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Brownfields 2002 Revolving Loan Fund Pilot
Fact Sheet
City of Kenosha, Wl
EPA Brownfields Initiative
EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states,
communities, and other stakeholders to work together to
prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse
brownfields. A brownfield site is real property, the
expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be
complicated by the presence or potential presence of a
hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. On
January 11, 2002, President George W. Bush signed into
law the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields
Revitalization Act. Under the Brownfields Law, EPA
provides financial assistance to eligible applicants
through four competitive grant programs: assessment
grants, revolving loan fund grants, cleanup grants, and
job training grants. Additionally, funding support is
provided to state and tribal response programs through a
separate mechanism.
Background
Kenosha is the fifth largest city in Wisconsin with a
population of 90,000. Located between the Milwaukee
and Chicago metropolitan areas, it also is minutes away
from some of the most fertile dairy and farming land in
the country. Kenosha has a proud past of famous
manufacturers and heavy industrial activity. However, a
changing world economy and functional obsolescence
has long since rendered the physical plants of Kenosha's
industrial past unsuitable for today's operations. Left
behind many acres of large empty buildings and
hundreds of acres of contaminated soils.
Over the past decade, Kenosha has set a determined
course to reclaim former industrial sites for public and
private development. The city has aggressively pursued
revitalization projects in its poorer neighborhoods, but
large abandoned facilities perpetuate blight conditions
and hamper revitalization efforts. The city therefore is
focusing on the assessment, cleanup, and redevelopment
of larger, more complex brownfields. The city gained
national recognition for its redevelopment of the former
AMC-Chrysler manufacturing site into the residential,
lakefront Harborpark community, and has been working
for five years on another major cleanup project at a
former drop-forge manufacturing facility. Cleanup of the
latter site is almost complete.
Pilot Snapshot
Date of Announcement: 05/01/2002
Amount: $1,000,000
Profile: Outokumpu Copper property
Contacts
For further information, including specific grant
contacts, additional grant information, brownfields
news and events, and publications and links, visit the
EPA Brownfields Web site
(http ://www .epa.gov/brownfields).
EPA Region 5 Brownfields Team
(312)886-7576
EPA Region 5 Brownfields Web site
(http://www.epa.gov/R5Brownfields)
Grant Recipient: City of Kenosha,WI
(262)653-4055
Objectives
Kenosha is expected to focus this Pilot on the
Outokumpu Copper property. The factory was used to
manufacture valves and plumbing fittings until it was
closed two years ago. Its closing left 12 small city
blocks unused with acres of contaminated soils and
hundreds of employees without jobs. The now vacant
factory is in the city's Lincoln neighborhood, an older,
economically depressed section of the city. The city's
goal is to redevelop the Outokumpu Copper site as a
crucial part of an overall plan to revitalize the Lincoln
neighborhood. The city will loan BCRLF funds to the
Kenosha Redevelopment Authority to clean up the first
of many parcels at the Outokumpu Copper site. The city
currently is in negotiations to acquire the property and
already is actively pursuing redevelopment options for
the property.
Activities
Fund Structure and Operations
The City of Kenosha is the cooperative agreement
recipient and will serve as the lead agency. The
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20450
Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5105T)
EPA 500-F-02-069
May 02

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Kenosha Redevelopment Authority will be the site
manager. The City of Kenosha Finance Department will
serve as the fund manager.
The BCRLF funds will be used in conjunction with
funding from the current owners, state dollars from the
Wisconsin Department of Commerce in the amount of
$1,000,000, and approximately $4,000,000 of local
municipal dollars. Along with providing financial
assistance, the city will provide in-kind services of the
Kenosha Development and Public Works Department.
The information presented in this fact sheet comes from
the grant proposal; EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of
this information. The cooperative agreement for the
grant has not yet been negotiated. Therefore, activities
described in this fact sheet are subject to change.
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20450
and Emergency
Response (5105T)
Solid Waste
EPA 500-F-02-069
May 02

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