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Grants to fund low-interest loans for Aurora "brownfields” cleanups

Release Date: 5/18/2000
Contact Information:
Kathie Atencio (303) 312-6803,

Release Date: 5/18/2000
Contact Information:
Mary Ahlstrom (303) 312-6626,

Release Date: 5/18/2000
Contact Information:
Nancy Mueller (303) 312- 6602

DENVER--Aurora landowners with contaminated properties may

soon be able to borrow money at below market rates to finance

environmental cleanups.

Vice President Al Gore announced the new "Brownfields" cleanup revolving loan fund grants today. EPA will award at least 30 grants nationwide totaling $20,350,000.

Locally, the City of Aurora will receive a $500,000 grant as seed money for a larger revolving loan fund to finance cleanup of brownfields, which are facilities or properties with real or perceived contamination from previous industrial uses. Such sites often pose no serious public health risk but uncertainties about liability, cleanup costs and financing may discourage investors and developers. Development then goes elsewhere and the brownfields become a drag on the local economy or blights in their community.

Aurora plans to focus on Original Aurora, an irregularly shaped five-square-mile area in the oldest part of the City. East Colfax Avenue from Yosemite Street east to I-225 runs through the central part of the target area. Several possibly contaminated sites there pose a barrier to the overall economic revitalization of Original Aurora, the City believes.

The Original Aurora Renewal Program will operate and manage the revolving loan fund, according to Ken Tweedy, Program Manager.

Brownfields grants are designed to boost redevelopment of under-used properties, increase local tax bases by reusing idle sites, create jobs when businesses and industry return and to act as clearinghouses for information on redevelopment.

Max Dodson, who directs EPA’s Superfund program in six western states from the Agency's regional office in Denver, sees the grants as an innovation in financing cleanups; providing funds that may otherwise be unavailable from traditional lending sources. “These grants give a huge boost to the capability of local governments to finance cleanups and redevelopment and to make these properties productive again. The success of these projects is one of the Agency's highest priorities,” Dodson said.

For additional information on the specifics of this project, contact Ken Tweedy (303) 739-7929 with the Original Aurora Renewal Program.