Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $2,500,000 from President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda to expedite the assessment and cleanup of brownfield sites in Florida while advancing environmental justice.
EPA selected three communities in Florida to receive grants totaling more than $2,500,000 in competitive EPA Brownfields funding through the Multipurpose, Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup (MARC) Grant programs. Thanks to the historic boost from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this is the largest ever funding awarded in the history of the EPA’s Brownfields MARC Grant programs.
These investments are part of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda to grow the American economy from the bottom up and middle-out – from rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, to driving over $470 billion in private sector manufacturing and clean energy investments in the United States, to creating a manufacturing and innovation boom powered by good paying jobs that don’t require a four-year degree, to building a clean-energy economy that will combat climate change and make our communities more resilient.
“We’re working across the country to revitalize what were once dangerous and polluted sites in overburdened communities into more sustainable and environmentally just places that serve as community assets. Thanks to President Biden’s historic investments in America, we’re moving further and faster than ever before to clean up contaminated sites, spur economic redevelopment, and deliver relief that so many communities have been waiting for,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “This critical wave of investments is the largest in Brownfields history and will accelerate our work to protect the people and the planet by transforming what was once blight into might.”
"This historic investment of more than $35 million for communities across the Southeast will help address suspected contamination of urban and suburban properties that dates back to the Industrial Revolution," said EPA Region 4 Administrator Daniel Blackman. "Brownfields and other contaminated properties often are located in environmental justice communities where residents are disproportionately impacted, thus making these awards especially critical."
“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law continues to deliver for Florida, revitalizing our economy and addressing the environmental injustices that have long plagued our state,” said U.S. Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. “This funding from the Biden-Harris Administration is a critical tool for promoting sustainable, long-term economic growth in Palm Beach County.”
“From the crystal blue waters of our beaches to the everglade’s expansive wetland, South Florida hosts world-class landscapes. But maintaining these natural environments doesn’t come without work, and it’s essential we fight to preserve our unique ecology,” said U.S. Representative Frederica Wilson (FL-24). “The EPA’s $2.5 million cleanup investment in Miami’s brownfields communities is a testament to the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to advancing environmental justice. These resources will play a pivotal role in ensuring that South Florida remains a vibrant paradise.”
Many communities that are under economic stress, particularly those located in areas that have experienced long periods of disinvestment, lack the resources needed to initiate brownfield cleanup and redevelopment projects. As brownfield sites are transformed into community assets, they attract jobs, promote economic revitalization and transform communities into sustainable and environmentally just places.
Thanks to the historic $1.5 billion boost from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, EPA’s Brownfields Program is helping more communities than ever before begin to address the economic, social, and environmental challenges caused by brownfields and stimulate economic opportunity, and environmental revitalization in historically overburdened communities.
EPA’s Brownfields Program also advances President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative to direct 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments to disadvantaged communities. The Brownfields Program strives to meet this commitment and advance environmental justice and equity considerations into all aspects of its work. Approximately 84 percent of the MARC program applications selected to receive funding proposed to work in areas that include historically underserved communities.
Funding Breakdown:
The following organizations in Florida have been selected to receive EPA Brownfields funding through the Multipurpose, Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup (MARC) Grant Programs:
The 79th Street Corridor Neighborhood Initiative, Inc. has been selected for a $500,000 Brownfields Assessment Grant. Community-wide grant funds will be used to conduct eight Phase I and seven Phase II environmental site assessments. Grant funds also will be used to prepare five cleanup plans and to conduct community engagement activities including the creation of a Community Involvement Plan. The target area for this grant is the three-square-mile 79th Street Corridor in the City of Miami. Priority sites include a 4.3-acre site recently used for vehicle storage and maintenance, a 1.6-acre vacant assemblage of three sites that formerly held a flower distribution center and a car body paint facility, and a 4.47-acre former industrial site.
Palm Beach County has been selected for a $500,000 Brownfields Assessment Grant. Community-wide grant funds will be used to conduct seven Phase I and five Phase II environmental site assessments. Grant funds also will be used to prepare six cleanup plans and to conduct community engagement activities including the development of a Community Involvement Plan. The target area for this grant is the historic and industrial corridor between the Florida East Coast and the Chessie Seaboard Railways. Priority sites include four vacant, abandoned lots on Riviera Beach, the 46-acre former Mangonia Park site, and a 9.9-acre property that includes dilapidated industrial space from the 1930s and a former dry cleaner.
The South Florida Regional Planning Council has been selected for a $500,000 Brownfields Assessment Grant. Community-wide grant funds will be used to conduct eight Phase I and six Phase II environmental site assessments. Grant funds also will be used to develop a site inventory, prepare seven cleanup plans and five reuse plans, and conduct community outreach activities. The target area for this grant is the City of Homestead’s southwest neighborhood, which was developed in the 1930s to serve African American agricultural workers, but went into decline when passenger rail service ceased along the FEC Railway in the 1960s. Priority sites include the 3-acre Triangle property, which is the gateway to the southwest neighborhood, a 0.9-acre former storage yard for railroad ties, and a 4.2-acre former residential community that was leveled by Hurricane Andrew.
The South Florida Regional Planning Council has also been selected for a $1,000,000 Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) Grant that will be funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The grant will be used to capitalize a revolving loan fund from which the South Florida Regional Planning Council will provide at least three loans and one subgrant to support cleanup activities. Grant funds also will be used to market the RLF program and conduct community engagement activities. RLF activities will focus on central Miami, an area that was physically separated from the predominantly white area east of 12th Avenue until 1985 by an 8-foot-high concrete wall stretching for six blocks and was nearly destroyed by a fire after riots broke out in 1979. Priority sites include the 2-acre former Orkin Site, the 20-acre Poinciana Industrial Center assemblage property, and the 4.3-acre Northside Transit-Oriented Development property.
You can read more about this year’s RLF recipients, here.
Additional Background:
EPA has selected these organizations to receive funding to address and support the reuse of brownfield sites. EPA anticipates making all the awards announced today once all legal and administrative requirements are satisfied.
EPA’s Brownfields Program began in 1995 and has provided nearly $2.37 billion in Brownfield Grants to assess and clean up contaminated properties and return blighted properties to productive reuse. EPA’s investments in addressing brownfield sites have leveraged more than $36 billion in cleanup and redevelopment. Over the years, the relatively small investment of federal funding has leveraged, from both public and private sources, nearly 260,000 jobs. Communities that previously received Brownfields Grants used these resources to fund assessments and cleanups of brownfields, and successfully leverage an average of 10.6 jobs per $100,000 of EPA Brownfield Grant funds spent and $19.78 for every dollar.
The next National Brownfields Training Conference will be held on August 8-11, 2023, in Detroit, Michigan. 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 on Brownfields Grants: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/types-brownfields-grant-funding
For more on EPA’s Brownfields Program: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields
Original source can be found here.