Agency announces $65M in brownfields grants

摘要

EPA has announced more than $65 million in funding to communities across the U.S. to assess and clean up brownfield sites. The grants "provide communities and tribes across the country with an opportunity to transform contaminated sites into community assets," Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a news release. In Vermont, two contaminated properties will be cleaned up with the help of $800,000 in brownfields grants. A $500,000 award will go to the Green Mountain Economic Development Corp. to help clean up the Valley Motor Sales site in Bethel. The site originally opened in 1929 as a gas station, and between 1933 and 2018 it operated as automobile dealership under two different owners. The site is contaminated with PCBs and petroleum. The other $300,000 will go to the Southern Windsor County Regional Planning Commission to conduct environmental site assessments, develop cleanup plans, and support reuse planning and community outreach activities for various sites, focusing on Springfield. "Today's investment of EPA Brownfields assessment and cleanup funding provides a much-needed boost for economic development and job creation in many of New England's hardest hit and underserved communities," said EPA Region 1 Administrator Dennis Deziel. "Brownfields projects are always an economic catalyst, and this funding has never been more important to our local partners."