Balancing Environment and Economic Development

As small metropolitan and rural communities grow, regional organizations must be vigilant about protecting water and other natural resources.With the recent trend toward sprawling communities, regional development organizations are searching for solutions, including brownfields redevelopment and land use planning with an eye to preventing sprawl. According to NADO Research Foundation’s 2000 survey of regional development organizations, 25 percent administer one or more Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) programs, including clean water, safe drinking water, brownfields and more.

The Association of South Central Oklahoma Governments (ASCOG), an Economic Development Administration funded district with a population of 271,922, is taking the lead on environmental programs, including brownfields, biosolids and air quality, for its 87 member governments, 71 cities, eight counties and eight conservation districts. As Blaine Smith, ASCOG’s Executive Director, explains, “Rural areas have environmental problems too. These are not just urban problems.”

Brownfields

ASCOG was recently awarded an EPA Brownfields Demonstration Assessment Pilot grant. An inventory of potential brownfields has been provided by county stakeholders for purposes of assessment and evaluation.

ASCOG is working on many sites, including an abandoned water treatment plant and a former apartment complex; once the contamination is capped onsite, the apartment complex will become soccer fields. For many sites, uses other than agriculture are not viable. According to Smith, “One of the greatest challenges we have found is that the value of land in very rural areas is relatively inexpensive and the availability of land is large.”

Biosolids

Biosolids being spread on a field in Oklahoma

ASCOG’s Biosolids Removal and Beneficial Reuse Program (BRBRP), initiated in August 1999 in partnership with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ), provides for land rehabilitation, mitigation and reuse of rural lagoons. Because the primary method of sewage disposal is in lagoons, there are no sewage treatment plants. Some lagoons are over 50 years old and have never been cleaned. This program identifies rural sewage lagoons which have become minimally effective, schedules the necessary mitigation, applies biosolids removed from the lagoon to marginal or contaminated land in the area, and ultimately returns both sites to benefical and productive segments of the community.

Air Quality

ASCOG oversees the voluntary Air Quality Alert Program, in conjunction with ODEQ, the Air Quality Committee and EPA Region VI. The Air Quality Index can be used to predict future levels of specific pollutants. This is crucial when pollutants are expected to reach unhealthy levels, since it gives “sensitive” people and groups the opportunity to take necessary precautions. This monitoring/alert program identifies in advance those days where air emissions levels are potentially harmful. Through the media, citizens at risk are alerted.

Because this region of Oklahoma, and many parts of rural America, have no public transportation, dealing with clean air is even more difficult. “You can’t tell people to ride the bus on ozone alert days, because there isn’t one,” says Smith. “Also the automobile is sacrosanct in this area of rural Oklahoma. The independence you find in less populated areas of the country is strong. In this part of the country, with big, open, clear blue skies, you assume there are no pollution problems.”

By Melissa Levy, Digest Managing Editor

For more information, contact Blaine Smith of ASCOG at (800) 658-1466, by email at smit_bl@ascog.org, or on the web at http://164.58.171.78/ascog-internet/default.htm.

February Index | Back Page | Next Page