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Brownfields Assessment Pilot Fact Sheet

Santa Barbara County, CA
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 1997

Amount: $200,000

Profile: The pilot will target residential and mixed-use properties with known and suspected contamination in the Goleta Old Town area.

OVERVIEW

EPA has selected Santa Barbara County as a Brownfields Pilot. The Goleta Old Town area has served as an economic, social, and cultural focal point of the Goleta Valley since the early 1900s. During the 1950s and 1960s, military, industrial, and commercial businesses expanded in Old Town. Since that time, however, Goleta Old Town has experienced significant economic decline in the commercial, industrial, and residential sectors of the community. To a large degree, economic redevelopment has been impeded by known and suspected environmental contamination.

The pilot area of Goleta Old Town has a population of approximately 5,000, 44 percent of whom are minority and 12 percent of whom live below the poverty level. Old Town developed a revitalization plan through joint public-private efforts holding more than 25 community meetings. Based on historic and current land uses, the county has identified approximately 50 potential brownfields sites.

OBJECTIVES

Santa Barbara County's goal is to restore the Old Town area as an economically vital social and cultural focus of the Goleta Valley community. Objectives include the creation of effective development partnerships; implementation of sustainable land uses; and encouragement of diverse commerce and business.

ACTIVITIES

Activities planned as part of this pilot include:

  • Developing cost-effective plans for site assessment, characterization, and future plans for cleanup strategies through a private/public team approach;
  • Conducting preliminary and detailed target site assessments, including data compilation, technical interpretations, sampling, drilling, geophysical surveying, hydrogeological testing, and health and safety reviews;
  • Determining funding sources and mechanisms for financing future cleanups and revitalization;
  • Coordinating the revitalization interests of residents, property owners, businesses, lenders, educational institutions, governments, and other stakeholders; and
  • Documenting remediation strategies, revitalization strategies, and pilot progress, including measures of success.

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

CONTACTS:

Daniel Gira
County Planning and Development
(805) 568-2068

Steve Simanonok
U.S. EPA - Region 9
(415) 744-2358
simanonok.steve@epamail.epa.gov

Visit the EPA Brownfields Website at:
http://www.epa.gov/brownfields
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, D.C. 20460 		Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5101)		 EPA 500-F-97-141
April 1997
Outreach and Special Projects Staff (5101) Quick Reference Fact Sheet

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