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EPA Provides $1.5 Million to Clean Up and Revitalize Contaminated Properties Across New York State

Release Date: 07/15/2013
Contact Information: John Martin, (212) 637-3662, [email protected]

(New York, N.Y.) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is providing a total of $1,465,000 to Nassau and Niagara counties and the city of Ogdensburg to clean up abandoned and contaminated properties. The funding is being awarded under the EPA’s brownfields program, which helps communities assess, clean up, redevelop and reuse properties at which moderate contamination threatens environmental quality and public health and can interfere with redevelopment.

“Cleaning up brownfields sites protects people’s health and the environment and helps create jobs in communities where they are needed most,” said EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck. “Brownfields cleanups and the reuse of formerly contaminated properties improve the lives of those who live and work in these communities.”

Revolving loan funds supply funding for grant recipients to provide loans and sub-grants to carry out cleanup activities at brownfield sites. When these loans are repaid, the loan amounts are then returned into the fund and re-loaned to other borrowers. This provides an ongoing source of capital within a community as the funds are redistributed to other high performing grantees.

Nassau County will receive $815,000 to complete the cleanup of the Doxey site in Glen Cove, New York. The Doxey site is the final brownfield site in Glen Cove’s Waterfront Redevelopment Area to be cleaned, and is a crucial part of the city’s plans for redevelopment. The Waterfront Redevelopment Area will include a hotel, conference center, residential units, retail shops, restaurants and parks along Glen Cove Creek. This brownfields redevelopment will create jobs, clean up contamination, provide housing and recreational opportunities and increase tax revenues. It is anticipated that the completion of the Waterfront Redevelopment Area project will create 7000 temporary construction jobs and 750 direct permanent jobs.

Niagara County will receive $350,000 for the cleanup of the 600 River Road site on the Niagara River in North Tonawanda, New York. The 5.95-acre property, which was home to Niagara Iron Works/Tonawanda Iron Works until 1972 and then home to a marine construction company until 2008, was recently purchased by a private developer. The developed site will contain three apartment buildings and accompanying town homes, for a total of over 100 apartments, in addition to commercial space.

The EPA will award $300,000 to Ogdensburg, New York to clean up the former Augsbury Tank Farm site. This site, which once contained a major oil storage facility, consists of 23 acres of prime, vacant real estate situated on the shoreline of the St. Lawrence River. The redeveloped property will be used for a mixed use development consisting of 192 residential units, five to eight thousand square feet of commercial space combined with waterfront park space. The redevelopment of the property could create up to 100 construction jobs and 30-50 full-time jobs.

There are an estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated sites in the United States. The EPA’s Brownfields Program targets these sites to encourage redevelopment, and help to provide the opportunity for productive community use of contaminated properties. The EPA’s brownfields investments overall have leveraged more than $20 billion in cleanup and redevelopment funding from public and private sources and on average, $17.79 is leveraged for every EPA Brownfields grant dollar spent. The funds have enabled the support of 90,000 jobs in cleanup, construction and redevelopment.

Information on grant recipients can be found at: http://epa.gov/brownfields.

Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://twitter.com/eparegion2 and Facebook at http://facebook.com/eparegion2.

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