New York, N.Y. – September 24, 2015 – (RealEstateRama) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is providing $400,000 to the City of New York to supplement the city’s program to clean up contaminated Brownfields properties throughout the city. This grant, which will be added to New York City’s Revolving Loan Fund, will help fund hazardous substance cleanups in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, creating jobs while protecting public health and the environment.
“This EPA funding will support New York City’s work to protect public health and the environment by cleaning up contaminated properties in some of the City’s poorest communities,” said EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck.
The $400,000 in funding provided by the EPA will allow the New York City Office of Environmental Remediation to address cleanup needs, such as community facilities, affordable housing, and open space, with special consideration to be given to projects in distressed areas impacted by Superstorm Sandy. Many neighborhoods impacted by Sandy continue to struggle to rebuild and develop beneficial reuses on their brownfield sites.
Brownfields revolving loan funds provide funding for loans and grants to carry out cleanup activities at brownfield sites. When these loans are repaid, the loan amount is then returned to the fund and re-loaned to other borrowers, providing an ongoing source of capital within a community for additional cleanup of brownfield sites.
There are an estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated sites in the United States. The EPA’s Brownfields program targets these sites to encourage redevelopment, and help to provide the opportunity for productive community use of contaminated properties. Since the inception of the EPA’s Brownfields Program in 1995, cumulative brownfield program investments have leveraged more than $23.3 billion from a variety of public and private sources for cleanup and redevelopment activities. This equates to an average of $17.79 leveraged per EPA brownfield dollar expended. These investments have resulted in approximately 109,787 jobs nationwide.
Additional information on EPA Brownfields activities is available at http://epa.gov/brownfields.
Contact Information: John Martin, (212) 637-3662, martin.johnj (at) epa (dot) gov
