Metro Awarded EPA Grant for Brownfields Assessment

The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded thousands of dollars to Louisville Metro Government.The $400,000 will go toward evaluating potential hazardous waste and petroleum problems in the Park Hill industrial corridor southwest of downtown.Daniel Makela is a metro economic development officer. He hopes the money will encourage investors to redevelop the area in line with a plan the city developed in 2009."That strategy or that plan kind of identifies the Park Hill area as kind of a focus for Louisville’s new manufacturing economy and bringing back that industrial or manufacturing core to the city,” he said. “And we’ve identified brownfield redevelopment as kind of key to that process.”The money will be used to conduct environmental assessments of potential development sites in the area. Makela says this could encourage investors to redevelop, because they’ll know exactly what hurdles their project could face.The city also has a revolving loan program for brownfields cleanup, which could complement the new assessment grants.Covington and Lexington were also awarded grants in this year’s funding cycle.