kind of community revitalization.
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So so maybe one question is that just kind of directly follows on is a concern that’s often raised when when we think about, you know,
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You know, we’re going to do a big infrastructure project.
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Obviously, when we’re talking about Superfund, it’s in principle should be a really great thing for a community because, you know, we’ve taken a site that’s kind of a blight, you know, is a negative.
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It’s all things considered bad, you know, because it does have uncontrolled.
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And that’s the definition of a Superfund site.
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Basically, it’s got uncontrolled hazardous waste on it.
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And we’re going to spend federal dollars to, you know, I mean, maybe there’s going to be some corporators, you know, if we can find a responsible party, but it’s not going to be, you know, coming from the municipalities bank account for the most part.
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And so we’re going to be investing in a community.
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We’re going to be cleaning up a site and we’re going to be putting it to productive use.
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One question that’s sometimes raised is who gets to benefit from these sites, right?
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Because, you know, one worries about gentrification, that the folks who have lived with the negative side of the site and maybe live with the temporary negative consequences of redevelopment and remediation, you know, in terms of the truck traffic and the disruption, ultimately don’t end up getting to enjoy the benefits because they end up getting priced out of the neighborhood.
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The agency feels that it can think about in these contexts, or is it something that it’s more of something for the municipal government to worry about and try to develop policy around?
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Yeah, that’s a good question.
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And you’re asking sort of the vanguard of the tough stuff.
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We do some important things that have to be done, but are there unintended consequences or new liabilities that potentially are created?
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So it’s something we’re mindful of, but we also have to be careful not to overstep the authority of the local planning districts and local authorities.
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But we’re a big…
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We’re big on transparency.
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And folks who work with the agency, especially in the Biden administration, which is hyper-transparent, lots of community meetings, lots of opportunities to comment, accessibility, if there’s need for material in other languages or translators or interpreters, that’s provided, online participation.
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in-person participation.
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And we believe that an open, honest dialogue can address a lot of these issues.
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So residents do have a chance to express concerns about gentrification and what comes next.
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These projects inevitably attract the media as well.
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So the public and the neighborhood does get a voice.
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And, you know, in a healthy process with local governments that are also engaged, you know, we certainly hope that, you know, what comes next is in line with the needs of the community and is done in a thoughtful way.
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You know, a good example, you mentioned the Bear Creek Project in Baltimore County.
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That’s been a big one.
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And we’ve had engagement with the community there for at least a decade.
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And, you know, even though we did not have the funding to really get the job done until this year, that funding has been available.
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But the community is very involved.
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They know us by name.
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We know them by name.
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The Baltimore Sun ran a story.
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And this is a community to unpack, you know, some of the social and racial justice issues.
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This was a redline community in the first part of the last century, up until the late 60s, in fact.
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Lots of stuff there.
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So this is the site of the former Bethlehem Steel Plant, you know, storied iconic buildings.
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a steel manufacturing plant, but that’s just one of a number of environmental stressors.
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There’s two major highways connected to I-95 that run right by the neighborhood.
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You can see them, see the overpasses overhead.
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There’s a landfill there.
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There’s a number of light manufacturing.
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There’s the port of Baltimore, which is great, but also has liabilities as well.
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And it’s a food desert on top of that.
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challenge for public transportation as well.
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So, you know, in talking to the community, you know, our public meetings are, you know, not just a chance to check a statutory box and a regulatory box that we had a public comment, but it’s also a chance to convene.
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And we try to always bring stakeholders together along with local officials.
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Baltimore County has been very involved, especially under the current administration.
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There are members of Congress are involved, local planning organizations.
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So, you know, things, you know, there’s a lot of sunlight on the process.
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So, you know, with democracy at all levels, or at least we aspire to democracy at all levels, you know, sunlight is good.
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Sunlight is a good thing.
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So that’s our role.
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You know, in the case of that community, there were some issues, you know, we can help out immediately with.
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And that’s taking the toxics from the site out of the soil and out of the bank in the water, in the river there, to do it in a thoughtful way because they have not – the history of the community –
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has not always had a great relationship with the government because the government has not always had their back historically.
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But we demonstrate that again and again with being transparent about how we’re going to do the cleanup, how we’re going to dispose of the toxic material and what’s going to happen afterwards.
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So we take care of that part.
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But then the community is raising other issues.
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They have some localized flooding because of sea level rise.
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It’s right on a river that feeds directly into the Chesapeake Bay
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That’s something we can help with.
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But really, that’s the Army Corps of Engineers.
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So we’ve been able to bring the Army Corps to the table as well.
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Regarding the food issue, we’ve engaged Baltimore County and their economic development folks.
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And this has been on their radar, but it’s another reason to have a conversation with them and for them.
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A recreational area for their children has been a focus as well.
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They were able to get some funding for their senior center.
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And I’m not saying this is because of EPA, but big projects like this, big public projects with public processes are a chance for people to talk and a chance for those with resources at all different levels to get together.
29:54
And there’s a principle, a series of principles that we use, Mike,
29:58
in all of our work, and it’s three words, engage, align, deliver.
30:04
So engagement, we have to reach out to affected communities.
30:07
It’s not like, you know, we’re throwing money down from the skies.
30:10
We have to show up and make sure that, you know, the resources are plugged in in a way that the community wants that’s going to be successful.
30:18
And they, you know, they’re up to stuff too.
30:20
You know, they’re doing things, they have projects underway, and we want to make sure that we’re enhancing, you know, their objectives and their vision.
30:28
then alignment that’s a big one you know and i was just talking about bear creek in baltimore county in that turner station neighborhood so alignment so if we’re able you know to clean up you know the old beth steel site um but at the same time able to improve the shoreline to address the flooding and you know get sea grasses and natural green infrastructure into there with partners
30:50
You know, that’s a big win.
30:51
We’re attracting philanthropy that’s worked to do tree planting.
30:55
So they recently planted 300 trees in coordination with the community to develop heat island effect.
31:02
You know, working on the transit issues with the local transit authority.
31:07
You know, all these things work together and little by little undo problems.
31:12
these historic environmental justice knots.
31:15
They’re knots of a variety of issues that all intertwine.
31:21
And it started with not having a voice.
31:23
These communities did not have a voice.
31:24
They did not have representation.
31:26
Well, they have a voice now and we’re listening.
31:30
They were forgotten.
31:31
They were disinvested.
31:32
Well, you know, we’re working to turn that around by cleaning up the site and working to bring, you know, the right kind of employers to the area.
31:39
The level of services, they’re entitled and legally entitled.
31:45
And the expectation is that the degree of services they get from Baltimore County are as good as anywhere else.
31:51
And that’s the expectation that we all hold each other to.
31:54
So we’re slowly undoing these knots.
31:57
But, you know, as I said earlier,
31:59
Environmental stuff is a team effort, man.
32:01
You know, we got to get all folks together.
32:04
And then to the last concept, deliver, you know, make sure that we’re following up, following through on our word, that our word means something, that we’re doing something transformational, that it is clean at the end of the day, that the park is not flooding, that kids can play.
32:19
You know, those things matter.
32:20
And that’s how you build trust.
32:21
And that’s how we feel good on delivering what we’re supposed to do in these jobs.
32:26
So that’s how we address it.
32:27
And what we find is every community is different, but there’s always kind of some knot of these stubborn old issues.
32:34
And the solutions are different case by case, but the concept is the same.
32:39
You need a lot of hands on deck to help.
32:42
Yeah.
32:42
No, it’s an important, you know, point.
32:44
Again, probably underappreciated.
32:48
Both role of regional offices, role of EPA and the federal government generally is it’s not always to come in and solve every problem because the federal government lacks the authority, lacks the money, lacks the legitimacy, you know, to do those to do everything all at once.
33:05
Um, but, uh, but it can be a, you know, especially a big project like a Superfund remediation can be a kind of convening opportunity.
33:13
It’s a way to book, you know, draw lots of different folks together because these are very highly entangled issues.
33:19
Um, and one thing, even one big, major, important project isn’t going to fix all of them, obviously.
33:24
And so, um, but it’s a way to facilitate coordination across entities that might not always be, um,
33:31
You know, cooperating is just the structure of government is such that we can kind of get into our silos and get into our fives and get into our various, you know, zones of interest.
33:43
And then, you know, ultimately there are lots of problems that can’t be addressed that way.
33:50
That’s exactly right.
33:51
That’s exactly right.
33:52
And, you know, and to, you know, and even all of us, you know, in our regular lives, the government is the government.
34:00
It doesn’t, they don’t really distinguish between like, oh, that’s not your job or, you know, I thought you were here to help us.
34:06
So, you know, as public servants, you know, if it’s not my lane, you know, my job is to, you know, get the person whose lane it is at the table is, you know, a warm handoff, as we say on our team.
34:18
You know, we’re bringing in the right people and, you know, code solving problems.
34:23
And even like you say, even if we don’t have the authority to do something, you know, we can expand the conversation to help figure it out.
34:31
Yeah, that’s really interesting.
34:33
So maybe just shifting gears just a little bit, not radically, I think it’d be interesting to just chat a little bit about tribal governments.
34:39
We’ve been talking about municipalities, a little bit about states.
34:43
But, you know, that’s a whole other kind of governance entity that exists in the United States.
34:49
And obviously, tribal issues are very different depending on where you are in the country, right?
34:54
That’s very different in the West from the Northeast, from, you know, the Mid-Atlantic and the South.
35:00
um, other parts of the South.
35:01
So, um, so yeah, so, and maybe I’m just, just curious, the initial question would just be, is that something that, that, um, you saw kind of coming into the job as playing a, or maybe has it played more or less or about the same amount of a role as maybe as you came in when you, when you came into the position or what your expectations were and, and maybe just a little bit about if there are any sailing a difference about in how the
35:27
the agency interacts with these other important governance units.
35:31
Yeah, it’s been such a privilege and an honor to be able to interact with the tribes of the Mid-Atlantic.
35:37
And, you know, as we remember from our history books, a lot of first contact occurred with the tribes here in Virginia.
35:45
And, you know, and that’s, you know, an incredible history.
35:48
And, you know, meeting the tribes, they have, you know, their stories that have been handed out from that first contact.
35:54
But unlike some of the tribes out West and in Alaska, you know, of course,
35:59
because of that first contact, they were the first to be pushed out, to be spread out, to have that economic and physical and military domination.
36:14
So it’s been a privilege to work with the tribes and all of the federally recognized tribes in the Mid-Atlantic are based in Virginia and clustered from approximately the Shenandoah to the Bay itself.
36:28
And then there’s a number of state-recognized tribes is the incredible resilience that they exhibit.
36:36
They’re growing.
36:39
People are coming back to their ancestral lands.
36:43
And they’re also in contact more.
36:47
It was, you know, we spent a lot of time with the tribes in the region, and I might have this number wrong, so forgive me, members of the Upper Metapanai, but I think they said that they get 4,000, is that right, between 4,000 and 6,000 of their members for their annual powwow every summer.
37:07
You know, that’s powerful.
37:09
You know, that’s a big deal.
37:11
In addition to just reconnecting with the culture,
37:16
and as they say it, is re-emerging.
37:20
They’re also becoming more sophisticated in their staffing and their governance in the Biden administration.
37:29
Support for tribal sovereignty and tribal governance has been a major priority.
37:35
So we’re really pleased that with, I think, six of the tribes, we’ve been able to help them fund an environmental director.
37:44
Of course, the tribes, particularly the tribes of the Chesapeake region, were closely in touch with the earth, growing, living always near the water, living from the crabs and the oysters and the mussels and the life in the water.
38:04
So having more capacity to do environmental work is really important.
38:11
And we’re so pleased to support them.
38:16
And all of this is front of mind, all the big issues from climate change to cleanups and environmental justice issues certainly occur around, you know, many of these, the lands that they do have from major manufacturing facilities and, you know, being clustered often.
38:34
around tribal communities.
38:35
So we’ve been working with them through the bipartisan infrastructure law and other recent initiatives to provide more air monitoring in and around tribal lands, water monitoring.
38:50
We were just at the
38:52
site of the chickahominy which recently acquired um more than a thousand acres of land um you know back under tribal ownership which is a tremendous accomplishment and we were pleased to help play a small role in that um but they’re also monitoring uh the rivers um uh in and around those lands uh so they know what’s going on and you know with that data
39:17
you know, we can work with them to improve water quality.
39:21
And then significantly, earlier this year, we granted the Upper Mattapani sovereignty over water quality.
39:30
So they have the same authorities that we give to the state of Virginia or the state of California or the state of New York for water quality regulations on their land.
39:45
So that’s
39:46
a big step historically as, you know, we’re helping the tribes sort of reemerge from the trauma of the colonial period.
39:56
Yeah.
39:57
No, I mean, it’s, and it’s fascinating how this plays out in different ways.
40:00
And, you know, obviously there’s other federal agencies that are, um, you know, primarily the point of interface with, with tribal governments, but, um, there’s something probably, there is something special about EPA and the relationship that the agency has, um, because of the connection.
40:15
I mean, the reality is EPA is an important agency for states too, for any governance actor, right?
40:20
The environment’s a big deal.
40:21
Um,
40:23
But, you know, given that we think of tribal authority as so closely associated with the management of lands, you know, the agency EPA has a special role there.
40:36
Yeah, well, we certainly think so.
40:38
But no, it’s been, like I said, it’s been a privilege and an honor to work more closely with the tribes and learn about their history from them and their experiences and to help them become stronger and more resilient because, as I said,
40:56
You know, it’s a team effort.
40:58
We need all hands on deck.
41:00
And they have so much wisdom in their culture and in their tribal experience that we can learn and benefit from our relationship with them.
41:11
Yeah, so we were just talking about the Bay, too, and obviously this was a huge and productive area, you know, has been for a very long time for human beings.
41:22
And we’re in the process of, you know, I think of the Bay as really, you know, kind of brings together all the kind of different issues, both good and bad, from the region, right?
41:33
Because you’ve got…
41:36
agriculture has a huge impact on the Bay.
41:38
The industrial history has a huge relationship to the Bay.
41:41
You know, obviously tribal, you know, communities have been, you know, interacting with the Bay for a very long time.
41:47
So, you know, the Bay
41:51
The Chesapeake Bay is both a sad environmental story and a story of rejuvenation, right?
41:56
Things have gotten a lot better.
41:57
So maybe I’d just be curious to check in and hear what your thoughts are on the current state of affairs with respect to the Bay.
42:04
Obviously, EPA has played a huge role in kind of making things happen with respect to improving the water quality in the Bay.
42:13
And yeah, just kind of checking in on what the state of affairs is now, what are some
42:18
If there are, you know, recent successes or challenges and what are, you know, what can we kind of look forward to in the next handful of years with respect to the bay restoration, cleanup, and just the existence of the Chesapeake Bay going forward?
42:33
Right.
42:33
Well, we last year celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement.
42:39
And for folks who aren’t familiar, the Chesapeake Bay Agreement is a voluntary agreement among the Bay States and the federal government to just step up our game above and beyond the Clean Water Act.
42:53
And that’s an unprecedented effort like that.
42:58
That degree of partnership and what’s been accomplished is far beyond, you know, frankly, in, you know, forgive my other regions.
43:10
It has made a lot more progress than, say, the Great Lakes or the Gulf of Mexico, you know, or other large watersheds for, you know, I think that historic development.
43:19
connection, you know, economically and in terms of sustenance that you mentioned, Mike.
43:25
But it hasn’t been linear.
43:27
There’s been lots of ups and downs.
43:29
You know, the EPA has very limited authorities to enforce the Chesapeake Bay Agreement.
43:35
You know, we don’t have the same tools that we have, say, for the Clean Water Act itself or the Clean Air Act.
43:42
So the states are co-pilots.
43:47
And sometimes the states have stepped up and sometimes they have not.
43:51
But the good news overall is, you know, when the partnership started 40 years ago, pretty much all the streams and tributaries in the watershed were getting worse.
44:03
But now approximately, and it depends on your yardstick, half of them or more are getting better.
44:10
So that’s significant.
44:12
We’re not as far along as we wanted, but in the Biden administration, we’ve really brought a very vigorous ethic of engagement and accountability to member states, which is a departure from the previous administration, which attempted to defund the partnership.
44:33
But working with Congress, we were actually able to get more than $300 million more into the partnership
44:38
And to the states.
44:40
But by leaning in more, and we’re in Charlottesville today engaging and, you know, working with state and local and municipal folks, we’ve been doing the same thing throughout Pennsylvania, with Maryland, with Delaware, and West Virginia.
44:55
to say, hey, folks, we’re doing okay here, but we could do better.
45:00
We’re bringing more resources to the table.
45:02
What do you got?
45:03
What are you bringing?
45:04
And overall, the states have responded in the last three years, Mike.
45:09
Pennsylvania, which had been the biggest, it’s also the biggest state by far, but big impacts from small agriculture and other sectors.
45:22
But Pennsylvania stepped up last year in a big way, supporting small farmers with agriculture conservation funds and programming and technical assistance to help, particularly dairy farmers control manure, which isn’t the sexiest issue, I’ll admit.
45:41
to your listening audience, but a really, really important one.
45:44
Huge.
45:45
For water quality, that’s where the action is.
45:47
That’s where the action is.
45:49
So Pennsylvania really stepped up, and they funded it to the tune of more than $200 million, and they already have $150 million of that programmed with projects.
46:03
So that’s a big step forward.
46:06
Maryland has also stepped up as well.
46:09
And Virginia, the governor and his administration have stepped up to fully fund conservation efforts, among others.
46:17
So there’s new momentum.
46:20
But for a lot of people, you know, it’s like, Jesus is taking longer than I thought.
46:25
But frankly, nothing of this scale had ever been attempted before.
46:29
Yeah, I mean, it’s a big undertaking.
46:31
And one of the things that maybe we could, this is very somewhat more general, but something that’s interesting about these regional issues is the way they interact with the politics of today in some sense, right?
46:43
So we live in a fairly polarized time.
46:47
Where environmental issues, which is quite different from when we started working on these issues, environmental issues were fairly non-polarized.
46:56
There were certainly there was polarization on lots of issues, but the parties were not that far away from each other on environmental issues.
47:04
But like, you know, many, many issues are very highly polarized these days, including environmental issues.
47:10
But there’s something maybe about the regional level where you have a shared resource like the Chesapeake Bay that tends – well, I guess this is the question is do you think that, you know, the way that politics, you know, plays out at the regional level when you’re – you know, you’ve got states interacting with each other and, of course, the politics in every different state is going to be different and different parties are going to be in charge and so on and, you know, that’s going to turn over.
47:36
And, you know –
47:39
Is it just a microcosm of national politics, which means that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work?
47:45
Or do you see it as kind of being a little different from how politics operates?
47:52
I mean, it’s not necessarily the stuff that’s going to be on the front page of the New York Times every day.
47:58
So that might change the dynamics as well.
48:01
So, yeah, I’m curious your experience with, you know, these are highly contested, highly political questions of how you’re going to allocate resources and responsibilities and so on.
48:12
These are not everyone’s just going to agree all the time.
48:15
So in any case, yeah, I’m curious if you see the regional level as just a microcosm or in some sense different from how we interact politically on these questions.
48:27
Yeah.
48:28
You know, you ask such a good question.
48:30
I have so many theories on this.
48:33
You know, so the regional level is working for the most part.
48:40
And I’m not saying we all agree with everything, but, you know, we have an amazing relationship with West Virginia.
48:46
And some people are like, what?
48:48
The Biden administration has a relationship from, you know, coal producing West Virginia that’s always suing West
48:55
EPA.
48:56
And it’s like, yeah, actually we do because we’re, you know, we’re working on, we’re working together on, you know, all these things that we’re talking about, water quality, you know, stream health, fishing, cleaning up brownfields, you name it.
49:08
So there’s, you know, I call it the level of, use an environmental metaphor, there’s a layer of smog.
49:15
Yeah.
49:16
Our political discourse.
49:18
It’s like the higher you go in the atmosphere, the more smog there is.
49:22
And, you know, unfortunately, that’s just where we are in our political history right now.
49:30
But once you come under that layer, the air is pretty good.
49:36
All the states, we work together really.
49:38
We don’t always agree on everything, but 93% of the time, we’re on the same page and we’re solving problems together.
49:45
We’re looking each other in the eye.
49:46
We’re across the table.
49:48
The governors call each other on the phone.
49:50
I work with the state secretaries.
49:53
So, you know, I’m just a big believer in, like, the old school stuff, Mike.
49:57
You know, show up.
49:58
You know, show up.
50:00
Show up on their turf.
50:01
Shake their hand.
50:02
Get a cup of coffee.
50:03
Get lunch.
50:04
You know, what are you upset about?
50:05
What are you cranky about?
50:06
You know, what do you need help with?
50:08
This is where I’m coming from.
50:09
Where are you coming from?
50:10
Let’s figure it out.
50:11
You know, and, you know, that works every time.
50:14
You know, it works every time when people, you know, with good intentions sit down, you know, regardless of…
50:21
You know, whether it’s a coal mining community or a dairy farming community or, you know, an underserved neighborhood in one of our older cities.
50:32
Like when you show up with good intentions, you figure things out.
50:36
So it’s so it’s so that’s like the real stuff.
50:39
And, you know, in this job.
50:41
You know, I’ve been in it for two and a half years with our team, and we’re on the road all the time.
50:47
You know, we’re in, you know, all over West Virginia.
50:49
We’re all over Central and Western Pennsylvania.
50:52
We’re all over Virginia.
50:53
And we have not been in a bad room.
50:56
We have not had a toxic experience.
50:59
And I’m talking hundreds and hundreds of meetings.
51:03
And because people, you know, might have…
51:07
You know, in the partisan, you know, this partisan culture, you know, big abstract things.
51:12
Oh, I don’t know if I trust this data.
51:14
I don’t know if I trust that group or blah, blah, blah.
51:17
But they really care about their local stream.
51:20
They really care about their, you know, that gas station that’s abandoned that has…
51:25
these gas tanks underneath that might be leaking into the water table.
51:29
People really care about their local environment.
51:34
But somehow we miss the connection that your local environment is also the regional environment, is also our national environment, is also our global environment.
51:44
Something gets lost in the smog.
51:46
We lose visibility in the smog.
51:49
You know, in the communities, you know, in the, you know, church basements, you know, and in the little conference rooms and, you know, walking these communities, you know, no matter where they are in the mountains or on the shore, you know, people are the same.
52:05
You know, they want to, you know, take care of their neighborhood and they want a little bit of help if they can get it.
52:10
Yeah.
52:11
Yeah.
52:11
So you don’t think we should just be tweeting at each other to do our politics?
52:17
Yeah.
52:19
It’s, yeah, it’s absolutely, it’s, you know, there’s something to that.
52:23
There’s something to that.
52:25
But yeah.
52:26
But yeah, I mean, just the retail level and getting to know people, right, that sounds like, from your experience in any case, has been really productive.
52:35
And I think it’s an unfortunate, I’ll just offer my thoughts, is that it’s an unfortunate reality and a trend in our politics of getting away from that kind of interacting with people who you might, you know, might perceive as a little bit different from you.
52:52
And then, you know, moving to an online system, moving to online communication or moving into our bubbles and having less of an opportunity to get outside of those bubbles and kind of viewing others as abstractions rather than as people with, you know, a bunch of the same concerns as you have.
53:12
Yeah, that’s absolutely right.
53:13
You know, and, you know, technology is great, but it obviously has its drawbacks.
53:18
and its distancing effect from us.
53:20
But, you know, there’s some good stuff in the old school, man.
53:26
Of course, we could just be getting old.
53:28
Maybe that’s my bias towards the old school, because I’m getting old myself.
53:36
So we just have a few minutes, but I wanted to chat a little bit because I think it relates to this, too, is the role of the regional offices in big, you know, big programmatic stuff that plays out on the ground like the Inflation Reduction Act.
53:47
And you mentioned the infrastructure bill.
53:49
These are, you know, these are big programs, but the way they operate is very much through infrastructure.
53:54
You know, the specific grant that goes to a community group, the funding, you know, it’s a lot of funding, right?
53:59
Funding for specific projects or funding for technologies and technological development.
54:05
So I just was curious to get, you know, your thoughts on that.
54:10
or your experiences really with the implementation of these big laws and the role of the region and the interface between, you know, major policy concerns like, you know, obviously addressing climate change or, you know, improving our infrastructure and, you know, how that gets translated into decision-making, you know, at the regional office and then ultimately on the ground somewhere physically in the world.
54:32
Yeah, well, it’s, you know, as you mentioned, historic once in a generation investments.
54:38
And it’s, you know, our challenge is, you know, not just getting the money out the door, but getting it to the places that need it the most, that will do the most good.
54:47
So that’s one of the reasons why we’re on the road a lot.
54:50
And, you know, especially to places that, you know, have historically been underserved.
54:55
And, you know, it’s going well.
54:56
That’s the short version, you know, but it’s, you know,
55:02
We want to make sure that, you know, it’s a proof of concept that these investments need to be ongoing.
55:09
It’s, you know, really they’re sort of, in my mind, this is a phase one.
55:14
We have so much work to do for, you know, to clean up so many liabilities from the past.
55:21
And, you know, there’s, you know, hundreds of potential superfund sites.
55:24
There’s thousands of brownfield sites, like in the middle of these communities that, you know, we drive by every day.
55:30
Water infrastructure, very expensive, and communities need help removing lead pipes in the drinking water system.
55:39
That’s bad.
55:41
But there’s literally tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of communities are lead pipe connections that need to be removed.
55:51
Wastewater treatment plant upgrades, so important, so expensive.
55:55
And if we can help take it easy on rate payers in local utilities,
56:00
You know, that’s a big deal.
56:01
But, you know, that’s one of the reasons why we’re out here.
56:03
We’ve had a great visit here in Charlottesville.
56:07
We met with the university and the Environmental Institute here that’s doing groundbreaking research on saltwater intrusion, work in Appalachia and conversion studies.
56:21
of energy-producing communities to a more diverse renewable portfolio, working with the tribes.
56:29
And we have associated funding and technical assistance to help.
56:35
We had a great visit at Charlottesville High School yesterday.
56:37
I think 50 or more students were with us.
56:42
They gave us a tour of their urban farm that’s right on the campus there, and the students were so fired up.
56:49
Talking about pollinators and what they’re growing there and what they’re learning and they’re working together and they’re getting outside.
56:59
I mean, this poor generation gets picked on so much, but they have so much to offer and they’re so intelligent and so thoughtful and talking to them.
57:09
It was profound, the connection that they made between these experiences, growing healthy food and climate change and, you know, healthy food in your bodies and getting away from overly processed food and, you know, obesity and, you know, all the stuff that, you know, their gender, all of us, you know, in fact, but very acute diseases.
57:32
to their generation that they’re dealing with.
57:36
But importantly, they’re working together.
57:38
These were students, very diverse group of kids from I’m sure very different backgrounds.
57:44
And they were talking about how the carrot that they grew tasted so much better than the carrot that they bought at the store.
57:51
They had no idea they could like a carrot.
57:54
Who knew?
57:54
But those are things that they’re doing and problems they’re solving together and making that connection.
58:01
you know, outside of the classroom and away from the tablet, away from the devices.
58:06
So, you know, I share that because, you know, those, you know, we want to take the resources that we have in this historic time and empower folks who are doing good things at the community level.
58:16
Like our job is, you know, like I said, not to
58:19
You know, drop money from the sky from a biplane, you know, but to find communities that are doing awesome stuff and to help them accelerate and do more.
58:30
Earlier today, we met with the Office of Sustainability at the City Hall here in Charlottesville.
58:38
Like, so much innovation on sustainability.
58:41
Energy efficiency in EV charging stations, flood resilience, green infrastructure, transitioning from diesel transit buses to electric and alternative fuels.
58:58
So that’s really where, in my mind, where the rub is.
59:03
With these big programs, these massive amounts of money, they got to matter.
59:10
They got to get to the places that are doing incredible things, that are transforming lives and transforming our relationship with the earth.
59:19
And we’re seeing it all over the region.
59:22
We’re seeing it all over Virginia.
59:23
And in the days that we’ve spent this week here in Charlottesville, we’re certainly seeing it around here.
59:31
Great.
59:31
Well, that’s very optimistic and I love to hear optimistic things, especially in the environmental domain.
59:37
I think when you look, you know, it’s an interesting point about the smog.
59:40
And if we kind of look very, very abstractly and when you, you know, kind of look in the general, you know, it’s easy to get depressed.
59:50
It’s easy to get discouraged.
59:51
But I think your point, which is that when you look closer to the ground, you can see a lot of really great things.
59:59
things happening.
59:59
So, so I appreciate very much that perspective.
60:02
And I, thanks for taking the time to, to chat with us today.
60:05
It’s been a really, really fascinating conversation.
60:08
And of course, thanks for all the wonderful work that you’ve been doing at EPA and, and, and in your career so far.
60:14
Well, well, Mike, thank you so much for your work, both here, you know, on the podcast, you know, talking about these things in a, in a, with more treatment than you usually get, you know, on, you know, the, the,
60:27
The application formerly known as Twitter and Facebook and this sort of quick information.
60:33
It’s great to do a deep dive.
60:35
So I really appreciate your interest in your work on campus and also appreciate your interest in our work.
60:42
And we’re available and happy to join you again anytime.
60:45
Great.
60:45
Fantastic.
60:46
And listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, let us know.
60:49
You can give us a like, a rating, subscribe to the podcast, and follow us on social media.
60:54
It’d be great to hear from you.
60:56
Till next time.
Free Range Podcast 