The City of Plymouth, teamed with the Town of Bourbon and Marshall County (Plymouth Coalition), have been awarded a grant in the amount of $600,000 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (U.S. EPA) Brownfield Program. The grant will provide funding to complete environmental assessments of numerous brownfield properties throughout the Coalition area.
To kick-off the Brownfields Assessment Grant Program, the Coalition will host a public meeting on January 15th at 7:00 pm in the Commissioners’ Room of the Marshall County Building, 112 West Jefferson Street in Plymouth, to introduce and explain the benefits of the program. In addition, the public will have the opportunity to be actively involved in the process by providing input on various topics, such as ideas for potential Brownfield properties, what redevelopment criteria are important for local developers, and which properties are most appropriate for redevelopment in the Coalition.
The grant is part of the $67 million in the highly competitive grants that were awarded nationally (only eight Indiana communities received an assessment grant this year). The purpose of the program is to assess public and private Brownfield properties within the Coalition area. These funds will give communities and businesses a chance to return economic stability to under-served and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods through the assessment and clean-up of abandoned industrial and commercial properties.
“Brownfields” are abandoned, idle, or underused properties where expansion or redevelopment is hindered by known or perceived environmental contamination. Examples are abandoned gas stations, industrial plants, former dry cleaners, and other abandoned industrial or commercial properties.
The U.S. EPA Brownfields Program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 Brownfields sites; targeting local, underserved and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods – places where environmental cleanups and new jobs are most needed. Successful stories of Brownfields redevelopment can be found all around the country, transforming abandoned or underutilized sites into office space, shopping centers, parks, residential, and other uses that provide employment opportunities and benefit the overall community. It is expected that the work funded by the grant will begin this spring and will continue for three years. The Brownfields Assessment Program is the first step towards redevelopment of brownfield properties. Please join us on January 15th to assist in this effort.
For information on the EPA Brownfields Program please visit: http://epa.gov/brownfields
