Georgia communities receive $13.5M to clean up contaminated sites
Federal officials announced $13.5 million in cleanup grants for Georgia communities to turn contaminated properties into something usable again, the Environmental Protection Agency announced.
A “brownfield” is property where past industrial or commercial use left behind contaminants that complicate redevelopment. Some of that funding could land in the broader Middle Georgia region.
“(The Environmental Protection Agency) is focused on delivering practical results that transform contaminated properties into clean, valuable spaces that spark economic growth and that directly benefit American families,” Thomas Croci, acting assistant administrator for land and emergency management, said in a June 24 news release. “Addressing environmental contamination and reusing brownfield properties revitalizes neighborhoods, drives local job creation, and unleashes new economic opportunities.”
The River Valley Regional Commission, a planning agency that covers a swath of southwest and south-central Georgia, including Macon, Taylor and Dooly counties, received $1.5 million to assess and develop cleanup plans for contaminated properties across its territory.
The money can go toward any county in their region, except for Muscogee, according to Tracie Hadaway, the commission’s planning and government services director. The Henderson School Alumni Association Trust in Jackson, about 45 minutes north of Macon, received nearly $500,000 to clean up a historic school building.
Social Circle received $4 million to clean up a former cotton mill.
Augusta’s economic development authority received $1.5 million to conduct 31 Phase I and 22 Phase II environmental site assessments.
Wednesday’s grants reached other communities across the state, like DeKalb County and the cities of Chickamauga and Rome.
Macon’s connections to brownfields
Macon-Bibb is an example of what an EPA brownfield grant can produce.
A $400,000 EPA brownfield grant in 2015 helped pay for environmental assessments across Macon’s Downtown Industrial District, including a site on Riverside Drive where Mercer University plans to build its new medical school.
The land along Riverside Drive sat empty for decades because a manufactured gas plant once operated there in the early 1900s, leaving behind lead, arsenic and other contaminants, qualifying it as a brownfield.
Before anyone could build on it, Macon-Bibb had to clean it up, which required excavating contaminated soil, manually extracting petroleum from groundwater and waiting for natural processes to break down what remained.
“These brownfield grants represent opportunities to reimagine contaminated properties as assets that meet the needs of communities,” said EPA Region 4 Administrator Kevin McOmber. “When you take a blighted property, clean it up, and bring the community together to figure out how the property should be redeveloped, you can generate a lot of excitement.”
There’s no shortage of properties in Bibb County still waiting for that moment. At least 11 properties in Bibb County have been enrolled in Georgia’s brownfield program, meaning the state has confirmed they qualify for the program, according to Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s Brownfield Public Listing.
Since EPA’s brownfield program launched in 1995, the agency has handed out more than $3 billion nationally. That investment has helped leverage more than $45 billion in broader cleanup and redevelopment spending over the years.
