On June 5, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Cosmo Servidio presented a $600,000 Brownfields assessment grant to the Lackawanna County Coalition and a $500,000 Brownfields cleanup grant to the Earth Conservancy in Hanover Township, Pennsylvania.
These are two of the 149 communities nationwide that have been selected to receive 151 grant awards totaling $64,623,553 in EPA Brownfields funding through our Multipurpose, Assessment, and Cleanup Grant Programs.
“I congratulate the Lackawanna County Coalition and the Earth Conservancy for their outstanding efforts in Brownfields Redevelopment and am glad to support further progress,” said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Cosmo Servidio, “The grants awarded today will build on the success you’ve already achieved.”
The Lackawanna County Coalition will receive $600,000 to conduct up to 25 environmental site assessments and complete cleanup plans for at least 10 sites. Grant funds also will be used to identify new sites to be added to the existing site inventory and conduct community outreach activities.
The target areas include the former industrial and manufacturing hubs of Scranton, Old Forge, and Carbondale and mine-scarred sites throughout the county. Coalition partners are the Redevelopment Authority of Lackawanna County and the City of Scranton.
The Brownfields assessment grant awarded to Lackawanna County in 2015 resulted in completed environmental assessments, new jobs, and properties readied for reuse.
Earth Conservancy in Hanover Township, Luzerne County will use the grant to fund clean up of the Bliss Bank in Hanover Township.
The 200-acre site was formerly an anthracite mining operation and has been unused and abandoned since 1976. The site is mine-scarred land contaminated with sulfide minerals that produce acid mine drainage which has damaged the Espy Run stream that used to flow through the site. Grant funds also will be used for community outreach activities.
As of 2018, the Earth Conservancy has been awarded 17 Brownfields cleanup grants totaling $3.4 million. With that seed money, the Conservancy has already reclaimed nearly 2,000 acres of mine-scarred lands, provided 8,000 acres for conservation and recreational use and built three mine discharge treatment systems.
Lackawanna County is one of the 108 communities selected for grants this year that have been identified as sites or targeted areas in census tracts designated as federal Opportunity Zones. An Opportunity Zone is an economically-distressed community where new investment, under certain conditions, may be eligible for preferential tax treatment.
For more information on funding, visit EPA’s Brownfields Grant Funding webpage.
(Photo: Earth Conservancy Bliss Bank site.)
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