Source: http://tbo.com, July 4, 2015
By: Laura Kinsler
Pasco County has won two federal grants totaling nearly $600,000 to identify and clean up contaminated properties.
The Environmental Protection Agency awarded almost $200,000 to remove contaminated soil in Lacoochee that was discovered during construction of the Lewis Abraham Community Center. Melanie Kendrick, Pasco’s “brownfields” program manager, said the funding will be available in October but the cleanup could take up to three years.
“There’s no immediate threat to anybody right now,” she said. “It has been there for we don’t know how many years. If a kid were to get in there and start digging around and eat the dirt, then we’d be concerned.”
Pasco must provide a 20-percent match to receive the grant.
Pasco was the only county in the nation to receive both an assessment grant and a cleanup grant. The larger grant, $400,000, will allow the county to conduct tests on suspected brownfield sites. “We’re focusing on the north-south corridors, so mostly U.S. 19, U.S. 41 and U.S. 301,” Kendrick said.
Brownfields are abandoned or underused commercial properties that are contaminated or perceived to be contaminated. Buildings containing asbestos or lead-based paint also qualify.
An example of a brownfield area that has been rehabilitated is the Ikea store in Tampa’s Ybor City, Kendrick said. The site was home to a cannery from 1936 to 1981.
Pasco has a broad distribution of brownfield sites, such as automotive/scrap-metal yards, dry cleaning facilities, abandoned gas stations, cattle dip vat sites and other commercial properties.
The funding will allow for preliminary testing of up to 30 sites and more extensive testing of about eight locations. Kendrick said the grant also will pay for the property owner or developer to create a remediation plan for the property.
“It will give them options and a rough cost estimate for how to handle that contamination,” she said.
Once they receive the designation and plan, owners are eligible for tax incentives and low-interest loans to redevelop the property.
“If your property is contaminated, you are a brownfield site,” Kendrick said. “If it has the official designation, we have national firms that all they do is go in and develop brownfield sites. There are Wal-Marts, industrial facilities and office buildings all built on brownfields. Some residential developments are built on former brownfields. For example, Encore, just outside downtown Tampa, was a brownfield.”