A year ago, a group of former Carnegie Mellon University graduates turned a thesis and a $20,000 Sprout Fund grant into Growth Through Energy & Community Health, a start-up nonprofit geared to reclaiming brownfields and vacant urban properties with biofuel crops.

Given economies of scale, GTECH’s initial six-acre planting of poplar trees—to soak up contaminants—switchgrass and sunflowers at the former LTV site in Hazelwood, seemed to make sense. Yields might be large enough, especially from switchgrass, for a profitable venture.

Green land?—Paradise Gray, left, asks how the community will benefit if the sunflowers growing on this GTECH plot in Larimer ever yield their potential of roughly 50 gallons of oil.

The residential component of their plan, the grads said, would not only eliminate the scourge of neighborhood blight with fields of sunflowers and canola plants yielding profits from oil, but also train urban youths in “green collar” jobs. Sounds like a win-win scenario.

Some community activists however, charge that GTECH’s urban lots in East Liberty and Garfield—properties given them by East Liberty Development Inc.—are yielding neither the jobs for neighborhood youth, nor anything resembling a biofuel business. Urban gardeners like One Hood’s Paradise Gray and Healcrest Urban Community Farm manager Maria Graziani both said the community would be better served using vacant lots for food crops.

Standing by a barren GTECH lot on Black Street in Garfield, with a sign that boasts “Job Training,” “Biofuel Creation” and “Community Growth,” Gray and Graziani see little of any.

“Is anyone in Garfield going to be heating their home with biofuel this winter? Will I? I don’t think so,” said Graziani. “It’s still an empty lot. There’ll be no harvest this year. No growth and no green job training.”

“Right now, the only ‘green’ job in the ‘hood is selling weed,” Gray said.

Another GTECH lot at the intersection of Mayflower Street and Larimer Avenue in East Liberty is showing some growth. But at roughly 20,000 square feet, under ideal conditions it could yield only about 50 gallons of oil from sunflowers or 60 gallons of oil from Canola (rapeseed) for use as biodiesel or in the food industry. By comparison, a half-acre of switchgrass can yield about 6,000 gallons of ethanol.

Even if these lots were productive, Gray said, how would they benefit the community? Who would sell the crop, or refine it—and where would the profits go?

“If it’s a community initiative, the community should benefit,” he said. “Right now, community youth aren’t even working on these lots—at least they are learning something at Maria’s gardens.”

Mikhail Pappas, president of TASK, Teens Against Senseless Violence, said GTECH CEO Andrew Butcher agreed to hire some of the youth he works with as part of their green collar job component. That didn’t happen.

“He just strung us along,” Pappas said. “The students he’s using are all from other neighborhoods.”

Pappas said GTECH appears to be “greenwashing” the community, merely claiming to be providing green job training to at-risk populations.

“A real green jobs initiative includes a council of green businesses and employers, a commitment to providing low-income communities of color with pathways out of poverty and a curriculum equipped with basic literacy skills, job readiness skills and financial management skills,” Pappas said. “Community, and diversity should be at the center of the organizing model, not an afterthought.”

When reached for comment Butcher said he was “stunned and perplexed” by some of Pappas’ and Graziani’s statements.

“I hold Maria and Mikhail in the highest regard as peers committed to making the world a better place,” he said.

“Nonetheless, if there are concerns about how GTECH is addressing the problem of vacant land and our approach to community development, it is my responsibility to take responsibility for misconceptions or inadequate communication.”

Butcher agreed the larger urban plots, like Mayflower Street, might generate enough profit to be self-sustaining, but it is unlikely. The smaller ones will not come close; their main purpose, he said, is to renew neighborhoods by teaching people about green industry, eliminating blight and increasing property values—which benefit the community.

“We’re trying something really new here. Right before we started, someone dumped a huge load of asphalt on Black Street and we’re just past cleaning that up,” he said.

The small amount of funding he and partner Chris Koch have received to date has gone back into project sites. Neither has drawn any salary. That will change, modestly, in September.

Both just returned from a conference in North Carolina where they received a two-year, $90,000 fellowship from the Echoing Green venture capital firm, allowing them a small salary and health insurance.

“I know is that it is important to connect the burgeoning green economy to marginalized communities. That role of connectivity is one that we at GTECH hope to work toward,” he said. “I am truly saddened to think that friends, peers and members of the community would question our intentions. I will certainly try to improve lines of communication. There is no doubt that we could do better—fortunately everyday presents a new opportunity to do so.”

Steel City Biofuels Executive Director and GTECH board member Nathaniel Doyno had a less deferent response, noting Butcher loaned GTECH $20,000 of his own money to keep it going because the Sprout Fund grant went to contractors from East Liberty.

“This is a slap in the face, especially coming from people we’ve tried to help,” said Doyno. “To insinuate that our intentions aren’t right is stabbing us in the back. And now Mikhail isn’t answering our calls or e-mails.”

(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)