EPA announces $300m funding to clean up US former industrial sites

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $300m in new funding to clean up and redevelop 200 industrial sites across the country.

The EPA has worked with local partners to clean up and redevelop thousands of such brownfields over the past 30 years.

But under a $1.5bn boost from the BIL, the EPA said it had increased spending on the program fourfold.

The EPA estimates there are at least 450,000 brownfields across the country, and that more than 149 million Americans live within three miles of one of these sites.

The EPA defines a brownfield as any site with documented or suspected environmental contamination that hinders redevelopment. They can range from properties as small as an old abandoned gas station to gigantic shuttered factories.

The EPA first launched its brownfields program in the 1990s with just $2m in pilot funding, Garczynski said.

Across the US, communities of color are most burdened by brownfields.

According to EPA data, about one in 10 people live within half a mile of a brownfield, and Black Americans are about twice as likely as white Americans to live within that range. Hispanic communities are also disproportionately likely to live close to those sites.

The EPA said brownfields are often eyesores that can negatively affect local economies. A 2017 study, the agency notes, found that brownfield redevelopment increased nearby residential property values by as much as 15% and added tens of millions of dollars in local tax revenues.

Those who work closely on the redevelopment of brownfields say its twin environmental and economic benefits make it a rare area for bipartisan agreement. Though the Trump administration assailed climate efforts and rolled back key environmental protections, Garczynski noted that the former president and presumptive Republican nominee signed the Build Act in 2018, which reauthorized the brownfield program.

Still, advocates remain concerned about potential funding rollbacks if Trump is re-elected. Elizabeth Kluesner, executive director of the non-profit Minnesota Brownfields, said that despite typical bipartisan support for brownfields, those kinds of details can get lost in larger political fights.

An EPA database shows there are at least eight brownfields within just half a mile of where Regan made his announcement on Monday.

In 2019, a huge explosion and fire shut down a nearby 150-year-old oil refinery, leaving a vast, 1,300-acre (526-hectare) brownfield in its wake.

The land is now being redeveloped, with political leaders touting jobs, economic development and cleaner air. But members of Philly Thrive, a local environmental justice organization, have voiced concerns about remaining and future environmental hazards and the extent to which local communities will truly benefit.

Kluesner said that many state and federal programs were prioritizing grant applications that demonstrate developers have engaged with the community and detail how redevelopment will actually benefit nearby residents.

In Philadelphia, the latest announcement drew mostly praise from neighbors. As Regan was wrapping up his remarks on Monday, Shone London, 23, sat at a nearby dock casting a fishing line into the waters of the Schuylkill. A lifelong resident of the surrounding neighborhood, London had taken up fishing just a year earlier and was excited to learn the land around him would be cleaned up and provide more access to the river.