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EPA Joins Senators Lauternberg, Torecelli and Representative Menendez and Mayor Bollwage in Elizabeth for Brownfields Award

Release Date: 11/10/1997
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(#97152) NEW YORK, N.Y. -- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials, including Deputy Administrator Fred Hansen and Regional Administrator Jeanne M. Fox, joined Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Torecelli and Representative Robert Menendez and state officials today to present Mayor Chris Bollwage and the City of Elizabeth a $200,000 check under EPA's national Brownfields Pilot Program. The goal of the Brownfields Pilot Program is the renewal of industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination. The money is being used for site assessments and assessment related activities.

Mr. Fred Hanson presented the grant check at a potential site for the City's Brownfields pilot project.

"The Brownfields program represents an opportunity to return dormant lands to productivity, said Mr. Caspe. To make them clean, job-creating, profit-producing assets once more. And the opportunity to restore hope to the neighborhoods that host these sites.

Control of these projects rests at the community level. Local officials, bankers, developers and community representatives define the problems and design the solutions. EPAs role is to support and facilitate this process and to act as a catalyst for change.

EPA has approximately $85 million in this years budget to expand the program by 100 new Brownfields site assessment pilot projects over the next two years. Several hundred municipalities applied for Brownfields grants in 1996 and 1997. There are more than 125 municipalities now participating in the National Brownfields Pilot Program, including five cities in New Jersey, in addition to Elizabeth -- Camden, Newark, Perth Amboy, Trenton and Jersey City.

The findings and experience from the Eizabeth project and other pilots will help guide EPA's future efforts to stimulate economic redevelopment through environmental cleanup.