May 25, 2022 • 13 mins
Daniel Blackman the regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency returns to give us a deep dive on ways we can improve our communities.
Guest twitter: @EPASoutheast
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers. Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. I'm your host, Tanya
Sam and today's deep dive, we are joined by Daniel Blackman. Daniel,
(00:24):
Welcome back to the podcast. We're so happy to have
you here. Welcome, Welcome. I'm happy to be here. I mean,
it's the honor and I'm enjoying every opportunity to be
able to educate the community. Well money Moms. For those
of you who might have missed our previous episode, I
implore you to go back and listen to it. But
Daniel is at the Environmental Protection Agency and I'm really
(00:44):
excited for him to be here today to share sort
of what he is championing, not only for our communities
and our grass spaces around, but the impacts that they
have on our health and eventually our wealth, because we
are nothing if we do not have our health. So
I want to start and carry us back to the
conversation when we were talking about the importance of green
spaces in our communities and as well as food deserts.
(01:08):
But you mentioned in previous episodes some of the grant
programs that are out there, and I'd love you to
share more information with our audience on that. Yeah, so
you know, there are multiple of areas. And thank you
for bringing this up because I think too often in
our communities we feel powerless and we don't really know
the small things we can do. You know. Uh, one
(01:28):
of the things that I didn't mention the last portion
was about electric vehicles, you know, and and having the
ability for electrifying bus fleets specifically school buses and ultimately
public transportation. But E p A is really leading the
effort in that area. Brown fields transformation areas that were
previously used that you know, have have not had construction,
(01:50):
that need to be reveloped, reassessed, rethoughts. Over one point
five billion dollars coming into this region that can help
us to really repurpose land that is in our communities
that is blighted. And I think there's a tremendous opportunity
for us to be able to address those issues. But
they're on the low hanging fruit. You know, no pun
intended on using fruit, but right community gardens are very important.
(02:14):
I think, you know, it's important for folks to know,
not just from E p A. But you know, we
get a chance to work with what's called inter agency collaboration,
So with the U. S d A, with farmers, with UH,
with with agricultural spaces, we get to help to drive
some of the opportunity. And I would encourage everyone to
locally look at your neighborhood, take a Sunday drive and
(02:36):
count the amount of fast fruit restaurants around your area,
and then try to find the farmers markets. Try to
find a grocery store shopping center that gives you fresh produce, quality,
equality vestment. I guarantee you you're gonna see more of
the latter than of what actually nourishes our body and
helps to strengthen our immune systems and our bodies and
(02:58):
our communities as a whole. So I would encourage everyone
to do that. The e p A offers grants and
opportunities for organizations that you know exist throughout our region,
and these opportunities help us to to to invest and
support organizations that are doing work on the ground to
help with EPA's mission of health and and and and
(03:19):
UH and and environment and just really creating the safest
and cleanest spaces for the people we serve and you know,
the more and more we have conversations like this, I
think we educate people we have, you know, like to
give them a better understanding of what's possible in their neighborhoods.
And this is an issue that I think comes up
a lot, food waste, food deserts. Um. You talked about
Michelle Obama's initiative, you know what was it? Get moved.
(03:41):
I let's move. Let's move by blanks, but by childhood obesity,
and that ground looked at everything that can that can
be a contributor. And one of those areas was the
amount of fast food and non nourished nourishable foods that
we were consuming in our communities. And um. Yeah, So
(04:01):
she did a phenomenal job with that program. She did
a phenomenal job, and I think it really showed kids
like just small things about like getting out to move,
planting vegetable gardens. Um. So does the e p A
also support you know, small organizations that would like to
start their own farmers markets and communities? Like how do
people like us, just the average lay person go out
(04:22):
and connect with the e p A so that they
can maybe you know, change the face of their neighborhood. Well,
that's why I'm here, you know, and that's why these
conversations are so critical, because look, we don't know everything,
and we don't have every partnership that we should have.
My goal is to work with folks and to hear
ideas and to listen and to add value to that.
The average person can reach out to ep on our website.
(04:44):
You can go to e p A dot gov. You
can go through and look at programs EPA offers and
find a space that you potentially could add value to.
Or you may know what nonprofit or community organization that
maybe in alignment with what we're looking for at e
p A. And I think that that folks will find
that e p A is driving a lot of the
investment around healthy communities, UM building, resilience, clean water efforts.
(05:10):
These are the things we think about. And wherever you are,
I want you to think of a place in your
community that may have been run down at some point
that's now developed. That's the purview of ep A helping
redevelop and repurpose through through supporting good organizations and people
that are doing the work on the ground. Wow, that's incredible,
because yeah, I can think of many places that you
(05:31):
look back and you're like, Wow, that place has really changed.
And I think it's hope. It's very uplifting for so
many of us because I think part of the real
dynamic change that happened was by the people. So the
communities that built it, the communities that pushed that for things,
the communities that you know, reached out to government resources.
So I think there's a lot to be said there,
and it's just having inspiring conversations like this where people go, oh,
(05:53):
I didn't know I could do that. Of course, Daniel,
can you give us any examples, um, where you've seen
this happen where someone's reached out and they've reached out
to the EPA or some of these government organizations and
they've really made change happening in their neighborhoods. Yeah, of course,
you know some of them that that I can point
out to. In South Carolina, we had a community that
you know, it was in an area that had a
(06:13):
bunch of challenges with a location, for example, that had
some contamination. We were able to work with the local community.
They were able to rethink and vision and look forward
and determine what they wanted to utilize that land for
an e p A was able to come in help
offer grant program that was able to help them transform
that area. You know, when we hear people bring ideas,
(06:36):
I mean, if you think about it, look at look
at the Goulds right, look at look at all right,
and look at how Une City and English Avenue looked
like that for a long time. But what made it
transform vision and the resources right, the money, the investment
e p A is to think of e p A
as an as a community potential, community partner that can
(06:57):
help drive the kind of investment that can rebuild the
health and and and the wellness of communities that we serve.
There are a lot of various programs we offer, but
I think some of the most critical ones is helping
us to drive areas that have been impacted by environmental
justice issues and that want to be redeveloped based on
resources they may not have had access to. Oh I
(07:19):
love that. That's certainly powerful. And the Gulch is a
great example for those of you who know it's here
in Atlanta and it's in sort of our downtown area
and it's just in the process of being revitalized by
people that went around and intentionally fundraise, asking for funds,
asking to sort of change this neighborhood. Um, and it's happening.
So it's really inspiring. Yeah. And the good thing is,
(07:42):
I say this really really quickly. We're not just talking
about large scale programs. Some people just want to create
opportunities for education in the community to learn. Uh. This
this by parties and infrastructure law for example, one point
two trillion dollar by partisan effort, where ninety days ago
it was it was past. I mean, these things are
happening right. This is a transformative time in our society.
(08:06):
And if we're not aware of the opportunities that are coming,
then it breaks my heart to know that some folks
that are living in adverse conditions will continue to be
left behind. Our job is to educate and pardon with people,
to get the word out and also to make sure
that these investments that are coming through e p A
can be driven into communities that have been marginalized in
disfranchise for far too long. The income in equality, gaps,
(08:29):
socioeconomic conditions, all these things are parallel, and we can
deny that these things are happening right in front of us.
You cannot tell me that if you're from Atlanta. You've
seen areas that have transformed, like Midtown in the North
Side Drive corridor. But then when you go down the
Cascade or you go by Greenbrier, we're not seeing the
same kind of investment in development, and we're seeing challenges
(08:51):
and the fact that most of our community is in
proximity to landfills or two areas that have contamination or
low air quality, factories, we factories, yeah, you name it.
So that's what we're driving. We want to protect schools,
we want to protect communities, we want to protect people.
That's our job. I mean, these are great conversations, and
I love that we have this high level call to
(09:13):
action to which people can reach out to government officials
like yourself and know that there are people on the
other side that look like us, that that care, have
concerned and really are looking to affect change. I would
be remiss if I left this conversation and asked, you
know other things you're passionate about. I grew up in
Canada where recycling was a big deal. We recycled, we composted, um,
(09:35):
what are some other small things that people can do
in their home or their community to really change, you know,
their living conditions. Are we worried about air quality, UM filters, etcetera.
Do you have any tips or tricks for our audience. Yeah,
you know, there are multiple things you can do. Um.
One of them is, like you said, recycling. You know,
it's so important to recycle um right on. Testing is important,
(09:57):
you know. Unfortunately there there are things that we can
get checked on in our house a lot of times,
and I'll give a quick example. We don't usually in
our communities get our fire alarms checked right. And it's
the same with testing the air quality in your home
and the air quality in your schools. If you're a parent,
you should ask if a school has been tested for radar? Right.
These things impact our respiratory systems. So those are some
(10:19):
small things you can do. But also when it comes
to you know, environmental justice issues, I would just really say, no,
what's in your community? Right? If you if if you
have a funny smell in your community, or if you
see something out of place, a like an overwhelming number
of tires right that that bushes behind your house, that
is an environmental hazard issue. If you if you work
(10:41):
in a condition where you know you feel that you
know you're there are challenges you're having. There are ways
for you to reach out to ep If you go
to EPA dot gov, we have multiple ways for you
to communicate with us. You can you can um file
a complaint, you can put something on our radar, you
can reach out to us, and and the biggest thing
is government work. When when the community holds government accountable,
(11:03):
government works. And if you see something, you organize your community,
You organize your neighbors. All it takes is one or
two consistent voices to reach out. And when you reach
out the folks, it becomes an issue that's on record.
And our responsibility is to be responsive and to do
the job that you all have entrusted us to do. Oh.
I mean this is really empowering because I think it
(11:24):
just gives people a sense of that there is someone
on the other line listening, and their vote matters, their
voice matters, and government does work. You know, so often
we hear the narrative like, oh, they're not doing anything.
So thank you for putting uh face to the name
behind government and we appreciate you. Can you tell again
our audience where they can find you on social media
(11:45):
or where they can look up the E p A
and other things that they're involved in and excited in it. Yeah,
it's really simple and it's an absolute honor. I'll come
back anytime and talk about the opportunities e p A has.
On Twitter, you can go to at e p A
Southeast that's e p A like Environmental Protection Agency. You
can email me at Blackman dot Daniel at ep A
(12:06):
dot gov, or you can just go on to e
p A dot go on your website. You can navigate
through it based on where you live. You can find
out what region you're in, based in your state, and
you can look at the many things that e p
A has to offer their ten regions in the United States.
I represent Region four, which is Georgia, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and six federally recognized tribes.
(12:27):
If you're not within that space, you can find where
you are located and hold your regional administrator in your
region accountable for those environmental concerns you may have. Thank
you for the opportunity. Thank you so much, Mr Blackmann.
Is a pleasure to have you on the podcast. And
al right, money Movers, that's all the time we have
for today. But make sure you follow Daniel Blackman on
all his social media handles and tune into the Money
(12:50):
Moves podcast daily. Thank you so much for tuning in
Money Moves audience. If you want more or a recap
of this episode, please go to the Bank Greenwood dot
com and check out the Money Move Moves podcast blog.
Money Moves is an I Heart Radio podcast powered by
Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts
(13:12):
on I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Hey, Money Movers. Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. I'm your host, Tanya
Sam and today's deep dive, we are joined by Daniel Blackman. Daniel,
(00:24):
Welcome back to the podcast. We're so happy to have
you here. Welcome, Welcome. I'm happy to be here. I mean,
it's the honor and I'm enjoying every opportunity to be
able to educate the community. Well money Moms. For those
of you who might have missed our previous episode, I
implore you to go back and listen to it. But
Daniel is at the Environmental Protection Agency and I'm really
(00:44):
excited for him to be here today to share sort
of what he is championing, not only for our communities
and our grass spaces around, but the impacts that they
have on our health and eventually our wealth, because we
are nothing if we do not have our health. So
I want to start and carry us back to the
conversation when we were talking about the importance of green
spaces in our communities and as well as food deserts.
(01:08):
But you mentioned in previous episodes some of the grant
programs that are out there, and I'd love you to
share more information with our audience on that. Yeah, so
you know, there are multiple of areas. And thank you
for bringing this up because I think too often in
our communities we feel powerless and we don't really know
the small things we can do. You know. Uh, one
(01:28):
of the things that I didn't mention the last portion
was about electric vehicles, you know, and and having the
ability for electrifying bus fleets specifically school buses and ultimately
public transportation. But E p A is really leading the
effort in that area. Brown fields transformation areas that were
previously used that you know, have have not had construction,
(01:50):
that need to be reveloped, reassessed, rethoughts. Over one point
five billion dollars coming into this region that can help
us to really repurpose land that is in our communities
that is blighted. And I think there's a tremendous opportunity
for us to be able to address those issues. But
they're on the low hanging fruit. You know, no pun
intended on using fruit, but right community gardens are very important.
(02:14):
I think, you know, it's important for folks to know,
not just from E p A. But you know, we
get a chance to work with what's called inter agency collaboration,
So with the U. S d A, with farmers, with UH,
with with agricultural spaces, we get to help to drive
some of the opportunity. And I would encourage everyone to
locally look at your neighborhood, take a Sunday drive and
(02:36):
count the amount of fast fruit restaurants around your area,
and then try to find the farmers markets. Try to
find a grocery store shopping center that gives you fresh produce, quality,
equality vestment. I guarantee you you're gonna see more of
the latter than of what actually nourishes our body and
helps to strengthen our immune systems and our bodies and
(02:58):
our communities as a whole. So I would encourage everyone
to do that. The e p A offers grants and
opportunities for organizations that you know exist throughout our region,
and these opportunities help us to to to invest and
support organizations that are doing work on the ground to
help with EPA's mission of health and and and and
(03:19):
UH and and environment and just really creating the safest
and cleanest spaces for the people we serve and you know,
the more and more we have conversations like this, I
think we educate people we have, you know, like to
give them a better understanding of what's possible in their neighborhoods.
And this is an issue that I think comes up
a lot, food waste, food deserts. Um. You talked about
Michelle Obama's initiative, you know what was it? Get moved.
(03:41):
I let's move. Let's move by blanks, but by childhood obesity,
and that ground looked at everything that can that can
be a contributor. And one of those areas was the
amount of fast food and non nourished nourishable foods that
we were consuming in our communities. And um. Yeah, So
(04:01):
she did a phenomenal job with that program. She did
a phenomenal job, and I think it really showed kids
like just small things about like getting out to move,
planting vegetable gardens. Um. So does the e p A
also support you know, small organizations that would like to
start their own farmers markets and communities? Like how do
people like us, just the average lay person go out
(04:22):
and connect with the e p A so that they
can maybe you know, change the face of their neighborhood. Well,
that's why I'm here, you know, and that's why these
conversations are so critical, because look, we don't know everything,
and we don't have every partnership that we should have.
My goal is to work with folks and to hear
ideas and to listen and to add value to that.
The average person can reach out to ep on our website.
(04:44):
You can go to e p A dot gov. You
can go through and look at programs EPA offers and
find a space that you potentially could add value to.
Or you may know what nonprofit or community organization that
maybe in alignment with what we're looking for at e
p A. And I think that that folks will find
that e p A is driving a lot of the
investment around healthy communities, UM building, resilience, clean water efforts.
(05:10):
These are the things we think about. And wherever you are,
I want you to think of a place in your
community that may have been run down at some point
that's now developed. That's the purview of ep A helping
redevelop and repurpose through through supporting good organizations and people
that are doing the work on the ground. Wow, that's incredible,
because yeah, I can think of many places that you
(05:31):
look back and you're like, Wow, that place has really changed.
And I think it's hope. It's very uplifting for so
many of us because I think part of the real
dynamic change that happened was by the people. So the
communities that built it, the communities that pushed that for things,
the communities that you know, reached out to government resources.
So I think there's a lot to be said there,
and it's just having inspiring conversations like this where people go, oh,
(05:53):
I didn't know I could do that. Of course, Daniel,
can you give us any examples, um, where you've seen
this happen where someone's reached out and they've reached out
to the EPA or some of these government organizations and
they've really made change happening in their neighborhoods. Yeah, of course,
you know some of them that that I can point
out to. In South Carolina, we had a community that
you know, it was in an area that had a
(06:13):
bunch of challenges with a location, for example, that had
some contamination. We were able to work with the local community.
They were able to rethink and vision and look forward
and determine what they wanted to utilize that land for
an e p A was able to come in help
offer grant program that was able to help them transform
that area. You know, when we hear people bring ideas,
(06:36):
I mean, if you think about it, look at look
at the Goulds right, look at look at all right,
and look at how Une City and English Avenue looked
like that for a long time. But what made it
transform vision and the resources right, the money, the investment
e p A is to think of e p A
as an as a community potential, community partner that can
(06:57):
help drive the kind of investment that can rebuild the
health and and and the wellness of communities that we serve.
There are a lot of various programs we offer, but
I think some of the most critical ones is helping
us to drive areas that have been impacted by environmental
justice issues and that want to be redeveloped based on
resources they may not have had access to. Oh I
(07:19):
love that. That's certainly powerful. And the Gulch is a
great example for those of you who know it's here
in Atlanta and it's in sort of our downtown area
and it's just in the process of being revitalized by
people that went around and intentionally fundraise, asking for funds,
asking to sort of change this neighborhood. Um, and it's happening.
So it's really inspiring. Yeah. And the good thing is,
(07:42):
I say this really really quickly. We're not just talking
about large scale programs. Some people just want to create
opportunities for education in the community to learn. Uh. This
this by parties and infrastructure law for example, one point
two trillion dollar by partisan effort, where ninety days ago
it was it was past. I mean, these things are
happening right. This is a transformative time in our society.
(08:06):
And if we're not aware of the opportunities that are coming,
then it breaks my heart to know that some folks
that are living in adverse conditions will continue to be
left behind. Our job is to educate and pardon with people,
to get the word out and also to make sure
that these investments that are coming through e p A
can be driven into communities that have been marginalized in
disfranchise for far too long. The income in equality, gaps,
(08:29):
socioeconomic conditions, all these things are parallel, and we can
deny that these things are happening right in front of us.
You cannot tell me that if you're from Atlanta. You've
seen areas that have transformed, like Midtown in the North
Side Drive corridor. But then when you go down the
Cascade or you go by Greenbrier, we're not seeing the
same kind of investment in development, and we're seeing challenges
(08:51):
and the fact that most of our community is in
proximity to landfills or two areas that have contamination or
low air quality, factories, we factories, yeah, you name it.
So that's what we're driving. We want to protect schools,
we want to protect communities, we want to protect people.
That's our job. I mean, these are great conversations, and
I love that we have this high level call to
(09:13):
action to which people can reach out to government officials
like yourself and know that there are people on the
other side that look like us, that that care, have
concerned and really are looking to affect change. I would
be remiss if I left this conversation and asked, you
know other things you're passionate about. I grew up in
Canada where recycling was a big deal. We recycled, we composted, um,
(09:35):
what are some other small things that people can do
in their home or their community to really change, you know,
their living conditions. Are we worried about air quality, UM filters, etcetera.
Do you have any tips or tricks for our audience. Yeah,
you know, there are multiple things you can do. Um.
One of them is, like you said, recycling. You know,
it's so important to recycle um right on. Testing is important,
(09:57):
you know. Unfortunately there there are things that we can
get checked on in our house a lot of times,
and I'll give a quick example. We don't usually in
our communities get our fire alarms checked right. And it's
the same with testing the air quality in your home
and the air quality in your schools. If you're a parent,
you should ask if a school has been tested for radar? Right.
These things impact our respiratory systems. So those are some
(10:19):
small things you can do. But also when it comes
to you know, environmental justice issues, I would just really say, no,
what's in your community? Right? If you if if you
have a funny smell in your community, or if you
see something out of place, a like an overwhelming number
of tires right that that bushes behind your house, that
is an environmental hazard issue. If you if you work
(10:41):
in a condition where you know you feel that you
know you're there are challenges you're having. There are ways
for you to reach out to ep If you go
to EPA dot gov, we have multiple ways for you
to communicate with us. You can you can um file
a complaint, you can put something on our radar, you
can reach out to us, and and the biggest thing
is government work. When when the community holds government accountable,
(11:03):
government works. And if you see something, you organize your community,
You organize your neighbors. All it takes is one or
two consistent voices to reach out. And when you reach
out the folks, it becomes an issue that's on record.
And our responsibility is to be responsive and to do
the job that you all have entrusted us to do. Oh.
I mean this is really empowering because I think it
(11:24):
just gives people a sense of that there is someone
on the other line listening, and their vote matters, their
voice matters, and government does work. You know, so often
we hear the narrative like, oh, they're not doing anything.
So thank you for putting uh face to the name
behind government and we appreciate you. Can you tell again
our audience where they can find you on social media
(11:45):
or where they can look up the E p A
and other things that they're involved in and excited in it. Yeah,
it's really simple and it's an absolute honor. I'll come
back anytime and talk about the opportunities e p A has.
On Twitter, you can go to at e p A
Southeast that's e p A like Environmental Protection Agency. You
can email me at Blackman dot Daniel at ep A
(12:06):
dot gov, or you can just go on to e
p A dot go on your website. You can navigate
through it based on where you live. You can find
out what region you're in, based in your state, and
you can look at the many things that e p
A has to offer their ten regions in the United States.
I represent Region four, which is Georgia, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and six federally recognized tribes.
(12:27):
If you're not within that space, you can find where
you are located and hold your regional administrator in your
region accountable for those environmental concerns you may have. Thank
you for the opportunity. Thank you so much, Mr Blackmann.
Is a pleasure to have you on the podcast. And
al right, money Movers, that's all the time we have
for today. But make sure you follow Daniel Blackman on
all his social media handles and tune into the Money
(12:50):
Moves podcast daily. Thank you so much for tuning in
Money Moves audience. If you want more or a recap
of this episode, please go to the Bank Greenwood dot
com and check out the Money Move Moves podcast blog.
Money Moves is an I Heart Radio podcast powered by
Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts
(13:12):
on I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
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