The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday announced a $600,000 Brownfields Coalition Assessment Grant to the Turtle Creek Valley Council of Governments to identify and assess potentially contaminated sites in southeast Allegheny County for cleanup and redevelopment.

The Turtle Creek Valley Council of Governments received the EPA grant on behalf of its member municipalities and other local governments that make up the Twin Rivers Council of Governments and Steel Valley Council of Governments.

The funding will be used to inventory potential brownfields sites in all 41 municipalities, and further assess about 25 sites for possible petroleum and hazardous waste contamination.

“EPA’s Brownfields program is empowering communities to initiate first steps in cleaning up vacant properties so they can be put back to beneficial use,” said EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin. “We commend these local governments for securing federal funding that when leveraged with other financial investments will improve their communities’ environmental health and strengthen local economies.”

Regional Administrator Garvin congratulated the grant recipients at a press conference at the former U.S. Steel Slag Dump in Penn Hills.

Since 1998 more than $18.3 billion has been spent to clean up and redevelop brownfields properties as a result of EPA grant funding and efforts of recipients to work with public and private sources to leverage dollars. As of August 2012, more than 18,000 properties have been assessed and more than 700 have been cleaned up.

EPA’s brownfields program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites.

For more information, visit EPA’s Environmental Assessment Grants webpage.

8/27/2012