US EPA announces brownfield grant recipients

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) has announced the selection of 155 grants as approved for communities and tribes through the agency’s Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup Grant Programs. The grants total more than $65 million in EPA brownfields funding, says the agency.

“Grants awarded by EPA’s Brownfield Program provide communities and tribes across the country with an opportunity to transform contaminated sites into community assets,” says EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.”

The EPA describes a brownfield site as “a property for which the expansion, redevelopment or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant.”

Communities that receive brownfields grants can use them to fund assessments and cleanups of brownfields and prepare the land for redevelopment and a return to local property tax rolls.

Many 2020 recipients received $300,000 grants, with a handful of projects or properties receiving larger amounts, including:

• Crescent Mills, California: $500,000 for cleanup of former Crescent Mills LP former sawmill site;
• Los Angeles: $500,000 for cleanup of Paseo del Rio Taylor Yard former rail yard area;
• Chicago: $500,000 for cleanup of 1807-1815 North Kimball Ave. site;
• Peoria, Illinois: $500,000 for cleanup of former Tabor property;
• Camden, New Jersey: $500,000 for cleanup of former Borden Chemical site;
• Monticello, New York: $500,000 for cleanup of former Monticello Manor adult care home;
• Salisbury, North Carolina: $500,000 for cleanup of former Kesler Mill/Fieldcrest Cannon Plant #7 textile industry site;
• Belcourt, North Dakota: $500,000 for cleanup of Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians housing site;
• Defiance, Ohio: $475,000 for cleanup of former SK Hand Tool property;
• Curwensville, Pennsylvania: $500,000 for cleanup of former Howes Leather site;
• Brillion, Wisconsin: $500,000 for cleanup of former Brillion Iron Works property;
• Hinton, West Virginia: $442,320 for cleanup of former Hinton Ice House property; and
• Morgantown, West Virginia:  $500,000 for cleanup of Smokestacks former coal-fired power plant property.

The full list of U.S. EPA fiscal year 2020 grant applicants selected for funding can be found on this web page.