Brownfields Assessment Pilot Fact Sheet

Augusta, GA

EPA's Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative is designed to empower states, communities, and other stakeholders in economic redevelopment to work together in a timely manner to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield is a site, or portion thereof, that has actual or perceived contamination and an active potential for redevelopment or reuse. EPA is funding: assessment demonstration pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years), to assess brownfields sites and to test cleanup and redevelopment models; job training pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years), to provide training for residents of communities affected by brownfields to facilitate cleanup of brownfields sites and prepare trainees for future employment in the environmental field; and, cleanup revolving loan fund programs (each funded up to $500,000 over five years) to capitalize loan funds to make loans for the environmental cleanup of brownfields. These pilot programs are intended to provide EPA, states, tribes, municipalities, and communities with useful information and strategies as they continue to seek new methods to promote a unified approach to site assessment, environmental cleanup, and redevelopment.

PILOT SNAPSHOT

Augusta, GA

Date of Announcement:
June 1999

Amount: $200,000

Profile: The Pilot targets a 10-acre former salvage yard in the Hyde Park section of Augusta.

BACKGROUND

EPA has selected the City of Augusta for a Brownfields Pilot. Augusta's population of 205,000 is the second largest in Georgia; however, many of the city's residents live in poverty (67 percent). Augusta is home to a number of industrial factories, many of which are in the Hyde Park section of town. The residents of Hyde Park are predominantly African American with low income levels. In 1984, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources determined that wells in Hyde Park had been contaminated by many of the industrial factories in the neighborhood.

The Pilot targets the 10.8-acre Goldberg Brothers' Salvage Yard located at the main entrance to Hyde Park. Originally the site was used for community vegetable gardens, but in the past 30 years the site has operated as a salvage yard. Community complaints led to an EPA investigation that indicated high levels of lead and arsenic on-site and the salvage yard was closed in 1998. The site is situated among residences and is littered with gas containers, tires, drums and tanks, vacant storage buildings, and mounds of scrap metal. The closing of other nearby factories has increased unemployment, and the area suffers from crime and drug trafficking, some of which occur on the site.

OBJECTIVES

The City of Augusta has committed to assisting community efforts to revitalize the Hyde Park neighborhood, and is now working toward cleaning up and redeveloping sites within the area. Several city government offices, the Chamber of Commerce, the Richmond County Health Department, and local businesses have agreed to participate in improving the Hyde Park area in various ways. The city will initiate these efforts by creating a brownfields redevelopment authority to oversee the Pilot's assessment, cleanup planning and outreach activities. The city plans to use the cleanup and redevelopment of the Goldberg Salvage Yard site as a model for cleaning up other brownfields sites in Augusta.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND ACTIVITIES

Activities planned as part of this Pilot include:

Performing a site assessment at, and developing cleanup and redevelopment plans for, the Goldberg Salvage Yard;

Developing a public participation plan that includes sponsoring public forums and using local college students for web-based community-outreach activities; and

Performing site investigations and establishing an inventory of additional brownfields sites in Augusta.

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

CONTACTS

City of Augusta
(706) 821-1831

Regional Brownfields Team
U.S. EPA - Region 4
(404) 562-8661

Visit the EPA Region 4 Brownfields web site at: http://www.epa.gov/region4/waste/bf/

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

United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, D.C. 20460

Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5101)

EPA 500-F-99-129
June 1999

Outreach and Special Projects Staff (5105)

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