More trees, less pavement would make city more livable

COURTESY GROUNDWORK
STRONG ROOTS: Gary Cloutier, executive director of Groundwork Providence, says Groundwork aims for a native and diverse stock of trees, meaning maple and elm, among others.
COURTESY GROUNDWORK STRONG ROOTS: Gary Cloutier, executive director of Groundwork Providence, says Groundwork aims for a native and diverse stock of trees, meaning maple and elm, among others.

Gary Cloutier is a Rhode Island native who returned to the Ocean State on May 14 as executive director for Groundwork Providence, a nonprofit dedicated to the greening and cleaning of the metropolitan Providence area through several initiatives.
On June 22, Groundwork received a $200,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency brownfields grant it will use to improve and continue its environmental job-training program.

PBN: What made you return to Rhode Island?
CLOUTIER: I saw this opportunity arise and I wanted to continue my career in public office, but I had been termed out of office after two terms. It seemed like a way to continue to be active and work on behalf of the public, but in a nonprofit setting.

PBN: Can you briefly describe the purpose of Groundwork Providence?
CLOUTIER: It started out in 1982 as Keep Providence Beautiful. It was very successful and had a lot of popular, public support. In 2000, it joined the Groundwork USA national environmental trust based in New York’s Hudson Valley. It was in 2002 when we started to do job training with EPA–funded grants, which was a little confusing at first because training for brownfield cleanups is not as easily defined as, say, picking up litter.

PBN: Part of the program’s central focus is planting trees. Can you elaborate?
CLOUTIER: We have stewardship of the only two private tree-planting programs in Providence, Trees 2020 and Providence Neighborhood Planning Program. In the Providence program we plant about 400 trees per year, for free, in any neighborhood that wants them. In the 2020 program we plant them essentially for cost. Our goal this year is to put 1,000 trees in the ground, with a stated goal of working with the city to plant 40,000 trees by the year 2020.
Another program is the GroundCorps, a sustainable-landscaping company. It employs something called the “virtuous circle,” where we employ our job-training graduates. It’s a for-fee business service where we go out and do landscaping and plant trees. It gives them experience and hopefully makes them more attractive to hire in the job place. We have had about a 75 percent placement rate with our graduates.

PBN: The brownfield training – what does it entail?
CLOUTIER: We offer federal certification in areas like sustainable urban landscaping, stormwater management, removal of lead and asbestos. There are various certificates that can be earned through the program, again, making them more attractive in the job place. To be honest, a lot of the folks we train have a historically and culturally difficult time finding employment. They have been chronically unemployed.
The training provides applicants with OSHA’s [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] 40-hour, hazardous-waste-operations certification, their 10-hour construction-safety course, confined-space entry and CPR/first aid certification. Some of our other training courses include environmental sciences, sustainability, low-impact development and horticulture.

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PBN: Why is that?
CLOUTIER: The whole thrust of the grant is that it is supposed to benefit the underserved population in the underserved communities. Our focus is roughly Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence and Woonsocket. Part of the proposal is that we would seek people from these communities.

PBN: What are the numbers on the training grant?
CLOUTIER: The grant we received was for $200,000, and will go to train about 60 people. It is a three-year grant with the last year being for following up and monitoring. Of all the organizations that applied across the country, our grant application scored the highest.

PBN: What will be your central focus over the next few months?
CLOUTIER: Because of Providence’s history, demographics and socio-economic past, there are many, many brownfields that exist in the community. Also, the lack of tree canopy continues to be a problem in the western part of the city. There’s enough work for us for 50 years.
At the same time some of the things we do, like brownfields, are not openly understood by the public yet they have enormous potential. I have to make people aware of the important things we are doing.
In tandem, I want to take us to another level by raising the profile of the organization. I would like to establish a permanent facility with a community garden, office facility and a greenhouse. We are actually in negotiations with someone that owns a 1.5-acre parcel in the Elmwood section of Providence.
We’ve created a tree nursery on Sprague Street. We will be growing trees and making them available to the public at half the price the city pays.

PBN: What types of trees do you use?
CLOUTIER: We try to emphasize a native and diverse stock, meaning maple and elm among others; sometimes cherry trees. It is a variety, however.

PBN: Do you have your eye on any new projects?
CLOUTIER: Yes. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced only a few weeks ago that there would be $9 million in prizes to cities around the country for ideas that local governments can use to solve problems. I’ve already met with chief of staff of the City Council to discuss our proposal. We would write the grant and partner with the city. Our grant would address a major problem in American cities, the over-reliance on the automobile and asphalt.
If we won we would duplicate our tree nursery in every neighborhood in Providence with a low tree canopy. •

INTERVIEW
Gary R. Cloutier
POSITION: Executive director, Groundwork Providence
BACKGROUND: A two-term city councilman for Vallejo, Calif., Cloutier also worked as a civil rights attorney in San Francisco for 18 years. He has also served as an aide for the late Rhode Island Sen. Claiborne Pell.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in political science, 1985, Brown University; JD, Suffolk Law School, 1991
FIRST JOB: Dishwasher
RESIDENCE: Providence
AGE: 50

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