EPA Announces $16 M In Brownfields Funds To Clean Up Communities

Washington, DC - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced more than $16 M in supplemental funding for cleanup efforts at contaminated sites known as brownfields. Communities representing 27 state or local governments were chosen to receive the supplemental funding, which will help them carry out cleanup activities, redevelopment projects, and create jobs for people living near brownfields sites. Brownfields are sites where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.

"By investing in clean-up and redevelopment projects, this funding will jumpstart local economies, foster growth, and create new jobs in communities where they're needed most," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said. "Brownfields projects like these help show that the right thing to do for our health and our environment is also the right thing to do for our economy."

Some of the potential projects that will use these cleanup funds include:

• A mill redevelopment project in North Dam Mill, Biddeford, Maine that will provide both housing and economic development opportunities to revitalize a downtown area and create open space to be used by the community.
• Cleanup of the former Swift Factory in Hartford, Conn. that will be converted into a green business co-location center to provide below-market rent to artisan businesses and companies creating green products.
• The three-acre former PR Mallory Building site in Indianapolis, Ind., that will become part of a corporate campus, which will include a regional office and operations headquarters for two companies.
• Redevelopment of more than 38 acres of a former manufacturing plant as an industrial park in the towns of Dixmoor and Harvey, Ill.

The brownfields program encourages redevelopment of America's estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites. Since the beginning of the brownfields program, revolving loan fund grants recipients have executed 172 loans and awarded 57 subgrants to support brownfields cleanup totaling more than $96 M. The loan funds have facilitated more than $2.5 B in public and private cleanup and redevelopment investment and enabled the support of 6,493 jobs in cleanup, construction and redevelopment.

SOURCE: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency