Brownfields 2006 Grant Fact Sheet

Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, VT

EPA BROWNFIELDS PROGRAM

EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states, communities, and other stakeholders to work together to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. On January 11, 2002, President George W. Bush signed into law the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act. Under the Brownfields Law, EPA provides financial assistance to eligible applicants through four competitive grant programs: assessment grants, revolving loan fund grants, cleanup grants, and job training grants. Additionally, funding support is provided to state and tribal response programs through a separate mechanism.

ASSESSMENT GRANT

$200,000 for petroleum
EPA has selected the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission for a brownfields assessment grant. Petroleum grant funds will be used to organize the county's brownfields initiative, conduct community outreach and educational programs, identify sites, and perform up to six Phase I and three to five Phase II environmental site assessments throughout the municipalities of Chittenden County.

COMMUNITY DESCRIPTION

The Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission (CCRPC) was selected to receive a brownfields assessment grant. The CCRPC serves the 19 municipalities of Chittenden County (population 149,286), the economic hub of the State of Vermont. Nearly 32 percent of all jobs in the state are in Chittenden County. When major regional employers downsized between 2000 and 2004, the county experienced a 24 percent decline in manufacturing jobs. This drop in manufacturing activities led to an increase in the number of brownfields in the county, especially in urban communities like Burlington, a federally designated Renewal Community. Prior to the decline in manufacturing, in the 1980s and 1990s, the county was pressured to convert open and agricultural lands to residential development. Chittenden County has 103 sites on the state database of sites with spill notifications, of which 64 percent are petroleum sites. Known brownfields in the county include former mills and manufacturing facilities, junkyards, railyards, landfills, marinas, and auto body shops. Assessment and eventual cleanup of the brownfields properties will help remove the hazards that threaten the public health and the environment and allow the sites to be redeveloped, thereby reducing the pressures to develop greenfield sites.

CONTACTS

For further information, including specific grant contacts, additional grant information, brownfields news and events, and publications and links, visit the EPA Brownfields web site at: www.epa.gov/brownfields.

EPA Region 1 Brownfields Team
617-918-1424
http://www.epa.gov/region01/brownfields/

Grant Recipient: Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, VT
802-846-4490, ext. 30

The cooperative agreement for this grant has not yet been negotiated; therefore, activities described in this fact sheet are subject to change.