The 2017 Environmental Champion Award for Region 2 (New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and eight Indian Nations in New York State was publicly presented in a ceremony at the EPA’s office in Manhattan in May.
The annual award recognizes organizations that have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to protecting and enhancing environmental quality and public health.
Nominated by U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Groundwork was recognized for their work with the City of Yonkers and New York State to lead the Saw Mill River Daylighting project, restoring a river that was covered with concrete for 90 years and adaptively recreating it as Van der Donck Park.
The park’s 13,775 square feet of aquatic habitat is a vibrant green space that has revitalized downtown Yonkers. Through Groundwork’s educational exhibits, visitors can learn about the river’s history and the various ways human activity has affected its ecology over the past 400 years.
“Groundwork Hudson Valley is honored to receive this prestigious award from the Environmental Protection Agency. Together, we have worked for nearly twenty years to re-green and revitalize the City of Yonkers and the Lower Hudson Valley. We are so proud to be recognized alongside our fellow awardees from across the region,” said Brigitte Griswold, Executive Director of Groundwork Hudson Valley.
In 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated Yonkers as an Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership city – one of only 16 in the country to receive this recognition for protecting significant wildlife habitats. The partnership between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the City of Yonkers, and Groundwork Hudson Valley, focuses on educating the public about a wide range of species now living in Van der Donck Park, including the American eel, river herring, turtles, mallards, muskrat, and threatened birds, like the Eastern Phoebe.
The Urban Rangers, Yonkers teens employed by Groundwork, are now offering an informative weekly tour of Van der Donck Park, featuring the American eel and the Eastern Phoebe. The tour is available every Friday from 2pm-3pm, starting at Philipse Manor Hall in Yonkers, through October 27, 2017.
Groundwork works hand-in hand with lower Hudson Valley communities to transform brownfields into public parks and greenways and cultivate environmental stewardship. At Groundwork’s recent Great Saw Mill River Cleanup, more than 200 volunteers removed 8,000 pounds of trash at eight sites along the Saw Mill River. Groundwork’s Science Barge, a floating sustainable urban farm, educates school groups and the public about renewable energy, urban farming, and climate change.
This past April, three years of collaboration between Groundwork and the City of Yonkers resulted in a $3.3 million grant from the New York State Department of Transportation to construct the Yonkers Greenway, a project that will convert an abandoned spur of the Old Putnam Railroad into a 2.2 mile biking and walking trail through the heart of southwest Yonkers.
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