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EPA Gives $200,000 Brownfields Grant To Lowell, Massachusetts

Release Date: 04/21/2000
Contact Information: Peyton Fleming, EPA Press Office (617-918-1008)

BOSTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that the City of Lowell has been chosen to receive $200,000 of additional Brownfields assistance to help with further assessments and eventual cleanup of abandoned sites in the region. The total includes $50,000 for pursuing greenspace projects in the two areas that are the focus of the grant.

The grant will focus on assessing contamination and cleanup costs with an eye towards development potential in two project areas:

• The Acre Urban Revitalization Area, a blighted area with incompatible mixed land uses, obsolete street patterns and vacant and dilapidated structures.
• The Jackson-Appleton-Middlesex Urban Revitalization (JAM) area, which includes outstanding examples of mill architecture and a range of 19th century Victorian architecture, but has an abundance of vacant buildings, blighted lots and crime.

"By targeting the Acre Urban Revitalization Area and the JAM site, the City of Lowell will have a much better shot at getting properties cleaned up and put back to reuse, thus creating a cleaner environment, new jobs and tax revenues for the community," said Mindy S. Lubber, regional administrator of EPA's New England Office.

"Congress, the Clinton Administration and EPA are committed to revitalizing these polluted sites that once were given up for dead," said U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy. "Neighborhoods and businesses across the country are proving that the best days of these brownfields are in the future, not in the past. These grants will enhance the impressive efforts by Lowell to clean up their brownfields and turn them into new engines for job creation and economic growth."

"These investments will make a difference in Lowell as we all work together to reclaim brownfields, turn blight into economic development and preserve precious open space," added U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry. "By cleaning up vacant and abandoned properties, communities can attract new businesses to these sites which valuable jobs and add dollars to local tax rolls."

"Lowell is again demonstrating to the nation that it is essential to re-build our urban areas, making their neighborhoods livable, economically viable communities," said U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan. "This $200,000 award fits well with the city's plans to begin the revitalization of the Acre neighborhood and of the Jackson-Appleton-Middlesex corridor. This grant is especially important as it will create new greenspaces and walkways where there are now empty and abandoned lots. I am pleased that EPA has again recognized the commitment Lowell is making to the Brownfields program.."

A total of $1.53 million in Brownfields grants were awarded today to 11 New England recipients. Other grants went to Springfield, Lynn, Greenfield, the Mystic Valley Development Commission and the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission in Massachusetts; Hartford and Naugatuck Valley in Connecticut; Lewiston, Maine; and the N.H. Department of Environmental Services.