EPA selected the City of Oskaloosa for a Brownfields Assessment Grant. Community-wide grant funds will be used to conduct 12 Phase I and 10 Phase II preliminary environmental site assessments. Grant funds also will be used to develop three cleanup plans and support community outreach activities, including holding four outreach meetings.

The target area for this grant is the City of Oskaloosa, with a focus on mine-scarred land near the intersection of Iowa State Highways 23 and 92. Priority sites include three former mine-fill areas and a former salvage yard.

These investments are part of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda to grow the American economy from the bottom up and middle-out – from rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, to driving over $470 billion in private-sector manufacturing and clean-energy investments in the United States, to creating a manufacturing and innovation boom powered by good-paying jobs that don’t require a four-year degree, to building a clean-energy economy that will combat climate change and make our communities more resilient.

“We are proud to partner with the City of Oskaloosa for this Brownfields Assessment Grant,” said EPA Region 7 Land, Chemical, and Redevelopment Division Director Jeff Robichaud. “Assessment grants are the first step in creating a cleaner, healthier environment for the communities we serve.”

“As a former mining town with significant portions of town which were underdeveloped due to unknown conditions, this opportunity has been a tremendous boon to the strength of our community, said Oskaloosa city Senior Engineer Technician Sean Murphy. “These grants have been instrumental in facilitating new businesses to establish themselves in the city since we first started with the program in 2014.”

EPA has selected these organizations to receive funding to address and support the reuse of brownfield sites. EPA anticipates making all the recently announced awards once all legal and administrative requirements are satisfied.

EPA’s Brownfields Program began in 1995 and has provided nearly $2.37 billion in Brownfields Grants to assess and clean up contaminated properties and return blighted properties to productive reuse. EPA’s investments in addressing brownfield sites have leveraged over $36 billion in cleanup and redevelopment. Over the years, the relatively small investment of federal funding has leveraged nearly 260,000 jobs from both public and private sources. Communities that previously received Brownfields Grants used these resources to fund assessments and cleanups of brownfields, and successfully leveraged an average of 10.6 jobs per $100,000 of EPA Brownfield Grant funds spent and $19.78 for every dollar.

The next National Brownfields Training Conference will be held on Aug. 8-11, 2023, in Detroit. Offered every two years, this conference is the largest gathering of stakeholders focused on cleaning up and reusing former commercial and industrial properties. EPA co-sponsors this event with the International City/County Management Association (ICMA).