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News Releases from Region 08

EPA provides $600K to advance redevelopment projects in Butte, Anaconda, Dillon, Montana

Brownfields grant to Headwaters Resource Conservation and Development to advance environmental assessment and property redevelopment

04/25/2018
Contact Information: 
Richard Mylott (mylott.richard@epa.gov)
303-312-6654

DENVER -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is providing Headwaters Resource Conservation and Development in Butte, Montana a $600,000 Brownfields grant to assess, clean up and revitalize properties in Anaconda-Deer Lodge, Beaverhead, Butte-Silver Bow, Granite, Jefferson, Madison and Powell counties. Funds will be used to assess brownfields properties where real or perceived contamination is an obstacle to investment and reuse, including an initial set of priority sites in Butte, Anaconda and Dillon.  

Headwaters Resource Conservation and Development is among 144 grant recipients across the nation receiving EPA Brownfields Environmental Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup grants. The 221 grants totaling $54.3 million will provide communities with funding to assess, clean up and redevelop underutilized properties while protecting public health and the environment.

Headwaters will use the EPA Brownfields funds to target environmental assessments at properties with a high potential for redevelopment that have been identified as priorities with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and local communities. Potential sites include properties in Butte, Anaconda and Dillon. These sites include former gas stations and automotive sites, dry cleaners, vacant historic structures, and junkyards. 

“EPA’s Brownfields Program expands the ability of communities to recycle vacant and abandoned properties for new, productive reuses, using existing infrastructure," said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. "These grants leverage other public and private investments, and improve local economies through property cleanup and redevelopment.”

“These Brownfields grants will help communities like Butte, Anaconda and Dillon revitalize blighted sites and create new economic assets,” said EPA Regional Administrator Doug Benevento. “EPA will continue to support our state and local partners in Montana as they address environmental concerns and bring abandoned properties back into productive reuse.”

 “We are incredibly excited about the opportunity to be able to offer the Brownfields program to Butte and the communities of Southwestern Montana,” said Joe Willauer, Interim Executive Director of Headwaters RC&D. “These funds will have a tremendous impact in all of our communities, and will help to provide new resources for sustainable economic growth throughout the region.”

EPA’s Brownfields Program targets communities that are economically disadvantaged and provides funding and assistance to transform contaminated sites into assets that can generate jobs and spur economic growth. A study analyzing 48 brownfields sites found that an estimated $29 million to $97 million in additional tax revenue was generated for local governments in a single year after cleanup. This is two-to-seven times more than the $12.4 million EPA contributed to the cleanup of these sites. Another study found that property values of homes located near brownfields sites that are cleaned up increased between 5 and 15 percent post cleanup.

Communities can use EPA Brownfields funding to leverage considerable infrastructure and other financial resources. For example, EPA’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund can be used to address the water quality aspects of brownfield sites and the assessment and construction of drinking water infrastructure on brownfields, respectively. EPA’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program may also serve as a potential source of long-term, low-cost supplemental financing to fund brownfields project development and implementation activities to address water quality aspects of brownfields.

List of the FY 2018 applicants selected for funding: 

https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/applicants-selected-fy18-brownfields-assessment-revolving-loan-fund-and-cleanup-grants

For more information on Brownfields grants: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/types-brownfields-grant-funding

For more information on EPA’s Brownfields Program: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields

For more information on how brownfields restoration has positively impacted local economies and the quality of life for neighboring communities: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/brownfields-success-stories