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U.S. EPA awards $600,000 for Brownfields redevelopment in the Sacramento area

Release Date: 5/10/2005
Contact Information: Mark Merchant, (415) 947-4297

SACRAMENTO – Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded three Sacramento organizations – the Sacramento County Business Environmental Resource Center, the city of west Sacramento and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control – $200,000 each to redevelop Brownfield properties in the area.

Nationally, the EPA awarded 302 grants totaling $75.9 million today as part of the agency’s Brownfields program, which provides funding to clean up and redevelop contaminated properties.

“Funding for brownfields projects will allow communities to revitalize properties that have been sitting idle far too long,” said Wayne Nastri, regional administrator of the EPA’s Pacific Southwest office. “The program yields positive results by bringing new life to the under used properties in many communities.”

The Sacramento County Business Environmental Resource Center will use the funding to target seven areas with vacant or underused commercial and industrial properties containing former auto repair shops, transportation operations, storage yards, gas stations and shopping centers. The Brownfields assessment will stimulate redevelopment of smaller, privately owned parcels through an outreach effort providing one-on-one consultation in areas challenged by declining housing stocks, poverty, unemployment, substance abuse, and crime.

The city of west Sacramento will benefit from two Brownfields grants, with one going directly to the city and the other going to the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control for redevelopment in West Sacramento. The grants will target the Pioneer Bluff and the East-West End of West Capital Avenue areas for redevelopment. These areas contain more 500 parcels that have been used for tank farms, gas stations, petroleum transmission lines and fueling stations for commercial fleets. Assessment and cleanup of these sites will speed the city’s plans to redevelop these areas, adding thousands of housing units, park land and open space as well as commercial, retail and office space, which in turn is expected to create thousands of new jobs and generate millions of dollars in revenue for the city.

“The Brownfields Program puts both property and people back to work,” EPA Administrator Steve Johnson said. “These grants will help communities across America convert eyesores into engines of economic rebirth.”

The Brownfields program promotes redevelopment of America's estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites. Since its inception in 1995, the program has awarded 709 assessment grants totaling over $190 million, 189 revolving loan fund grants worth more than $165 million, and $26.8 million for 150 cleanup grants.

In addition to facilitating industrial and commercial redevelopment, Brownfields projects have converted industrial waterfronts to river-front parks, landfills to golf courses, rail corridors to recreational trails, and gas station sites to housing. The program has led to more than $7 billion in public and private investment in cleanup and redevelopment, helped create more than 31,000 jobs, and resulted in the assessment of more than 5,100 properties.

For more information on the grant recipients, go to: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields