Spanish Fork City, Utah to receive $300,000 to advance property cleanup and redevelopment
EPA Brownfields grant will focus on I-15 and Main Street corridors
Spanish Fork City, Utah -- Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing Spanish Fork City, Utah, will receive a $300,000 Brownfields assessment grant to complete environmental assessments and advance the redevelopment of several targeted Brownfields properties in the city’s I-15 and Main Street corridors.
Spanish Fork City is among 151 communities nationwide selected to receive 154 grant awards totaling $66.5 million in EPA Brownfields funding through the agency’s Multipurpose, Assessment, and Cleanup Grant programs. This funding will support underserved and economically disadvantaged communities across the country in assessing and cleaning up contaminated and abandoned industrial and commercial properties. Approximately 50 percent of selected recipients will be receiving EPA Brownfields Grant funding for the first time and more than 85 percent are located in or serving small communities.
“Spanish Fork has developed a comprehensive vision connecting targeted environmental assessment and cleanup with plans for transit-oriented redevelopment and economic growth,” said Mark A. Smith, EPA Region 8 director of Land, Chemicals and Redevelopment Division. “This grant will help the City assess several priority properties and make them available for safe reuse.”
Spanish Fork City will use the EPA grant funds to evaluate environmental contamination and cleanup needs at several sites to facilitate their safe reuse and redevelopment. Assessment activities will focus on the City’s I-15 Corridor and Main Street Corridor target areas. Priority sites include the Industrial Park and the Expressway Landfill in the I-15 corridor, which were previously used for manufacturing, salvaging, storage, retail and foundry activities; and the former Salvage Yard site within the Main Street Corridor. Additional Brownfield sites within these areas include landfills, auto facilities, former gas stations, factories, foundries, lumber yards, junk and scrap yards, auto body repair shops, and underutilized vacant lots.
These projects will help advance the City’s proposed Intermodal Center, a transit-oriented development and catalyst site that will drive further economic development. The proposed center comprises over 17 acres with factory buildings from a former sugar beet factory that remain on site. Contaminants likely include asbestos fly ash and other processing waste, as well as semi-volatile organic compounds and hazardous metals, such as arsenic and lead.
The City will use the EPA funds to assess the Expressway Landfill, another priority site containing multiple former unregulated landfills, with potential redevelopment as a solar farm and new businesses. Targeted properties in the Industrial Park contain former foundries associated with hazardous metals, volatile organic compounds, PCBs and semi-volatile compounds. Assessment, cleanup and reuse of this area will lead to retail and commercial development. In addition, Spanish Fork is proposing to use the assessment and cleanup of the former Salvage Yard along the Main Street Corridor for expansion of the fairgrounds. This site contains elevated levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, chromium, PCBs and semi-volatile compounds, including Benzo(a)Pyrene.
“I am very pleased to announce that a $300,000 EPA Brownfields grant has been awarded to Spanish Fork City. These funds will be used to conduct environmental assessments at several properties throughout the city,” said Mayor Steve Leifson. “The assessments will give the city and developers vital information as we work to repurpose abandoned and underutilized sites. I want to thank the EPA for their grant funding which will help make Spanish Fork an even better place to live and work in.”
The list of the fiscal year 2021 applicants selected for funding is available here: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/applicants-selected-fy-2021-brownfields-multipurpose-assessment-and-cleanup-grants
EPA anticipates that it will award the grants once all legal and administrative requirements are satisfied by the selected recipients.
Background
Since its inception in 1995, EPA's Brownfields Program has provided nearly $1.76 billion in grants to assess and clean up contaminated properties and return them to productive reuse. This has led to significant benefits for communities across the country. For example,
· To date, communities participating in the Brownfields Program have been able to attract more than $34.4 billion in cleanup and redevelopment funding after receiving Brownfields funds. This has led to over 175,500 jobs in cleanup, construction, and redevelopment.
· Based on grant recipient reporting, recipients leveraged on average $20.13 for each EPA Brownfields dollar and 10.3 jobs per $100,000 of EPA Brownfield Grant funds expended on assessment, cleanup, and revolving loan fund cooperative agreements.
· In addition, an academic peer-reviewed study has found that residential properties near brownfield sites increased in value by 5% to 15.2% as a result of cleanup activities.
· Finally, analyzing data near 48 brownfields, EPA found an estimated $29 million to $97 million in additional tax revenue for local governments in a single year after cleanup—2 to 7 times more than the $12.4 million EPA contributed to the cleanup of those brownfield sites.
For more on the Brownfields Grants: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/types-epa-brownfield-grant-funding
For more on EPA’s Brownfields Program: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields