Nearly 200 Communities Get $76 Million in EPA Brownfields Grants

"Nearly 200 communities across the United States have been awarded new federal grants to clean up old contaminated industrial sites and transform them into new, job-creating developments. In Augusta, Maine, an old paper mill that operated for more than a century will be turned into a new hotel and conference center. In Chicago, soil and ground water polluted with dry-cleaning solvents will be cleaned up to make room for a new library in a poor neighborhood. On an Indian reservation in Arizona, a contaminated tanning factory will be turned into a new industrial park, perhaps one that makes solar panels. All of these brownfields projects will be funded in part by EPA's $76 million in 2011 grants, which were announced Monday. "

Marla Cone reports for Environmental Health News June 7, 2011.