Mar
15
Written by:
Jennifer Nordyke
3/15/2010
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has selected the Hugo Wall School to serve as the Environmental Finance Center (EFC) for EPA Region 7, which includes Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska. The Environmental Finance Center’s mission is to assist state and local governments to create environmentally and financially sustainable solutions to answer the “how to pay questions” associated with EPA mandates. The school competed for this designation as part of a national grant award process and represents the only newly created EFC in the nation. Awards are for six years with up to $2.4 million in funding available. For fiscal year 2010, the school anticipates $190,000 in funding.
The EFC grant application identified five strategic plan goals and ten priority issues to be addressed by the proposals. These goals and priority issues include:
- Clean air & global climate change
- Clean & safe water
- Land preservation & restoration
- Healthy communities & ecosystems
- Compliance & environmental stewardship
The goals set forth by the EPA coincide with current activities and expertise of the Hugo Wall School in water resource policy, capacity building, community engagement and public finance, which make the Hugo Wall School and the Center for Urban Studies an excellent host for the new Environmental Finance Center serving EPA Region 7.
The general purpose of an Environmental Finance Center is to facilitate state and local governments to create environmentally and financially sustainable systems. To achieve this goal, the EFC at the Hugo Wall School intend to educate and support organizations region-wide to advance environmental issues while providing effective information regarding financial and asset management.
The Hugo Wall School and Center for Urban Studies wants to thank all of the partners that contributed to the successful EFC application and look forward to accomplishing the goals and priorities of the Center with the continued support of our community and the region.
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