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Five states
awarded grants for public-private partnerships in Asia.
Five state projects were chosen to receive US-AEP-
Council of State Governments (CSG)
State Environmental
Initiative grants for 1997-98. Now in its third year, the initiative
offers matching funds to states on a competitive basis to encourage
public-private partnerships to achieve the long-term transfer of U.S.
environmental technology and experience to targeted Asian countries and help
form lasting relationships between the states and their Asian counterparts.
To date, the program has awarded more than $1.8 million to 13 state
partnerships. Successful contenders for the up to $150,000 grants include
the states of Arizona, California, Illinois, Oregon, and Vermont and the
Asian partner countries of Philippines, India, and Indonesia. Activities
include rehabilitating the Palico River by instituting environmental
management systems in polluting industries (Arizona-Philippines);
establishing a Center for Sustainable Development and Environmental
Technologies at De La Salle University (California-Philippines); developing
a hazardous waste management plan for the state of Maharashtra
(Illinois-India); testing an ecological model to reverse water supply
degradation in the province of Pangasinan (Oregon-Philippines); and
conducting Sister Lakes technical exchanges between Lake Toba and Lake
Champlain to encourage cleaner proceses in the pulp and paper industry
(Vermont-Indonesia). Watch future issues of UPDATE for more information on
each initiative.
Philippine
bank explores U.S. environmental due diligence.
Four Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) senior vice presidents and
an Asian Development Bank observer participated in a two-week US-AEP
environmental business exchange, April 28-May 11. The group met with U.S.
and multilateral banks and an insurance company to discuss integration of
environmental due diligence and risk assessment into lending and operational
procedures. They also met with the Environmental Law Institute, American
Bankers' Association, and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP),
which has developed a Charter on Financial Institutions and the Environment.
The DBP delegation reported that, as a result of the exchange, the bank
plans to sign the UNEP Charter and will strongly encourage its member banks
to do so. Using training materials provided by the Bank of America during a
previous US-AEP-supported seminar hosted by the Bankers' Association of the
Philippines, DBP will conduct training for the member banks to help them
meet the UNEP Charter requirements. DBP is also discussing various incentive
schemes to encourage borrowers to include environmental considerations in
their investment decisions. US-AEP's
Environmental Exchange
Program is implemented by the Institute of International Education.
Study tour
surveys U.S. watershed management techniques.
A US-AEP group study tour on Integrated Watershed Management provided 13
water resource management and planning officials from Bangladesh, Indonesia,
Nepal, Thailand, Nepal, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Philippines the
opportunity to examine evolving public-private cooperation and tools for
management of U.S. watersheds. During the two-week tour, June 14-28, the
group visited over 30 watershed sites that ranged from the giant CALFED
Bay-Delta program in California to small tributary projects such as the Tolt
River Project in Washington led by an Indian tribe, a multi-national timber
company, a Trout conservation group, and the City of Seattle. Tour hosts and
sponsors included: Montgomery-Watson; CH2M Hill; Pentech Environmental; EA
Engineering; Applied Environmental Technologies; Trimble Navigation Inc.;
ESRI; Ginn and Associates; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Bureau of
Reclamation; Natural Resource Conservation Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service; USEPA Regions IX and X; cities of San Jose, Seattle, Tuckwila, and
New Orleans; Washington State Department of Ecology; King County Land and
Water Agency; Boeing Company; Tulalip and Muckleshoot Indian Tribes;
Louisiana State Departments of Environmental Quality and Economic
Development; and Louisiana State University. The tour stimulated a lively
discourse among the participants, hosts, and sponsors on the evolving
management tools, pollution prevention practices, and stakeholder
cooperation for watershed management initiatives in different situations.
The tour was made possible through US-AEP's
Environmental Exchange
Program (EEP) and led by John McGill and David Moldavsky of EEP.
NPPR and
automotive service industry form P2 clearinghouse.
The National Pollution
Prevention Roundtable (NPPR) and the Coordinating Committee for Automotive
Repair (CCAR) are undertaking a unique partnership to create a comprehensive
national clearinghouse on pollution prevention (P2) information for the
automotive service and repair industry. The partnership is compiling an
extensive website listing on P2 case studies in the automotive industry,
integrating state and local government regulatory and legislative
information, listing state and local government technical assistance
providers, and producing and collecting technical fact sheets on P2
processes and techniques that are transferable to the automotive industry.
As the use of automobiles (and the maintenance and repair of them) grow
rapidly in Asia, US-AEP can utilize this new resource for technical
information. NPPR and CCAR will maintain mirror sites on their respective
web pages to access this information: http://es.inel.gov/nppr or http://www.ccar-greenlink.org.
1997 Green
Pages shipped!
US-AEP field offices and U.S. embassies will shortly receive shipment of
the 1997 Green Pages, a directory of U.S. suppliers of environmental
products and services. If you need additional copies, please contact Janet
Redden (TSSC receptionist) via e-mail at
jredden@usaep.org.
Thanks.
Welcome
to...
...Lynne Damon, who recently joined US-AEP's Environmental Infrastructure
program under the American Consulting Engineers Council (ACEC) cooperative
agreement. Lynne comes to the program from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
International where she was involved in USAID and World Bank-funded
privatization and enterprise restructuring projects in Central and Eastern
Europe. Previously, she worked for an alternative energy company in
California and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Lynne holds a Bachelors Degree
from the University of California at San Diego and a Masters Degree in
International Development from American University.
Farewell
to...
...Malcolm Baldwin, managing director of US-AEP's technical support
services contract (TSSC), who is returning to International Resources Group
(IRG) corporate offices to continue in his position as vice-president for
IRG's environment and natural resources group. John Butler, director of US-AEP's
Policy/Framework component, has been appointed acting Chief of Party.
...Todd Benjamin Avery, director of the Office of Technology Cooperation
in Hong Kong, who departs July 18 to accompany his wife to Washington, DC
for her year of language training prior to their move to Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam, for the next 2-3 years. Todd joined the program in February 1996 as
deputy director and was quickly promoted to director in December 1996. All
the best in your new venture! |
