State’s Underground Storage Tank Section Receives $100,000 Grant for Concord Cleanups
RALEIGH, NC- The Environmental Protection Agency’s has announced a $100,000 grant award to clean up contamination at North Carolina’s Gateway to Center City revitalization project in Concord.
The grant was one of 40 totaling $3.8 million awarded to 26 states and three tribes as part of EPA’s USTFields Initiative pilot program, designed to clean up petroleum contamination in brownfields communities.
The funds will be used to assess and clean petroleum contamination along Concord’s Cabarrus Avenue, the primary entrance to Center City. Running through several neighborhoods and commercial areas, Cabarrus Avenue is the scene of a multi-phase revitalization project designed to stimulate economic growth. The presence of five tanks has been confirmed and two more are suspected. The funds will be used to assess and clean petroleum and MTBE (spell out first reference) contamination.
EPA’s USTFields Initiative funds pilot projects in brownfields communities because petroleum contamination has generally been excluded from funding under EPA’s Brownfields Program. Brownfields are abandoned, idle or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ waste management division houses both the Superfund Section, which administers the brownfields program, and the UST section, which regulates the state’s underground petroleum storage tanks.
Dexter Matthews, director of the Division of Waste Management, welcomed news of the grant.
"This grant represents success in expanding the many benefits of cleanup and revitalization of contaminated brownfield properties to sites with contamination resulting from underground storage tank releases," he said.
After the contamination has been cleaned, Concord hopes to foster economic growth in an area considered in need of industrial and future redevelopment.
