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Mid-Atlantic Green Highways Initiative

Mid-Atlantic Green Highways Initiative. Building Bridges through Collaborative Partnerships. What is the Green Highways Initiative?. Voluntary – Not Regulatory Collaborative Partnership

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Mid-Atlantic Green Highways Initiative

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  1. Mid-Atlantic Green Highways Initiative Building Bridges through Collaborative Partnerships

  2. What is the Green Highways Initiative? • Voluntary – Not Regulatory • Collaborative Partnership • a “network” of industry, trade, & environmental organizations, private sector (consultants & contractors), and government (local, state, & federal). • Goal is to promote innovation, environmental stewardship, streamlining, and regulatory certainty and flexibility.

  3. Goals & Missions of Environmental Protection and Transportation are Merging! Green Highways Environmental Stewardship NEPA “In the beginning” Transportation Environmental Protection

  4. Pillars of GHI • Partnerships • Rewards & Recognition • Opportunities • THEME TEAMS • Innovative Watershed-Driven Stormwater Management • Recycling and Reuse • Conservation and Ecosystem Management

  5. Green Highways RoadmapConservation/Eco Mgmt Theme Team Plan • Develop and implement a scaleable, ecosystem-based decision-making framework (Green Infrastructure) to support planning, design, construction, mitigation (esp. advanced) & monitoring. • Products: • A set of core data sets/interactive mapping tools • A tailored, science-based decision-making process supported by geo-spatial data and analyses • Outcomes: • Works at project and planning levels • Streamlined and flexible regulatory process (develop GPs, implement new wetland mitigation rules) • Greater certainty and predictability on all sides • Increase information sharing between federal, state & local level, and integrate into land use planning • Net gain in environmental condition

  6. Infrastructure • “The substructure or underlying foundation, especially the basic installations and facilities, on which the continuance and growth of a community or state depends”. • (Source: Webster’s New World Dictionary)

  7. Infrastructure Implications of Definition • Infrastructure is: • A necessity, not an amenity • A primary public investment • Must be constantly maintained • Must be developed as a • system, not as isolated parts

  8. Hub Hub CORRIDOR Core Core Core CORRIDOR CORRIDOR CORRIDOR Hub Core Core Green Infrastructure: Conceptual Model Green Infrastructure Corridors link hubs and allow animal, water, seed and pollen movement between hubs Hubs are groupings of core areas bounded by major roads or unsuitable land cover

  9. Haphazard Conservation and Restoration Conservation and Restoration activities that are: • Reactive • Site or Project Specific • Narrowly Focused or Not Multi-Objective • Not Well Integrated with Other Efforts

  10. Green Infrastructure: Strategic Conservation and Restoration • √ Proactive not Reactive • √ Systematic not Haphazard • √ Holistic not Piecemeal • √ Multi-functional not • Single Purpose • √ Multiple Scales not • Single Scale, and • √ Science-based Conservation and restoration that promotes planning, protection, restoration and long term management that is:

  11. Benefits of Green Infrastructure Approach • Not a new concept in the Mid-Atlantic – has buy-in and credibility at all scales. • Consistent with Eco-Logical approach. • Provides information to support a decision making framework that allows for: • regulatory streamlining and flexibility (e.g. alternative/advance mitigation) • greater certainty for agencies and the public • increased effectiveness of management actions • regional to local linkages; scientifically defensible

  12. Benefits of Green Infrastructure Approach • Not a new concept in the Mid-Atlantic – has buy-in and credibility at all scales. • Consistent with Eco-Logical approach. • Provides information to support a decision making framework that allows for: • regulatory streamlining and flexibility (e.g. alternative/advance mitigation) • greater certainty for agencies and the public • increased effectiveness of management actions • regional to local linkages; scientifically defensible

  13. Contact Information: Green Highways: Denise Rigney rigney.denise@epa.gov Dominique Lueckenhoff lueckenhoff.dominique@epa.gov

  14. Read the New Book - Island Press, Spring 2006! Take the Course - NCTC, June 12-16, 2006! NCTC, Sept. 25-29, 2006! NCTC, Jan. 8-12, 2007! Visit the Website - www.greeninfrastructure.net To Learn More Bill Jenkins (215) 814-2911; jenkins.bill@epa.gov

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