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Brownfields
Supplemental Assistance
City of Johnstown, PA
BACKGROUND
EPA awarded the City of Johnstown supplemental
assistance for its Brownfields Assessment Demonstration
Pilot and additional funding for assessments atbrownfields
properties to be used for greenspace purposes. Johnstown
is a small community of 24,000 people in southwestern
Pennsylvania. At one time, 70 percent of the city's blue-
collar workers were employed in the area's steel mills and
coal mines. As market forces changed, most of the mills
and other industries closed, leaving Johnstown with
abandoned and underused properties. Because these
industrial sites were built on the limited amount of flat land
in the area's mountainous terrain, reusing them is crucial
to improving the environment and providing jobs. The
state has designated Johnston as a Distressed Community.
The original Pilot identified 24 brownfields in the city. Site
assessments were conducted at four sites, including a
vacant brass and electric site and a former engine crushing
facility. Supplemental funds are needed to conduct a
Phase II assessment of the brass and electric site and
environmental assessments at other high priority sites.
One likely site is the Cambria Iron Works, a turn-of-the-
century steel production facility that the city wants to
revitalize into a light industrial area and an educational
blacksmith shop. The site was one of the few remaining
property holdings of Bethlehem Steel following its closure
in 1992 and was unavailable for environmental assessment
and reuse until it was deeded to the Johnstown
Redevelopment Authority in 2001.
OBJECTIVES AND PLANNED ACTIVITIES
Johnstown is a distressed community with limited land
suitable for economic development. The city's primary
focus is to create family-sustaining jobs on former industrial
sites. The supplemental assistance will move more
brownfields into economic redevelopment by building on
the information obtained during the original Pilot inventory
and conducting Phase I and II environmental assessments
PILOT SNAPSHOT
City of Johnstown,
Pennsylvania
Date of Announcement:
May 2002
Amount: $150,000
GreenSpace:$ 50,000
Profile: The Pilottargetsformer
steel mills and other industrial
brownfields properties in
Johnstown, which has been
designated a Distressed
Community by the state.
Contacts:
City of Johnstown
(814)535-6564
Regional Brownfields Team
U.S. EPA Region 3
(215)814-3129
Visit the E PA Region 3 Brownfields web site at:
http://www.epa.gov/reg3hwmd/bfs/index.htm
Forfurther information, including specific Pilot contacts,
additional Pilot information, brownfields news and events, and
publications and links, visit the EPA Brownfields web site at:
www.epa.gov/brownfields
and cleanup plans for high priority properties. Targetsites
will be determined based on priorities set through
partnerships with the community.
Greenspace funding will be used to conduct a Phase I and,
if necessary, a Phase II environmental assessment of an
auto repair shop adjacent to Johnstown's War Memorial
Arena. The greenspace site was used originally as an
industrial backfill and is the only space available next to the
arena to construct a veterans park and memorial plaza.
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Activities planned as part of this Pilot include:
• Updating the citywide inventory of potential brownfields
sites;
• Conducting Phase I and II environmental assessments
at high priority sites;
• Identifying cleanup alternatives appropriate for the
environmental problems identified during site assessment;
• Encouraging community input regarding specifically
targeted sites; and
• Conducting Phase I and II environmental assessments
needed for greenspace adjacent to Johnstown's War
Memorial Arena.
The cooperative agreement forthis Pilothasnotyetbeennegotiated; therefore,
activities described in this fact sheet are subject to change.
Solid Waste EPA 500-F-02-086
and Emergency May 2002
Response (5105) www.epa.gov/brownfields/
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