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$200,000 in Recovery Act funding for Kit Carson cleanup project

Release Date: 05/08/2009
Contact Information: EPA: Dan Heffernan 303 312-7074; Richard Mylott 303 312-6654; Kit Carson Rural Development: 719 962-3578

Paxson Building site focus of redevelopment

(Denver, Colo. – May 8, 2009) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced today the availability of a $200,000 grant to the Town of Kit Carson to clean up contamination at the Paxson Building site on the southwest corner of Highway 40/287 and Church Street. The grant is being awarded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act).

“Today's announcement is an investment in Kit Carson’s future," said Carol Rushin, Acting Regional Administrator for EPA Region 8. "This grant will help reclaim the Paxson site and catalyze the redevelopment of the town’s commercial district.”

EPA selected Kit Carson Rural Development for a brownfields grant that will be used to clean up contamination and prepare the Paxson site for reuse. The now vacant site was once home to an automobile dealership and repair shop, fuel station and café. Grant funds will be used to remove and dispose of contaminants at the site, including asbestos. Kit Carson has at least four known brownfield sites along the main highway that runs through town. The Paxson Building site is the largest, most visible of these sites, which pose potential threats to human health and are an obstacle to redevelopment.

EPA brownfields grants help assess, cleanup and redevelop abandoned, contaminated properties known as brownfields. Brownfields are sites where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. In addition, the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act of 2002 expanded the definition of a brownfield to include mine-scarred lands or sites contaminated by petroleum or the manufacture of illegal drugs. Grant recipients are selected through a national competition. The Brownfields program encourages development of America's estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites.

President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on February 17 and has directed that the Recovery Act be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability. To that end, the American people can see how every dollar is being invested at http://www.Recovery.gov.

More information on brownfields cleanup revolving loan fund pilots and grants and other brownfields activities under the Recovery Act: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/eparecovery/index.htm.

For more information about EPA Brownfields efforts in Region 8, visit: https://www.epa.gov/region8/land_waste/bfhome/bfhome.html