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DeKalb County Board of Health in Decatur, Ga., Receives $90,000 for Local Environmental Protection Projects

Release Date: 11/04/2005
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(ATLANTA – November 4, 2005)  The DeKalb County Board of Health in Decatur, Georgia, has been awarded a $90,000 grant for local environmental protection projects.  The grant was awarded under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) Cooperative Agreement Program to help communities develop collaborative strategies to achieve local environmental protection goals.  The DeKalb County Board of Health project, the only CARE project in a suburban setting, will set up three different partnerships in different parts of the county.  The Board of Health will use CARE funding to protect the community from environmental and public health threats through activities such as hazardous risk assessments, indoor air quality education, health education, workshops, and scrap tire education and enforcement programs.  In total, EPA will be awarding $2 million to the 12 communities across the United States participating in the CARE Program.

The CARE Program is a community-based, community-driven program that builds partnerships to help communities understand and reduce toxic risks from numerous sources. Award recipients will address a wide variety of environmental health issues in both rural and urban areas. There are two levels of CARE grants.  Level I grants are approximately $85,000 each and will help communities organize and create collaborative partnerships dedicated to reducing toxics in their local environments.  Level II grants are approximately $300,000 and are for communities that have already established broad-based partnerships and have identified the priority toxic risks in the community.  These communities are further along in the CARE process and are prepared to measure results, implement the risk reduction activities, and become self-sustaining.  More information about CARE and the 12 cooperative agreements is available at: https://www.epa.gov/CARE.

CONTACT: Dawn Harris-Young, harris-young.dawn@epa.gov, EPA Media Relations, 404-562-8421