A Macomb-based organization has received another grant to help pay for assessing brownfield sites.
Prairie Hills Resource Conservation and Development is getting $1.2 million from the US EPA. It’s the third and largest such grant Prairie Hills has received since beginning the assessment program in 2018.
“It’s going to have quite an impact on our community,” said Executive Director Vickie Livingston.
She said the grant could pay for assessing or creating reuse planning for at least 30 properties in Fulton, Hancock, Henderson, Knox, McDonough, and Warren counties.
Livingston said cleaning up these former industrial and commercial sites can improve the public safety and well-being of a community.
“Often these buildings, when they’re left vacant and not cared for for a long period of time, they’re going to start shedding brick, they could be shedding asbestos. For the health of the people who live in that part of the community, it’s really important,” she said.
Livingston said the grant should allow them to continue the program for another three or four years.
The money will also pay for updating a brownfield inventory, developing area-wide plans, and supporting community education and engagement activities.
Livingston said the cleanup of brownfield sites is up to the landowner. She said they have a grant program that offers zero-percent or low-interest loans to cleanup sites for redevelopment or sale.
She believes there is value in reusing property that was previously developed.
“This is really helpful for being able to use places we’ve already built to prevent things like sprawl from happening on the edges of our communities, and to really keep redevelopment in the heart of our community,” Livingston said.
Property owners or government officials can contact Prairie Hills to inquire about a site’s eligibility.
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