Press Release - Wednesday, November 02, 2005
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Illinois EPA awards East St. Louis federal "Special Project Funds" grant
SPRINGFIELD .— On behalf of Governor Rod Blagojevich, Illinois EPA Director Doug Scott has announced the award of U.S. EPA Brownfields Special Project Funds Grant to the City of East St. Louis, which will allow them to remove underground storage tanks, or USTs, at the former Orr-Weathers Low-Rise site, located at 1300 Broadway Avenue.
The grant is a portion of $100,000 in Special Project Funds that was awarded to the Illinois EPA by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to assess and clean up contamination from USTs. It is part of U.S. EPA's overall UST fields program, which addresses abandoned or underused sites that have underground storage tanks. The UST fields Grant Program complements the nationwide Brownfields initiative; UST fields are the most common type of brownfields site.
These cleanup funds will complement the recently completed Phase II environmental investigation activities at the site that were funded using a previously awarded U.S. EPA Brownfield grant to East St. Louis. This is a perfect example of leveraging both state and federal Brownfield resources to attain a clean site ready for redevelopment.
"This grant will allow the community to evaluate the environmental impact of the past uses of property and enable them to make plans to rehabilitate the site for redevelopment," said Director Scott.
East St. Louis had previously received a $52,666.49 Illinois Municipal Brownfield Redevelopment Grant to conduct Phase I and Phase II work on the Alta Sita Neighbors site located at 1240 Gaty Avenue in East St. Louis. The City will now receive an additional $33,549.40 from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) Brownfield Special Project Funds that will be used to remove an UST located at 1300 Broadway Avenue. The City is seeking a No Further Remediation Letter on the site so that a new Senior Housing redevelopment project can proceed. This Project is being conducted by the East St. Louis Housing Authority in cooperation with the Macedonia, Corporation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) entity.
The Illinois EPA is able to distribute the federal Special Project Funds Grant monies to selected communities. This allows them to initiate and/or complete environmental cleanup activities that may have otherwise been stalled due to lack of funding. These funds could be the catalyst that enables the community to proceed with a redevelopment project. The other Illinois Special Project Funds Grant recipients were Tallulah and Raymond.
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