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Continued From Page 16 administration , she led the USEPA ’ s environmental justice work , serving as an associate administrator and senior advisor to USEPA Administrators Lisa P . Jackson and Gina McCarthy .
She helped create and implement Plan EJ 2014 , the first strategic plan for weaving environmental justice into the USEPA ’ s work . Garcia also led the design team for EJSCREEN , the USEPA ’ s first nationwide environmental justice mapping tool to assess overburdened communities . It has been widely used by state and communities and is the foundation for President Biden ’ s climate and economic mapping tool .
Prior to 2009 , Garcia was director of environmental justice and Indian affairs at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation . She was also an assistant attorney general in the Environmental Protection Bureau of the New York State Attorney General ’ s Office and an associate professor at Rutgers Law School in Newark . Early in her career she also worked for U . S . Sen . Robert Torricelli and New Jersey State Sen . Byron Baer .
Her New Jersey roots go back to Teaneck , where she is a proud graduate of the city high school . Garcia earned her undergraduate degree at Stony Brook University and she is also a graduate of Brooklyn Law School . She lives in Brooklyn now with her husband and son .
She has served on the board of El Puente , The Fund for NJ , Eastern Environmental Law Center ,
the David Rockefeller Fund , Governors Trust Fund , Palisades Interstate Park Commission and the Nature Conservancy .
Before she accepted the USEPA post , Garcia was at Grist Magazine , running an innovative new program called Fix , a climate solutions lab focused on amplifying the voices of climate leaders and accelerating equitable climate solutions .
Garcia said finding solutions to environmental issues need not be an adversarial experience . The best solutions are found when government works with the community to benefit all , she contended .
She is anxious to see the reclamation of the Superfund sites . In December she visited one of them , Unimatic Manufacturing in Fairfield . The federal funds will be used to demolish the on-site building and excavate PCB and pesticide contaminated soil . The building debris and excavated soil will be sent off-site for proper disposal .
Garcia described it as a “ once-in-a-generation investment that gives USEPA the resources to clean up legacy pollution that has gone unaddressed for far too long , particularly in underserved and overburdened communities .”
The other New Jersey projects include : White Chemical Superfund Site in Newark , where the USEPA will apply non-hazardous additives to the ground water to breakdown contaminants there ; Diamond Head Oil Superfund Site in
Kearny , where soil tainted with dioxin and oily waste will be excavated , removed and disposed of properly . Plans there also call for capping an area where PCB , lead and chromium were detected .
At the Roebling Steel Superfund Site in Florence Township , Burlington County , the remediation work involves long-term ground water monitoring , capping of soil , building decontamination , demolition and historic preservation mitigation measures .
Further South is the Kil-Tone Superfund site in Vineland . Plans call for the excavation of soil polluted with arsenic and lead from at least 36 properties within a largely residential neighborhood that was affected by the past operations of the Kil-Tone pesticides plant .
At the Garfield Groundwater Contamination Superfund Site in Garfield , the federal funds will be used to treat hexavalent chromium in the groundwater through the use of non-hazardous additives and measures to restrict use of the ground water .
The USEPA proposes a bioremediation plan for the Kauffman & Minteer Superfund Site in Jobstown to break down the contaminants with non-hazardous additives . Volatile organic contaminants were found there , including trichlorethylene and 1,2-dichloroethene .