PORTLAND, Maine — Leaders with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gathered in Portland Wednesday to discuss Brownfield Grants and industrial clean-up in the state.
This follows an announcement earlier this month that communities across Maine would receive $33 million in these EPA Brownfield Grant funds, which are used to clean up and assess land that has been contaminated by pollutants and other hazardous materials.
Backers of the effort at the EPA see the grants as a vehicle to both eliminate environmental damage in an area and free up space to launch economic development projects.
“Its just a way of us taking federal taxpayer dollars and using them as catalysts to do what communities want,” David Cash, the regional director of the EPA for New England, said Wednesday.
The latest batch of funding will go towards nine grants in eight Maine communities as well as four existing grants (the stated goal here is expediting work at the sites).
These grants range in size from helping to clean up treatment plant lagoons at the former Great Northern Paper mill in Millinocket to ridding an urban lot in Portland smaller than half an acre of contaminants.
While much of the environmental damage caused in these Brownfield sites was done by private hands on private property, cleaning them up through this EPA program depends on taxpayers, a reality Cash acknowledges.
“For many and many of these sites, the private sector is just not there anymore,” Cash said.
But in some cases, the investment to clean up an area of toxic waste is well worth it. Greg Watson, the housing and economic development director for the city of Portland, points to Thompson’s Point, which previously received a Brownfield Grant, as an example of the economic benefit a clean-up can bring.
“That investment has leveraged another 65 to 70 million dollars in investments in other part of that property,” Watson said.
He forecasts even more investment “from that seed.”
As for this year’s Brownfield Grants, a representative from the EPA anticipates funding will be available for use this fall.