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POWNAL, VERMONT TO RECEIVE PLANNING FUNDS TO ENSURE FUTURE USE OF SUPERFUND SITE

Release Date: 07/23/1999
Contact Information: Alice Kaufman, EPA Community Affairs Office, (617) 918-1064

Boston - The town of Pownal, Vermont, is slated to receive up to $100,000 in planning funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help plan for the future use of the contaminated former Pownal Tannery Company site. The 28-acre tannery was listed on EPA's National Priorities List in January 1998 for cleanup by the federal government. The Pownal Tannery Superfund Site is one of 10 sites across the country receiving planning assistance funds to study potential reuse opportunities for the site.

EPA Administrator Carol Browner made the announcement today at the Avtex Superfund Site in Virginia and included a total of about $1 million for community assistance under this new program called the Superfund Redevelopment Initiative. EPA expects that by the end of next year, 50 pilot grants will be awarded to communities across the country for a total of $5 million.

"This pilot program is another example of the Clinton-Gore Administration's efforts to create jobs and encourage economic redevelopment in communities that are saddled with old abandoned hazardous waste sites," said Browner. "Through this initiative, we will work cooperatively with local governments and businesses to clean up old toxic waste sites and transform them into new parks, neighborhoods or thriving commercial districts."

"In Vermont, and across New England, we are demonstrating that through ingenuity and common sense we can grow the economy while cleaning and preserving our natural resources," said John P. DeVillars, EPA's New England administrator. "Pownal and its 3,500 residents will be proud when the tannery site is put back in productive use as a result of EPA's site work and the town's redevelopment."

"We are very happy to be one of EPA'a pilot communities," said Nelson Brownell, Chairman of Pownal's Board of Selectmen. "The $97,000 we applied for will help us plan for this community's future, and will help facilitate redevelopment of the site which will bring tax dollars back into this town."

"It's exciting to be involved with this pilot program. We have made good progress with reuse of gasoline-contaminated sites here in Vermont, but former manufacturing facilities like the Pownal Tannery have proved to be a bigger challenge. Successful reuse of the tannery will provide an excellent model for future projects, both in Vermont and nationwide," said John Kassel, secretary of Vermont's Agency of Natural Resources.

Pownal will receive up to $100,000 in the form of a cooperative agreement with EPA to conduct a redevelopment assessment and for public outreach to help determine the likely future use of the site.

The national focus on Superfund redevelopment builds on the success the agency has achieved in its Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative and relies on many of the tools that have been developed over the last six years under the Superfund Administrative Reforms.

In New England, EPA has awarded 49 Brownfields grants totaling more than $12 million to states, cities, towns, and tribes. The Brownfields program is designed to empower states, local government and communities to develop public/private partnerships that restore abandoned sites to new uses, thereby increasing property values, stimulating tax revenues and revitalizing communities.

Three New England Superfund sites have already been redeveloped: a regional transportation center is under construction at the Industriplex site in Woburn, MA; Gillette has constructed a large warehousing facility at the former Ft. Devens site in Devens, MA; and a developer is moving ahead with plans for a mega-mall at the Raymark Superfund Site in Connecticut.

For more information about the Superfund Redevelopment Initiative visit EPA's web page at https://www.epa.gov/superfund/recycling or call the Superfund hotline at 1-800-424-9346 or 703-412-9810.