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For Immediate Release 05/23/08

Lane County Community and Economic Development Receives Special Recognition for Energy Innovation

Contacts: Mike McKenzie-Bahr, Lane County Community and Economic Development Program supervisor, 682-4118; Marc Kardell, Lane County counsel, 682-3301

Lane County was among those honored at an environmental conference, earning a Special Recognition for Energy Innovation Award for the Lane County SeQuential Fuels Project. This is the first time the award has ever been given.

More than 5,000 people attended the Brownsfields 2008 Conference in Detroit, Michigan at which the Phoenix Awards ceremony was held. Phoenix Award winners represent outstanding brownfield projects from each of the 10 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) regions, and two additional projects selected for special honors, of which Lane County’s SeQuential Fuels Project was one.

The local project remediated tax-foreclosed property that formerly served as a local filling station. The soil and groundwater was contaminated with petroleum due to an underground storage tank system leak. The abandoned gas station site was also littered with trash, old tires and used needles.

Through local partnerships with SeQuential Biofuels, the Oregon Departments of Environmental Quality, Economic and Community Development, and Energy; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a solution to improve the site was born.

"This was an innovative partnership between a private business and local, state and federal agencies to solve a contamination problem through business development and job creation," said Mike McKenzie-Bahr, Lane County Community & Economic Development coordinator. "Now, not only do we now have the opportunity to purchase regionally produced green fuels, but this project has helped spread the work that Lane County is great place to do sustainable business development projects."

The biofuels station opened in August 2006 and includes such sustainable design elements as solar power, passive solar heating, bioswales and a green roof, which contains almost 5,000 plants in six inches of soil. It also provides more than 10 jobs for the community.

"This project with SeQuential Biofuels was seen as a national model for redevelopment of contaminated property," said Marc Kardell, Assistant County Counsel, who co-presented this project at the National Brownfield's conference. "Hopefully, the experience we had locally with this project will help others interested in putting difficult properties back into productive use."

This year’s Phoenix Award winners remediated and redeveloped over 1,350 acres of land while creating or retaining over 12,500 jobs.

For more information on Lane County’s Sequential Fuels Project, please click the following link:

http://www.lanecounty.org/CAO_EconDev/default.htm

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Amber Fossen
Public Information Officer
Lane County Government
125 E. Eighth Ave.
Eugene, Oregon 97401
(541) 682.3718
(541) 359.9143 (cell)

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