United States Environmental Protection Agency Washington, D.C. 20460 Solid Waste and Emergency Response (5105) EPA 500-F-01-292 April 2001 www.epa.gov/brownfields/ <&EPA Brownfields Supplemental Assistance Bridgeport, CT Outreach and Special Projects Staff (5105) Quick Reference Fact Sheet EPA's Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative is designed to empower states, communities, and other stakeholders in economic redevelopment to worktogether in atimelymannerto prevent, assess, and safely clean up brownfieldsto promote their sustainable reuse. Brownfields are abandoned, idled, or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real orperceivedenvironmentalcontamination.EPAisfunding: assessment demonstration pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years, with additional funding provided for greenspace), to test assessment models and facilitate coordinated assessment and cleanup efforts at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels; and job training pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years), to provide training for residents of communities affected by brownfieldsto facilitate cleanup of brownfields sites and preparetraineesforfuture employment intheenvironmental field; and, a cleanup revolving loan fund program (each funded up to $1,000,000 over five years) to provide financial assistance for the environmental cleanup of brownfields. These pilot programs are intended to provide EPA, states, tribes, municipalities, and communities with useful information and strategies as they continue to seek new methods to promote a unified approach to site assessment, environmental cleanup, and redevelopment. BACKGROUND EPA has selected the City of Bridgeport to receive supplemental assistance for its Brownfields AssessmentDemonstrationPilotandadditional funding for assessments at Brownfields properties to be used for greenspace purposes. Bridgeport is the largest and most economically, fiscally, and demographically distressed city in Connecticut. Industrial employment has dropped steadily in each of the last three decades. Unemployment in impacted industrial corridors is significantly higher than the citywide rate of 8.6 percent. Approximately 50 percent of the area's manufacturing base has been lost in the past decade. The city's poverty rate is 17 percent, and per capita income is 60 percent of the state average. Many businesses have left Bridgeport for the suburbs, resulting in several hundred acres of abandoned, potentially contaminated land. Assistance from EPA has enabled Bridgeport to dispel the stigma of brownfields suchthatthe cleanup and redevelopment of brownfield properties has become a significant part of the city's revitalization plans. The Pilot will use the supplemental grant from EPA to continue its efforts by focusing on the Lower East End neighborhood of the city, which is blighted with more than a dozen brownfield sites located in the PILOT SNAPSHOT Bridgeport, Connecticut Date of Award: April 2001 Amount: $150,000 Greenspace: $50,000 Profile: The Pilot will target four sites in the Lower East End neighborhood of Bridgeportforenvironmental assessment and cleanupand another site for greenspace reuse. Contacts: City of Bridgeport, Officeof Planning and Economic Development (203)576-7760 Regional Brownfields Team U.S. EPA - Region 1 (617)918-1394 Visit the EPA Region 1 Brownfields web site at: http://www.epa.gov/region01/remed/brnfld/ For further information, including specific Pilot contacts, additional Pilot information, brownfields news and events, and publications and links, visit the EPA Brownfields web site at: http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/ ------- residential neighborhood. The city is in need of affordable housing and therefore has established a goal to cleanup the brownfields in the Lower East End neighborhood to create amore attractive environment for housing development. Additional funding will be used to create greenspace to act as a buffer between the industrial and residential areas of the neighborhood. OBJECTIVES AND PLANNED ACTIVITIES The Pilot will use EPA's supplemental assistance grantto target four brownfield sites in the Lower East End neighborhood for assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment. The four sites are an abandoned auto body shop and scrap yard, an abandoned auto paints shop, a specialty plating company, and another auto body shop. All are located among residential areas which the city hopes will be revitalized by the cleanup of these blighted properties. The city's goal is to create amore livable environment in which affordable housing can be built, along with retail stores, to serve community needs. The Pilothas also been selectedto receive funding for greenspace development. The Pilot targets a brownfield known as the Chrome Engineering site for partial greenspace to act as a buffer between the industrial and residential areas and to prepare the area for a future water walkway along Johnson's Creek, providing access to the Long Island Sound. The Pilot plans to: • Conduct Phase I and Phase II environmental site assessments on four sites targeted for cleanup and redevelopment and the one site targeted for greenspace; and • Utilize a citywide partnership called the Park City Brownfields Redevelopment Partnership to continue the success implemented with previous funds which established a "stakeholder-driven" process of leveraging public/private funding and developing a community-based consensus reuse plan. The cooperative agreement for this Pilot has not yet been negotiated; therefore, activities described in this fact sheet are subject to change. Brownfields Supplemental Assistance April2001 Bridgeport, Connecticut EPA 500-F-01-292 ------- |