County seeks grant to aid brownfield cleanup

LISBON - The Columbiana County Commissioners pledged support Wednesday for a grant application aimed at identifying vacant industrial sites which could be cleaned up and made useful again in the county.

The brief resolution will be made part of the Columbiana County Port Authority's application for United States Environmental Protection Agency brownfield assessment grants.

The resolution said the environmental assessments and other activities covered by the grants will help provide brownfield redevelopment in the county.

"With certain legal exclusions and additions, the term 'brownfield site' means real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant," according to a definition listed on the U.S. EPA Web site.

Port Authority Director Tracy Drake said they could request up to $500,000 to analyze possible sites for cleanup, spending between $50,000 to $100,000 on each site, meaning they could do maybe five to 10 sites in the county as opposed to just letting them sit empty.

Utilizing the grants, they will be able to determine what's wrong with a site and then seek other grant money to clean up the problem so the site can be redeveloped.

He said they were working on identifying possible sites in the county for study, but he didn't want to reveal their locations.

"It's a step to take. It allows us to move forward," Drake said.

He admitted economic times are tough right now, but added that "shouldn't stop efforts to redevelop what we can."

This would be a step in a process to find available land for development which may have already been used, rather than eating up greenspace or farmland.

"Sometimes you will lose a project because you don't have anything ready to go," he said.

The deadline to apply falls this week.

Mary Ann Greier can be reached at mgreier@salemnews.net