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New grants to fund low-interest loans for area “brownfields” cleanups

Release Date: 4/20/2001
Contact Information:
(303) 312-6982,

Release Date: 4/20/2001
Contact Information:
(303) 312-6803,

Release Date: 4/20/2001
Contact Information:
(303) 312-6780

Denver -- Colorado landowners with contaminated properties will soon be
able to borrow money at well below market rates to finance environmental
cleanups.

The City of Westminster and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) will each receive $1 million to create revolving loan funds to pay for cleanups in “brownfields” areas. The local grants were among 25 announced nationally today by EPA Administrator Christie Whitman in Washington totaling $26 million and affecting 46 communities.

Brownfields are previously used industrial areas with real or perceived contamination problems. 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 communities. EPA’s brownfields grant program is designed to remove some of those barriers and return the properties to productive use.

Westminster plans to focus on the Little Dry Creek Corridor and the 73rd and Lowell redevelopment area. Both areas suffered economic and environmental downturns beginning in the mid-1970s. The City hopes to begin by funding cleanups on up to 7 sites within the 80-acre redevelopment area.

CDPHE aims to help smaller communities and Native American Tribes to fund cleanups. Until now, the loans were available only in metro cities that are members of the Colorado Brownfields Loan Fund Coalition (Denver, Commerce City, Englewood, Lakewood, Loveland and now, Westminster). The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority and CDPHE round out the Coalition. The Coalition received $1.7 million to start the revolving fund in 1999 and plans to issue its first loan in the next few weeks. Altogether the brownfields program has pumped $7.2 million into Colorado since 1994, mostly in the metro area.

Max Dodson, who directs EPA’s Superfund program in six western states sees the grants as an innovation that provides funds that would probably not be available from traditional lending sources.

“I’m very excited about Colorado taking this program statewide and by the addition of Westminster to the Coalition. This partnership of local, state and federal agencies working together to help property owners clean up past problems is government at its best. Seeing this program succeed is one of my highest priorities,” Dodson said.

Also announced today was a $ 250,000 brownfields “assessment pilot” grant to Summit County to assess mining contamination and solutions on some 1,200 acres in the Peru Creek Basin just outside of Montezuma, east of the Keystone Ski Area. That money can be used to gather data, develop cleanup plans and engage the community in improving and restoring the natural ecosystem. The Summit County assessment grant was one of 36 made nationally today totaling $7 million.



For more information on:

CDPHE’s role and the Statewide program: Dan Scheppers (303) 692-3398
Westminster: Tony Chacon (303) 430-2400 ext, 2129
Summit County assessment pilot: Brian Lorch (970) 668-4067