“Almost Olympian” Becomes Champion and Catalyst for Nature-Based Solutions

Nature is a powerful thing. While hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 2006, our guest let go of her dream to compete at the 2008 Olympics to pursue a career protecting the environment. In Season 8, Episode 6, host Sarah Thorne and Jeff King, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature (EWN) Program, US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), are joined by special guest Robyn DeYoung, who now leads the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Green Infrastructure Program. Through the Green Infrastructure Federal Collaborative, Robyn is bringing federal agencies together to advance nature-based solutions (NBS), including finding ways to streamline permitting and helping communities navigate funding. The Collaborative has just released a best practice guide on Federal Permitting and Environmental Reviews for Nature-Based Solutions and short videos for funding and technical assistance.

Robyn joined the USEPA in 2010 working with states and local governments on clean energy, applying all that she had learned—including the value of teamwork that she learned from field hockey. In her current role as Green Infrastructure program manager, she continues to help people work together: “How can we collaborate and use people’s unique talents—even people that might not agree with you, but have great ideas?”

Green infrastructure can mean different things to different people. As Robyn describes it, “If I’m in a room full of engineers, then green infrastructure means you’re using natural systems—native plants, soils, permeable surfaces—to help with bringing us back to predevelopment hydrology. But for the rest of us, the way that I define green infrastructure is that we’re creating functional green space and other designs so that we can prevent flooding, keep our cities cool, and keep our waters clean using natural processes, using things like rain gardens or street trees.”

Robyn notes that one of the primary functions of EPA’s Green Infrastructure Program is outreach, providing resources to help people understand the economic, environmental and social benefits of green infrastructure, including handbooks for Green Infrastructure Design, peer exchange webinars, and models and tools. “One of the focuses of our program is to make sure that we have free information so people can design, build, maintain, and monitor the green infrastructure in their cities and communities.”

Looking forward, Robyn notes some of the focus and priorities she sees in the next year, starting with EPA’s 2035 Green Infrastructure Strategic Agenda that her program has been working on. She describes three priority areas: (1) Demonstrating the benefits of green infrastructure in ways that align with the economic, environmental, and social benefits that people value; (2) Connecting more communities to federal funding and technical assistance. And (3) continuing to engage with communities. “We want to do everything we can to bring nature-based solutions into those neighborhoods in a way that they want to use them, that’s culturally relevant, so that they can really take it and run with it.”

Robyn’s call to action is for listeners to learn more about what the Green Infrastructure Program is doing and find out about the resources that are available to support individuals and communities interested in green infrastructure. For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/

• Jeff King at LinkedIn
• Robyn DeYoung at LinkedIn