EPA awards Oklahoma City additional $250,000 in brownfields funding

The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded an additional $250,000 to Oklahoma City to help cleanup area brownfields. Oklahoma City was previously awarded a $2 million revolving loan fund grant to restore brownfields in the Oklahoma City Empowerment Zone.

Approximately $2.2 million in supplemental grants is being given by EPA to brownfields revolving loan fund grantees nationwide to help return problem properties to productive use.

“Through our brownfields program, EPA continues to sow the seeds of environmental and economic success,” said EPA Regional Administrator Richard E. Greene. “These grants build on EPA’s commitment to working with communities to hand down a healthier, more prosperous future to the next generation.”

Brownfields are sites where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. 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 the beginning of the program in 1995, EPA Region 6 has provided more than $6 million for Oklahoma brownfields projects, including: * $2.7 million for assessments, * $3 million for revolving loan funds, * $200,000 for cleanups, and * Approximately $400,000 for job training.

The brownfields program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites. Nationally, brownfields assistance has leveraged more than $9.8 billion in cleanup and redevelopment, helped create more than 43,900 jobs and resulted in the assessment of more than 11,500 properties and the cleanup of 180 properties. EPA Region 6 accounts for 25 percent, or $2 billion, of the funding leveraged across the nation.