EPA awarding $76 million for cleanups in 40 states

Federal grants will help clean up and redevelop 214 polluted sites such as abandoned gas stations and shuttered factories in 40 states, Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson said today. Three tribal nations also will receive federal money under the EPA's "brownfield' program, which is designed to spur growth in cities where contaminated industrial and commercial sites have been a drag on the economy while contributing to joblessness and crime, agency officials said.

AP Wire

Jun 6, 2011

The grants will help “make our communities cleaner, healthier and more prosperous places to raise a family and start a business,” Jackson said during a news conference near the site of a former power plant in Lansing that a previous grant helped restore. An insurance company turned the historic brick building towering over the Grand River into new offices, saving Art Deco touches and attaching a new glass office building.

Instead of seeing a tired relic when they gaze across the river from the downtown convention center, visitors now see a vibrant sign of the city’s comeback and future, Mayor Virg Bernero said.

There are about 450,000 abandoned and polluted waste sites nationwide that have been tainted by oil or chemicals, or scarred by industries such as mining, the EPA says. A revision of the law in 2002 expanded the definition of brownfields to include places such as “meth labs” where illegal drugs are made and distributed.

Online nationwide list of grant recipients:

www.epa.gov/brownfields/pilot_grants.htm