My Garden – West Eugene represents a collaboration of local, state, and federal partners, working together with community leaders, to address issues of environmental justice and public health concerns in the West Eugene Industrial Corridor. The West Eugene area includes residential areas with high levels of minority and low-income populations surrounded by heavy industry and possible sources of environmental contamination. While the potential impacts of historical and ongoing industrial activity in West Eugene may raise many complex regulatory and social issues, the My Garden project began with community members themselves raising one relatively straightforward question: is the soil in my yard safe for gardening?
To answer that question, EPA Region 10, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ), and Oregon Health Authority (OHA) have considered existing programs and prior projects for promoting safe urban gardening. The My Garden – West Eugene proposal is modeled, in part, on a successful project recently carried out to address concerns about potential soil contamination and effects on gardening in an urban community of North Philadelphia. That project, known as “Soil Kitchen”, brought together a wide range of government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions to support a focused sampling event in April 2011. As described in more detail in the proposal, that event involved residents themselves collecting soil samples from their yards or gardens, and bringing those samples to the “Soil Kitchen” for analysis. The Soil Kitchen, a mobile EPA laboratory, was equipped to analyze the soils on-site for metals contamination. Results of the soils analysis were posted to a website, and information was provided to the residents to help them interpret the results.
Building on the Soil Kitchen event and related projects, the My Garden – West Eugene project would similarly involve soils collected by residents or community organizations, and on-site analysis performed by a mobile EPA laboratory. A portion of samples (e.g., ten percent) would also be sent to an off-site lab for confirmation of field results. Results will be provided to residents in a timely manner, along with interpretive information, taking particular care to ensure that technical information is communicated effectively to the diverse members of the West Eugene community. Through this process, the collaboration partners will demonstrate their ability to respond to specific community concerns, and perhaps develop a new working model to promote urban gardening and environmental justice in other communities within the region.