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City of Aurora secures $350K to revitalize properties

Release Date: 06/12/2008
Contact Information: Ted Lanzano 303 312-6596 Dan Heffernan 303 312-7074

EPA grant to strengthen City's Brownfields loan program

(Denver, Colo. - June 12, 2008) The City of Aurora will receive $350,000 to advance efforts to clean up and revitalize contaminated properties, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today. The supplemental EPA Brownfields grant will capitalize the City's Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund, a resource that provides low-interest loans and subgrants for environmental cleanup activities and encourages public and private redevelopment projects.

"This is a big investment in the vitality of Aurora," said Ted Lanzano, of EPA's Brownfields program in Denver. "Over the past several years, the City has made a strategic commitment to revitalizing properties that have fallen into disuse. These funds will strengthen that commitment by helping the City continue to invest in targeted environmental cleanup activities."

EPA initially awarded the City a $500,000 Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund grant in 2000, which the City has used to leverage progress at several sites in Aurora, including the redevelopment of a former landfill at the Idalia Court site. The site is slated for redevelopment as affordable housing units and the expansion of a neighborhood park and recreational trails. Today's announcement will supplement the City's loan program, allowing for the pursuit of cleanup and revitalization goals within the Fitzsimons Urban Renewal Area surrounding the old Fitzsimons Army base.

Aurora is one of sixteen state or local governments receiving supplemental grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help return problem properties to productive use. More than $6.3 million is being awarded to brownfields cleanup revolving loan funds grantees. 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 January 2002, President Bush signed the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act, which authorizes annual funding for brownfields grants. EPA's brownfields program provides funding to state, local and tribal governments to make low interest loans and subgrants that fund cleanup activities at brownfields sites. Since 1997, grant recipients have executed 135 loans and awarded 26 subgrants to support brownfields cleanup totaling more than $68 million. The loan funds have leveraged more than $1.7 billion in public and private cleanup and redevelopment investment.

More information on brownfields cleanup revolving loan fund pilots and grants: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/rlflst.htm

General information on EPA's Brownfields program: https://www.epa.gov/region8/land_waste/bfhome/bfhome.html