The City has been awarded a 2018 Community-Wide Brownfield Assessment grant award from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 4. Submission of the grant application was approved by City Council on November 9, 2017. 

Community-Wide Brownfield Assessment grants are the most competitive within the suite of brownfield grants awarded by the EPA. This grant provides $300,000.00 in funding to identify, inventory, and assess the potential for contamination on real estate parcels.  Specifically, this funding will focus on properties adjacent to and along the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard / Montgomery Street corridor from 52nd Street on the south to Bay Street on the north, and the area in and around the future Canal District.

This program does not require a municipal match, and provides increased competitiveness for future EPA grants to facilitate cleanup and redevelopment. In some cases, if site cleanup is determined to be relatively minor, such as removal of an underground storage tank, Assessment Grant funds can be used to complete the cleanup. This allows the property to return to full productive value without going through the cleanup grant process. Property owners are not required to clean up properties as a result of this grant.

Recommend approval to authorize City Manager to accept this Brownfield grant awarded by the EPA.  

Approval