Kaua‘i County officials and Anahola Homesteaders Council residents have been awarded nearly $400,000 in federal grants to identify polluted sites on Kaua‘i and to prepare them for future redevelopment projects that could benefit future generations of Kauaians. County officials and
Kaua‘i County officials and Anahola Homesteaders Council residents have been awarded nearly $400,000 in federal grants to identify polluted sites on Kaua‘i and to prepare them for future redevelopment projects that could benefit future generations of Kauaians.
County officials and the Anahola group were awarded $200,000 and $196,334, respectively, government officials announced.
The funds are part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields Economic Development Initiative, a nationwide project to revitalize properties known to contain contamination or pollutants.
The EPA funds could open the way for government agencies and nonprofit groups to apply for government funds to help clean up Brownfields-designated properties and put them into purposeful use in the future.
“The significance (of the awarding of the funds) is to allow communities to look at areas they can redevelop and revitalize, to use the money to put the land back into production for the community,” said Dean Higuchi, a spokesman for the EPA branch office in Honolulu.
Wayne Nastri, administrator of the EPA’s Pacific Southwest office, said $796,334 in overall EPA funds to Hawai‘i will allow “communities to continue their momentum in revitalizing properties that have been sitting idle due to real or even perceived contamination.”
EPA officials announced the availability of the funds Tuesday, adding that representatives of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and Kaua‘i County received $400,000 and $200,000, respectively.
“Brownfields will be a program that we hope will allow for productive redevelopment of commercial or industrial land that has suffered some kind of contamination,” said Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste.
“It gives us a tool to put those properties into a higher and better use, becoming a community asset instead of an eyesore,” he continued.
“We’ll be contracting with a professional environmental engineering firm to help us work with the community to identify the sites that have the greatest potential for reuse,” said Baptiste.
The nearly $600,000 in grant funds will be used to identify potential Brownfields sites; to perform environmental site assessments; to produce clean-up and redevelopment plans; and to conduct outreach and involvement activities, Higuchi said.
Last December, Beth Tokioka, who heads the Kaua‘i County Office of Economic Development, requested approval from the Kaua‘i County Council to apply for, secure and administer the $200,000 in grants.
Council members later approved Tokioka’s request.
Also announced yesterday was news that representatives of the Anahola Homesteaders Council would receive another $196,334 in EPA grant funds. The money would be used to clean up hazardous substances on 20 acres of former sugar cane land located on the mauka side of Kuhio Highway in Anahola.
The land is contaminated with pesticides and herbicides that contain arsenic and mercuric compounds, Higuchi said in a news release.
The Anahola Homesteaders Council, which is headed by Anahola businessman and community leader James Torio, has plans to develop a 20-acre site in Anahola. Planned for the parcel is a multi-use town center with a charter school and affordable housing for the kupuna (elderly).
The grants were announced yesterday by EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt at the site of a former metal foundry in Milwaukee. The abandoned site is being redeveloped as a light-industrial business park.
“Brownfield sites like this are a blight on thousands of cities, towns and rural areas across the country,” Leavitt said. “We’re helping
turn these eyesores into opportunities, bringing new life to communities and cities, everything from new jobs and new housing to new shopping
opportunities and new recreational facilities.”
The Brownfield program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites, EPA officials said in a news release.
Since the beginning of the Brownfield program, the EPA has awarded 554 assessment grants totaling more than $150 million; 171 revolving loan fund grants totaling more than $145 million; and 66 cleanup grants totaling $11.4 million, officials said.
The EPA’s Brownfield assistance has leveraged more than $5.8 billion in private investment, helped create more than 27,000 jobs, and resulted in the assessment of more than 4,500 properties.
On the Web: www.epa.gov/brownfields.
Lester Chang, staff writer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or lchang@pulitzer.net.
