Brownfields Supplemental Assistance Fact Sheet

City of Fayetteville, NC

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

Date of Announcement:
April 2001

Amount: $150,000

Target Area: City of Fayetteville, NC

Profile: The Pilot will continue to encourage the revitalization of downtown Fayetteville by targeting three sites to facilitate cleanup and redevelopment.

BACKGROUND

EPA has selected the City of Fayetteville to receive supplemental assistance for its Brownfields Assessment Demonstration Pilot. Downtown Fayetteville has been in decline since the 1970s, when businesses, manufacturers, and other facilities closed or relocated to outlying areas. More than half of the downtown retail space is presently unoccupied. By 1996, 52 percent of the residents of downtown Fayetteville had a standard of living below the poverty level. The unemployment rate is 16 percent.

Cumberland County, which includes Fayetteville, is a federally designated Urban Distressed Community. Fayetteville's urban redevelopment strategy is being led by a comprehensive vision that identifies the need for public/private partnerships with significant emphasis on brownfields. The Pilot will target three sites, one site from the original Assessment Pilot's inventory-a former Manufacturing Gas Plant (MGP)- for cleanup planning and two new sites for environmental assessment activities. The former MGP site is directly adjacent to Cross Creek, a historical and natural drainage course that runs through the city.

OBJECTIVES

The Pilot will use EPA's supplemental assistance grant to continue the activities of the Assessment Pilot. The Pilot plans to determine appropriate cleanup alternatives, prepare a cleanup action plan, and prepare a cleanup design plan for the former MGP site. In cooperation with the city-owned utility, the Public Works Commission, the Pilot will also use the supplemental funding to conduct assessments at two newly targeted former industrial sites, one located in downtown Fayetteville and the other located at one of the city's major travel gateways. A major component of the city's redevelopment objective is to improve the water quality and aesthetics of, as well as access to, Cross Creek.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND ACTIVITIES

Activities planned as part of this Pilot include:

Conduct environmental assessments on the two newly targeted sites;
Conduct community outreach for the targeted sites;
Conduct a feasibility study of potential cleanup alternatives for the former MGP site; and
Prepare a cleanup action and design plan for implementing the selected cleanup alternative for the former MGP site.

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 Fayetteville
(910) 433-1786

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-01-300
April 2001

Outreach and Special Projects Staff (5101)

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