The city of Eureka has received a $300,000 community-wide grant from the EPA’s Brownfield Program to assess sites between the Balloon Track and Waterfront areas and determine how contaminated they are with petroleum and other hazardous substances. Once sites are assessed, they’re eligible for cleanup grants.
The grant is expected to fund:
- the creation of a list of eligible properties, which is currently underway;
- the first phase of an environmental site assessment that will include non-invasive, paper-based research on the property;
- the second phase of the site assessment that will include testing suspect sites;
- preparing documents related to cleanup planning and redevelopment;
- preparing a final report of the findings for the EPA;
- community outreach meetings throughout the process.
The project is currently in Stage 1, inventorying sites, and the group expects to move into Stage 2, conducting the first phase of the environmental site assessments, in January or February, Wisniewski said.
