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Vermont Receives $800,000 from EPA to Clean Brownfields

Release Date: 08/18/2010
Contact Information: EPA - David Deegan, (617) 918-1017 State of Vermont - David M. Coriell, (802) 828-3333

(Boston, Mass. - Aug. 18, 2010) – Two Vermont organizations will share $800,000 from EPA to help clean contaminated sites known as brownfields. This funding is part of more than $16 million for brownfields allotted nationally and $3 million allotted in New England by EPA.

The recipients of the EPA funding are the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development and the Southern Windsor County Regional Planning Commission. Each group receives a grant of $400,000.

“Brownfields funding from EPA is helping to boost local economies, and helping keep and create good paying jobs. With this additional money, more Vermont sites will get the cleanup attention they need to be returned to productive uses within communities,“ said Curt Spalding, regional administrator for EPA New England in announcing the grant this week.

“These funds will help us continue with the re-development of sites like this all over the state,” Vermont Governor Jim Douglas said. “Turning these brownfields into clean, safe spaces for re-development will help communities from St. Albans to Springfield revitalize their economies.”

Vermont is receiving two of 27 grants announced nationally, eight of which are for projects in New England. This money was provided as supplemental funding for revolving loan fund grants already given to these communities.  The EPA funding is targeted to help with cleanup activities and redevelopment projects, and to help create jobs for people living near brownfields sites. These grants will help revitalize former industrial and commercial sites, turning them from problem properties to productive community use.

Brownfields are sites where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant.

The six other grants given in New England include two in Connecticut (totaling $600,000), three in Massachusetts (totaling $1.2 Million) and one in Maine ($400,000).

Since EPA’s brownfields program began, EPA has provided 50 loans and 41 grants in New England totaling more than $24 million for brownfields cleanup. The loan funds have paved the way for more than $164 million in public and private cleanup and redevelopment investment and for 925 jobs in cleanup, construction and redevelopment.

The national brownfields program encourages redevelopment of the country’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites.

More information:

- FY 2010 Brownfields grant recipients (www.epa.gov/brownfields/pilot_grants.htm)
- EPA New England EPA’s brownfields program (www.epa.gov/region1/brownfields/success.html)
- Brownfields success stories (www.epa.gov/brownfields/success/index.htm)

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