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U.S. EPA awards $1.2 million in Southern California Brownfield Grants

Release Date: 5/10/2005
Contact Information: Francisco Arcaute, U.S. EPA, (213) 244-1815, Cell: (213) 798-1404, Main press line: (415) 947-8700

Grants distributed to El Cajon, Gardena, Los Angeles and Lynwood

LOS ANGELES -- Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded $1.2 million to El Cajon Redevelopment Agency, City of Gardena; City of Los Angeles; and Lynwood Redevelopment Agency to redevelop Brownfield properties.

Nationally, the EPA awarded 302 grants totaling $75.9 million today as part of the agency's Brownfields program, which provides funding to clean up and redevelop contaminated properties.

"Funding for brownfields projects will allow communities to revitalize properties that have been sitting idle due to real or even perceived contamination," said Wayne Nastri, regional administrator of the EPA's Pacific Southwest office. "The program yields positive results by bringing new life to the under used properties in many cities and towns."

The Southern California grants will be distributed as follows:
The El Cajon Redevelopment Agency will receive $200,000, to be used for environmental site assessments, develop cleanup plans within the central business district of the city, conduct community outreach and develop a geographic information system database of sites;

The city of Gardena will receive a total of $400,000, which will be used to identify potential sites to be addressed, environmental site assessments in critical city areas, support community outreach involvement activities and perform the same activities in areas with potential petroleum contamination;

The city of Los Angeles will receive $400,000 to clean up a contaminated former gas station in San Pedro Gateway with a history of deteriorations and at a former oil field in Rockwood Park with abandoned oil extraction wells with a history of methane and hydrogen sulfide releases;

The Lynwood Redevelopment Agency will receive $200,000 which will support community outreach, implement groundwater remediation systems and the installation of groundwater monitoring wells at the ten-acre K and K Furniture site, now contaminated with trichloroethylene.

"The Brownfields Program puts both property and people back to work," EPA Administrator Steve Johnson said. "These grants will help communities across America convert eyesores into engines of economic rebirth."

The Brownfields program promotes redevelopment of America's estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites. Since its inception in 1995, the program has awarded 709 assessment grants totaling over $190 million, 189 revolving loan fund grants worth more than $165 million, and $26.8 million for 150 cleanup grants.

In addition to facilitating industrial and commercial redevelopment, Brownfields projects have converted industrial waterfronts to river-front parks, landfills to golf courses, rail corridors to recreational trails, and gas station sites to housing. The program has led to more than $7 billion in public and private investment in cleanup and redevelopment, helped create more than 31,000 jobs, and resulted in the assessment of more than 5,100 properties.

For more information on the grant recipients, go to: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields