Brownfields 2008 Grant Fact Sheet

Downriver Community Conference, Wayne and Monroe Counties, MI

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 this 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.

REVOLVING LOAN FUND GRANT

$2,000,000 for hazardous substances
EPA has selected the Downriver Community Conference for a brownfields revolving loan fund grant. The grant will be used to capitalize a revolving loan fund from which the Downriver Community Conference will provide loans to support cleanup activities for sites contaminated with hazardous substances. Grant funds also will be used to oversee cleanups and support community involvement activities. The coalition partners are the 11 communities of the Downriver Area Brownfield Consortium.

COMMUNITY DESCRIPTION

The Downriver Community Conference was selected to receive a brownfields revolving loan fund grant. Located in southeast Michigan, the Downriver Community Conference is focusing its brownfields efforts on the 11 communities in the Downriver Area Brownfield Consortium, a sub-entity of the Conference. These communities (combined population 301,157) are Dearborn, Ecorse, Gibraltar, Grosse Ile Township, Melvindale, Monroe and Port of Monroe, Riverview, Romulus, Taylor, Trenton, and Wyandotte. They have all been home to heavy industry, dominated by the automobile industry. Following the decline in those industries, the area experienced increased unemployment and poverty, and a decrease in population. Communities now have a legacy of economically disadvantaged and contaminated areas. There are more than 400 brownfields in the area that pose risks to human health and have contaminated watercourses in the downriver area. When brownfields are cleaned up through the RLF grant, the Downriver Community Conference communities intend to include high-density mixed-use development linked to greenspace in their reuse plans for the 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.

EPA Region 5 Brownfields Team
312-886-7576
EPA Region 5 Brownfields web site

Grant Recipient: Downriver Community Conference, MI
734-362-3477

The information presented in this fact sheet comes from the grant proposal; EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. The cooperative agreement for the grant has not yet been negotiated. Therefore, activities described in this fact sheet are subject to change.

EPA 560-F-08-109
April 2008

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

Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5105T)

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