What’s Working: Mayor Malik D. Evans is Turning Brownfields into Green Jobs in Rochester, N.Y.
In Rochester, N.Y., climate action is about more than just cleaning up the environment. It’s about creating better opportunities for all, particularly those in under-served communities. As Rochester Mayor Malik Evans explained during a September 2024 panel of the Local Infrastructure Hub, “Environmental justice and economic development really go together.”
Mayor Evans’ leadership has led to Rochester becoming a best-in-class example of a city where sustainability efforts are driving both growth and equity.
Training for the future of green jobs
One example of this work is the city’s eight-week, tuition-free, brownfield workforce development program, called Rochester’s Environmental Job Training Program or REJob. Started in 2016, REJob provides unemployed or underemployed local residents with training and certifications for careers in construction and the environment. The program has a 100% success rate: Since 2017, the program has graduated over 170 people and placed all of them into jobs.
Now, building on that success, Mayor Evans and the city are launching BEST — the Brownfield Environmental Skills Training program. Last spring, Rochester won a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with money from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Congress’s bipartisan infrastructure law. With it, BEST will train 100 eligible residents for such environmental construction jobs as Asbestos Project Monitor and Air Sampling Technician. BEST participants will learn about asbestos removal, federal safety guidelines, codes, and inspections. They’ll earn up to one state, and three federal certifications. And best of all, they’ll get placed in environmental jobs, especially on projects cleaning up old, industrial sites called brownfields.
What’s a brownfield site?
Brownfields are old, vacant, and often polluted industrial sites. Picture a former manufacturing facility, gas station, landfill or dry cleaners. Because of their contamination, the brownfield sites rarely get reused for other purposes — unless or until the community, the state or the federal government fund or compel a cleanup. So, the sites sit unused, wasting valuable real estate. For example, on the banks of Rochester’s Genesee River, lies an abandoned oil refinery, shuttered by a Standard Oil subsidiary in 1934. The site has largely sat unused in the 90 years since, occupying prime waterfront property that could be put into much better use.
The City and its partners continue working to organize and fund the substantial cleanup.
“Anyone in working in urban environments knows how hard brownfields are to reclaim,” said Mayor Evans.
How waste can become watts
Rochester knows the power of investing in transformations. In 2017, Rochester opened a solar array on a converted brownfield site. That lot, on an old city landfill, had been vacant since the 1970s. Now, it’s making clean power — and providing financial support to the city. “Over the 25-year term of the power purchase agreement, we expect to save at least $1.5 million,” said Mayor Evans. “So far we’ve saved around $400,000.”
To build on that success, Mayor Evans is looking to expand the solar array. “We’ll be putting out an RFP (request for proposals), and we’ll encourage developers to take advantage of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF),” he said, referencing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s $27 billion fund created in Congress’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
“We’re looking for ways to have city residents hired for the construction of the solar field to further train and grow our clean energy workforce,” said Mayor Evans.
A brighter future for all
Rochester’s climate action initiatives are not only addressing environmental concerns . They’re creating a safer, more equitable, and a more prosperous city for all. Mayor Evans is ensuring these efforts provide benefits for generations to come.
“Cleaning up brownfields in our community is an investment in our future and this work is supplying the environmental construction field with a trained workforce,” said Mayor Evans. “We’re ensuring this vision will be built to last.”
