The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced a $270.5 million investment across two programs in local communities to clean up polluted brownfield sites.
The first program distributing funding is the Brownfields Multipurpose, Assessment and Cleanup (MAC) initiative. With a total allocation of $248 million, the program will provide financial aid to help 190 communities streamline the cleanup process for severely polluted areas.
The EPA delivered an additional $22.5 million in extra funding to 31 high-performing Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) grantees. These grants will provide continual support for cleanup activities and redevelopment efforts at brownfields sites.
A selection of the recipients receiving the largest sums through the brownfield recovery programs include the following:
The Ounalashka Corporation in Alaska will receive $6 million to conduct nearly two dozen environmental site assessments and clean up a landfill. As part of its assessment efforts, the corporation will develop a reuse plan for two sites, implement planning activities, assign annual meetings and conduct community engagement. Located across five target areas, priority sites for assessment include:
- An electrical warehouse.
- Two munitions storage bunkers.
- A historic military dumping ground.
- A former maintenance building.
- An officers’ recreation hall.
- A powerhouse.
- An artillery battery.
- Areas containing underground storage tanks and pipelines.
The corporation will focus cleanup efforts entirely on the 25-acre Blueberry Loop Landfill No. 3 on Amaknak Island. The project will address landfill debris following the demolition of former World War II structures, including the disposal of ashes from burned buildings, wood, metal and concrete.
The port of Whitman County, Washington, will spend $5.5 million to develop five cleanup plans, five reuse plans and conduct 14 environmental site assessments. Priority sites for assessments include:
- The Old Nesqually in Malden.
- The former Union Pacific Railroad House in Tekoa.
- The City Maintenance and Machine Shop in Palouse.
- A former hospital in Colfax.
Cleanup efforts will center around the former Roger Brothers Seed Company Brownfield Site in Colfax. The area has been significantly polluted by past storage operations between the 1990s and 2025. During that period, the site stored cars, motorboats and hospital beds among other miscellaneous items. The area is currently contaminated with pesticides, petroleum and heavy metals.
The city of Utica, New York, will receive $4.4 million to conduct 10 environmental site assessments and inventory and prioritize sites. In addition to developing four cleanup plans, the city will prioritize its assessments across 14 acres of abandoned and underutilized industrial facilities, a former aerospace manufacturing facility and two vacant sites.
The city will use a majority of the funds to clean up the 5.3-acre Mele Manufacturing site. Before it was abandoned, the site hosted several manufacturing operations that produced knitting goods, jewelry boxes, plastic flooring and coal storage. The area is currently contaminated with volatile organic compounds, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and metal contaminants.
The Bourbon County Fiscal Court in Kentucky will spend $4 million cleaning up the Revive Riverside Park Project in Paris. Located on 20.6 acres, the area was converted from a city park into a municipal incinerator and solid waste transfer station in the 1960s. Since then, the site has become contaminated with metals, PCBs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, petroleum hydrocarbons and ash residue.
Photo by David McElwee from Pexels
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