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U.S. EPA SELECTS SOUTHERN CA CITIES AS BROWNFIELDS PROJECTS

Release Date: 7/15/1998
Contact Information: Lois Grunwald, U.S. EPA, (415) 744-1588

     (San Francisco) -- Vice President Al Gore and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) today announced that the cities of Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Long Beach, and Montebello have been selected as pilot projects for redevelopment of former industrial and commercial sites known as brownfields. The cities are four of 71 cities, states, towns, counties and tribes nationwide that were selected today as brownfields pilot projects.

     "There is no greater example of the environment and the economy working hand in hand to benefit the American people than the Administration's efforts to clean up and revitalize Brownfields," said Vice President Al Gore. "Across the nation, cities are coming back to life with new jobs, new opportunities, and new hope."
               
     Brownfields are abandoned or under-used industrial or commercial areas where redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination. Property owners, lenders, investors and developers fear that involvement with these sites will make them liable for contamination they did not create.

     "Cleaning up and reusing these sites can be a key to a community's future," said Felicia Marcus, U.S. EPA's regional administrator. "These areas have the tremendous potential of becoming  strong, vital neighborhoods with a strong economic base."

      The cities will each receive a $200,000 grant over a two-year period with the exception of Los Angeles, which is an EPA Brownfields Showcase Community that is already receiving federal funding. Long Beach plans to reuse former industrial properties to build a major sports park for Long Beach and adjacent Signal Hill residents. West Hollywood will focus on its Eastside Redevelopment Project area. Montebello will work with property owners to redevelop an area that overlies a closed landfill. As part of its plans as a Brownfields Showcase Community, Los Angeles will redevelop thousands of vacant parcels and abandoned facilities along commercial and industrial corridors.

     Other western region brownfields pilots that were selected today include the California Trade and Commerce Agency, which will work with the state and local communities to reuse six abandoned wood products mill sites in northern and central California, Alameda County, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, and the Ely Shoshone Tribe in Nevada. In Region 9, U.S. EPA currently has existing brownfields pilot projects in Sacramento, Stockton, East Palo Alto, Emeryville, Richmond, San Francisco, Oakland, Navajo Nation in New Mexico, Tucson, Tohono O'odham Nation, Phoenix, Santa Barbara, Pomona, Colton, San Diego, and Las Vegas. With the new projects, there are now 228 brownfields pilot projects nationwide.

     The brownfields initiative was launched to empower states, local governments, and other stakeholders in economic redevelopment to work together to assess, clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields properties. The initiative also addresses the concerns of prospective developers and lenders concerned about inheriting cleanup liability for property that is contaminated or perceived to be contaminated.

     Information on the new brownfields pilot projects can be obtained from the U.S. EPA's
brownfields home page on the Internet at: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/pilot.htm.

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