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EPA Awards $150,000 to The Eight Northern Indian Pueblo Council to Clean Brownfields Properties

Release Date: 10/05/2010
Contact Information: Contact Dave Bary or Joe Hubbard at (214) 665-2200 or r6press@epa.gov

(DALLAS – October 5, 2010) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded $150,000 to the Eight Northern Indian Pueblo Council (ENIPC) to establish a Brownfields Tribal Response Program. The project will promote environmental health for 22 Pueblos and Tribes in New Mexico and West Texas.

The ENIPC meets regularly with the Intertribal Resource Advisory Committee (IRAC), a group of Pueblos and Tribes’ environmental project directors and staff, to address key environmental concerns. IRAC has identified Brownfields as a priority issue as well as cleaning contaminated sites, protecting environmental health, increasing economic development capabilities.

EPA's Brownfields program empowers states, communities, and other stakeholders to work together to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfields site is real property which needs to have contamination removed before it can be redeveloped or reused. EPA provides financial assistance for brownfields through four competitive grant programs: assessment grants, revolving loan fund grants, cleanup grants, and job training grants. Additional funding support is provided to state and tribal response programs.

Since the Brownfields Program inception in 1996, Region 6 grantees have been awarded more than $67 million in Brownfields competitive grants. Region 6 is proud to report that over 1200 sites have been assessed, 15,100 jobs created, and $2.5 billion leveraged in redevelopment.

Additional information on EPA grants: https://www.epa.gov/region6/gandf/index.htm

More about activities in EPA Region 6: https://www.epa.gov/region6

EPA audio file is available at: https://www.epa.gov/region6/6xa/podcast/oct2010.html