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U.S. EPA awards nearly $400,000 to county of Kauai, Anahola Homesteaders Council

Release Date: 10/19/2004
Contact Information: Dean Higuchi, (808) 541-2711, Email: [email protected]

HONOLULU -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Deputy Administrator Steve Johnson and Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Wayne Nastri awarded $396,334 in grant funding today to the County of Kauai, and the Anahola Homesteaders Council to redevelop brownfield properties on Kauai.

The EPA also awarded a separate $100,000 environmental justice grant to the Anahola Homesteaders Council to work on finding viable solutions for Anahola's environmental issues.

"These grants will allow Kauai communities to continue their momentum in revitalizing properties that have been sitting idle due to real or even perceived contamination," said Nastri. "The EPA's brownfields program allows cities and towns to turn what once were stumbling blocks into building blocks."

The county of Kauai is receiving $200,000 to inventory potential brownfields sites, perform environmental site assessments and do community outreach and involvement activities.

The Anahola Homesteaders Council on Kauai received $196,334 in brownfields funds for cleanup of hazardous substances on 20-acres of former sugar cane land contaminated with pesticides and herbicides containing arsenic and mercuric compounds. The community plans to redevelop the site into a multi-use town center, with a charter school and affordable housing for elderly residents once cleanup is completed.

The Anahola group will use $100,000 from the EPA's Environmental Justice Program to focus on former agricultural land in Anahola, Kauai, north of Lihue, on Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. The site is currently littered with illegally disposed items such as, automobiles, tires, appliances, batteries, and other household goods. The project will engage and educate the Anahola community in an investigation of their environment and public health issues, and lead to the development of a community plan to assist the residents to work collaboratively to fix some of the environmental problems in the area.

"The environmental justice grant will allow the community to engage in constructive and collaborative problem-solving in order to find solutions to their environmental problems,"said Nastri. "Through our grants the Anahola community can take ownership and responsibility in improving their quality of life.