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U.S. EPA SELECTS NORTHERN CA ENTITIES AS BROWNFIELDS PROJECTS

Release Date: 7/15/1998
Contact Information: Lois Grunwald, U.S. EPA, (415) 744-1588

    (San Francisco) -- Vice President Al Gore and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) today announced that the California Trade and Commerce Agency, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, and Alameda County have been selected as pilot projects for the redevelopment of former industrial and commercial sites known as brownfields. The entities are three of 71 cities, states, towns, counties and tribes nationwide that were selected today as brownfields pilot projects.

      "There is no greater example of the environment and the economy working hand in hand to benefit the American people than the Administration's efforts to clean up and revitalize Brownfields," said Vice President Al Gore. "Across the nation, cities are coming back to life with new jobs, new opportunities, and new hope."
                     
     Brownfields are abandoned or under-used industrial or commercial areas where redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination. Property owners, lenders, investors and developers fear that involvement with these sites will make them liable for contamination they did not create.
     
     "Cleaning up and reusing these sites can be a key element to a community's economic vitality," said Felicia Marcus, U.S. EPA's regional administrator. "These areas have the tremendous potential of becoming strong, vital neighborhoods with a strong economic base."

      The three entities will each receive a $200,000 grant over a two-year period. The California Trade and Commerce Agency, along with funding from the state of California, will establish the California Mill Reuse Program, a program to reuse abandoned wood products mill sites throughout the state. The pilot project will focus on redevelopment of six northern and central California former mill sites. The Hoopa Valley Tribe will use the funds for redevelopment of a former 83-acre lumber mill. Alameda County will target redevelopment of a commercial corridor that passes through the Ashland and Cherryland communities of San Leandro.

     Other EPA western region brownfields pilots selected today include the cities of Long Beach, Montebello, Los Angeles, West Hollywood, and the Ely Shoshone Tribe in Nevada. In Region 9, U.S. EPA currently has existing brownfields pilot projects in Sacramento, Stockton, East Palo Alto, Emeryville, Richmond, San Francisco, Oakland, Navajo Nation in New Mexico, Tucson, Tohono O'odham Nation, Phoenix, Santa Barbara, Pomona, Colton, San Diego, and Las Vegas. With the new projects, there are now 228 brownfields pilot projects nationwide.

     The brownfields initiative was launched to empower states, local governments, and other stakeholders in economic redevelopment to work together to assess, clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields properties. The initiative also addresses the concerns of prospective developers and lenders concerned about inheriting cleanup liability for property that is contaminated or perceived to be contaminated.

     Information on the new brownfields pilot projects can be obtained from the U.S. EPA's
brownfields home page on the Internet at: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/pilot.htm.