Representing Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Nine Tribal Nations

LENEXA, KANSAS (May 7, 2020) — The city of Waterloo, Iowa, was selected to receive a $300,000 Brownfields Assessment Grant by the US Environmental Protection Agency to conduct environmental site-assessments, planning, and community-outreach activities in the city. Under President Trump’s Administration, EPA has delivered approximately $287 million in Brownfield grants directly to communities and nonprofits for clean-up and redevelopment, job creation, and economic development through the award of over 948 grants.

Nationwide, this year, the agency is announcing the selection of 155 grants for communities and tribes totaling over $65.6 million in EPA brownfields funding the Agency’s Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup Grant Programs. These funds will aid under-served and economically-disadvantaged communities, including neighborhoods located in Opportunity Zones, in assessing and cleaning up abandoned industrial and commercial properties.

“We are pleased to recognize the city of Waterloo and look forward to the opportunities this EPA Brownfields Grant will provide to the community,” said EPA Region 7 Administrator Jim Gulliford. “Brownfield assessment, clean-up, and revitalization helps communities put underutilized properties back to good use. Reclaiming these sites benefits the community and its residents, our economy, and our environment.”

City officials plan to use the $300,000 grant to conduct 19 Phase I and up to four Phase II environmental site assessments, focusing on blighted and vacant properties in the city’s Urban Core and Broad Street Corridor. They will also use the funds to support reuse planning and community outreach activities. Priority sites include a former bulk oil paint and welding shop, recently-acquired Tech Works lots, former railyard, and former River Road area, part of a Qualified Opportunity Zone.

"This is excellent news. I am pleased that our partnership with the EPA for the redevelopment of infill and brownfield sites in Waterloo continues,” says Waterloo Mayor Quintin Hart. "We have seen great success working with the EPA and DNR on brownfield programs. It has helped us to educate the public that all brownfield sites do not have contaminants. Now we are able to attract new small business development and new investment by private businesses. These funds will help strengthen our community from within, bringing new life to existing business districts and older industrial sites. We look forward to this next wave of transformative projects."

Nearly 30% of the communities announced nationwide today will receive brownfields funding for the first time. Of the 151 communities selected, 118 can potentially assess or clean up brownfield sites in census tracts designated in Opportunity Zones.

Grants awarded by EPA’s Brownfields Program provide communities across the country with an opportunity to transform contaminated sites into community assets that attract jobs and achieve broader economic development outcomes, while taking advantage of existing infrastructure. For example, brownfields grants are shown to:

  • Increase Local Tax Revenue: A study of 48 brownfields sites found that an estimated $29 million to $97 million in additional local tax revenue was generated in a single year after cleanup. This is two to seven times more than the $12.4 million EPA contributed to the cleanup of these sites.

  • Increase Residential Property Values: Another study found that property values of homes near revitalized brownfields sites increased between 5 and 15% following cleanup.

List of the FY 2020 Applicants Selected for Funding: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/applicants-selected-fy-2020-brownfields-assessment-revolving-loan-fund-and-cleanup-0

Background

A brownfield is a property for which the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. There are estimated to be more than 450,000 brownfields in the United States. EPA’s Brownfields Program began in 1995 and has provided nearly $1.6 billion in brownfield grants to assess and clean up contaminated properties and return blighted properties to productive reuse. To date, brownfields investments have leveraged more than $31 billion in cleanup and redevelopment. Over the years, the relatively small investment of federal funding leveraged, from both public and private sources, more than 160,000 jobs.

The Brownfields Program has supported many successful projects in EPA Region 7’s four states (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska). The Steeple Square complex includes a community center, supportive housing, and child center developed after Brownfield assessments on the former historic St Mary’s Parish campus buildings through a grant to the city of Dubuque, Iowa. Brownfield funding for the Jordan Valley West Meadows Project is transforming what was once an abandoned railyard vulnerable to flooding into an urban greenway in the heart of Springfield, Missouri. The West Haymarket area of Lincoln, Nebraska, is a prime example of how a community can use EPA Brownfields assessment and cleanup grants to leverage multiple sources of additional funding, technical assistance, and community support to drive and expand growth. Leavenworth, Kansas, used Brownfield funds to clean up lead paint, asbestos, and soil-contamination to convert an industrial site into apartments as part of a downtown historic revitalization.

The next National Brownfields Training Conference will be held on April 26-30, 2021, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Offered every two years, this conference is the largest gathering of stakeholders focused on cleaning up and reusing former commercial and industrial properties. EPA co-sponsors this event with the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).

For more information on Brownfields grants, visit: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/types-brownfields-grant-funding.

Support the River Cities' Reader

Get 12 Reader issues mailed monthly for $48/year.

Old School Subscription for Your Support

Get the printed Reader edition mailed to you (or anyone you want) first-class for 12 months for $48.
$24 goes to postage and handling, $24 goes to keeping the doors open!

Click this link to Old School Subscribe now.



Help Keep the Reader Alive and Free Since '93!

 

"We're the River Cities' Reader, and we've kept the Quad Cities' only independently owned newspaper alive and free since 1993.

So please help the Reader keep going with your one-time, monthly, or annual support. With your financial support the Reader can continue providing uncensored, non-scripted, and independent journalism alongside the Quad Cities' area's most comprehensive cultural coverage." - Todd McGreevy, Publisher