Brownfields 2004 Grant Fact Sheet

Waukegan, IL

EPA BROWNFIELDS PROGRAM

EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states, communities, and other stakeholders in economic development 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, the President 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 hazardous substances
$200,000 for petroleum

EPA has selected the City of Waukegan for a brownfields assessment grant. Hazardous substances grant funds will be used to perform a site investigation based on the findings of an earlier expanded site investigation at a 12-acre former scrap yard property. Petroleum grant funds will be used to perform Phase I and Phase II site assessments at an 18-acre inactive railroad facility on the Lake Michigan lakefront.

COMMUNITY DESCRIPTION

The City of Waukegan was selected to receive a brownfields assessment grant. Over the past few decades, the city has lost much of its manufacturing base. Waukegan has been designated by the U.S. Department of Labor as a Labor Surplus Area because its unemployment rate has been 20 percent higher than the rest of the nation for two years in a row. Fourteen percent of Waukegan's 87,969 residents have incomes below the poverty line. About 45 percent of residents are Hispanic, and 18 percent are African-American. The city is an EPA-designated Environmental Justice Community. The properties targeted for assessment lie within the Lakefront Redevelopment Zone, which has a number of abandoned/closed industrial facilities. The city plans to redevelop these properties for residential and recreational lakefront uses.

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 5 Brownfields Team
312-886-7576
http://www.epa.gov/R5Brownfields/

Grant Recipient: Waukegan, IL
847-625-6878

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